Dorsey, Sam.

Abstract: The vihuela de mano was the most popular plucked string instrument in Spain during the sixteenth century. Almost all of the music for the vihuela can be found in seven books printed during the forty years from 1536 to 1576. Of the 690 works contained in them, over two-thirds are intabulations, instrumental arrangements of vocal music. Unique to this literature were the intabulations of 75 polyphonic sections of the Ordinary of the Mass, of which more than half were sections of Masses by Josquin des Prez. In contrast, intabulations of sections of Josquin Masses appear only twice in lute books throughout the rest of Europe. Many of these are excerpts of Mass sections and Diego Pisador intabulated virtually eight complete Masses.
After chapters dealing with the nature of intabulations, the dissemination of Josquin's music in Spain, and the vihuela and its technique, the specific Josquin Masses intabulated by the vihuelists, the sections chosen from the Masses, and the musical textures preferred are identified. The vihuelists intabulated excerpts that included his use of sequence, kinetic rhythms, and homorhythmic, chordal passages near the cadence.
Ten transcriptions to modern score of intabulations chosen from the works of Luis de Narváez, Alonso Mudarra, Enríquez de Valderrábano, and Miguel de Fuenllana are shown. These transcriptions are assessed for performance practicality on the vihuela and its modern equivalent, the guitar. They were then aligned with scores of the vocal originals and compared. All of the transcriptions matched perfectly to the vocal originals with only slight embellishment and the addition of accidentals, usually understood as musica ficta. The vihuelists raised melodic leading tones and made minor chords major at the cadence. On the other hand, they were reluctant to alter a note not in agreement with the tenor, nor did they always avoid cross relations. A comparison of an excerpt intabulated by two of the vihuelists revealed that they applied musica ficta uniformly. The appendices include transcriptions and comparison scores.

CHAPTER 9: Conclusions
Luis de Narváez, Alonso Mudarra, Enríque de Valderrábano, and Miguel de Fuenllana were exceptional musicians. Narváez, Valderrábano and Fuenllana were professional musicians whose careers included long stays in Valladolid, home of the courts of Charles V and Philip II. Mudarra was a cleric who grew up in the rich musical environment of the palaces of the Dukes of Infantado. Bermudo considered all four of them to be among the best vihuelists of their day. Their contributions to the history of music were prodigious. They are responsible, among other things, for the first tempo indications in music, the first variation sets, the first music for four-course guitar, and the first duets for vihuela. They were privy to and contributed to the most sophisticated circles of music making in Spain. And the model for that musical culture was, as Stevenson has stated, “Josquin - in Spain the most admired of all foreign composers throughout the whole of the sixteenth century.”
Because of Josquin's popularity in Spain, it is not surprising that these vihuelists included so much of his music in their publications. It is not even surprising that book 3 in Narváez, book 2 in Mudarra, book 6 in Valderrábano, and page 1 in Fuenllana all begin with intabulations of Josquin's music. Grayson Wagstaff has pointed out this 'pride of place' awarded to Josquin in Spanish choirbooks. Francesco Spinacino's Intabulatura da Lauto (1507), the first published book of lute music, also positioned Josquin's Ave Maria at the beginning, proving Josquin's popularity by placement was not unique to Spain.
What was unique to these vihuelists was their inclusion of 31 selections from the Mass Ordinary taken from ten different Masses by Josquin. Intabulations of sections of Josquin Masses appear only twice in lute books in the rest of Europe. Wolff Heckel includes only one Josquin Mass item in his published lute book (1556), and Vincenzo Capirola's manuscript (c.1517) includes four. Like the Spanish vihuela books, the European lute books contain numerous Josquin motets and chansons but only these few examples taken from Josquin Masses. The inclusion of sections from Masses, especially in such remarkable numbers, suggests that, not only was Josquin considered the ideal composer, but in Spain his music was the model of devotional music.
Out of respect the vihuelists chose carefully from Mass sections that:
1. reflected Josquin's compositional style, especially his paired voices, kinetic rhythms, and homophonic “pushes to the cadence.”
2. because of their texture,could be successfully conveyed by the vihuela, an instrument whose technique was linked to vocal polyphony.
3. would elevate their publications, perhaps be familiar, and entice purchase of their books.

The Mass sections transcribed in this study were selected because of the attractiveness of the music itself. After preparing a list of Mass sections intabulated by these four vihuelists, recordings of the Masses were gathered and listened to. Those sections that seemed practical for performance on the vihuela, or seemed particularly beautiful or inventive, were chosen. Perhaps it was not a dissimilar process for the vihuelists, themselves, as they were sure to have had the opportunity to hear these Masses performed. The particular intabulations were then identified in the tablature and the transcription process began. A modern edition of the vocal score was consulted with the aim of rendering Josquin's polyphony more clearly than was possible in the original tablature. The first observation that revealed itself in the transcription process was that the intabulations matched the vocal scores perfectly. This can be observed in the comparison scores prepared for this study. Once the transcriptions were complete, the note values were reduced 2:1, or 50%, and placed on top of the corresponding vocal score. With the exception of an extra measure added for an exuberant embellishment or redoble in Mudarra's La Segunda parte de la Gloria de la Missa Faisant regretz, all of the transcriptions lined up perfectly with their vocal models.
What is not in agreement with the vocal scores was the addition by the vihuelists, implicit in the representative nature of their tablature, of accidentals. These accidentals are understood as musica ficta. In the Renaissance, musica ficta referred to accidentals that were implied by particular contexts. Because learning music in the Renaissance meant learning singing, solfege constituted the core of music education. Composers knew that singers were aware of the hexachordal context of the music and the composer's job was to make that context clear, not to write down the accidentals that the singers knew to provide. To the modern performer and editor, musica ficta refers to the accidentals that need to be added to early music.
All of the vihuelists added musica ficta. Their application of it confirms much of the current scholarship. The vihuelists uniformly raised melodic leading tones. This practice, called subsemitonum modi, is responsible for much of the addition of accidentals by the vihuelists. In all of the pieces that ended on a minor chord, the vihuelists would make that chord major. Tritones, even melodic, were avoided. Sharps were added to ascending lines resulting in major 3rds, and 6ths and in leading tones. It seems clear in the music of Narváez that, if an imperfect interval needed to be avoided, a change should be made in a voice other than the tenor.
All of these intabulations can be played. Some of them are challenging, but thanks to the brilliance of the vihuelists, especially in their creative left-hand fingerings, they are not only possible, they are beautiful. The vihuelists mentioned only the thumb, index and middle fingers of the right hand in their discussion of technique, although it seems clear that they would have had to employ the ring finger as well to convey the four-part texture, especially the four-part homorhythmic texture to which they seem to have been drawn. As we have seen, vihuelas came in many sizes. After having played through the present transcriptions, especially those of Valderrábano, an argument could be made for a smaller instrument. Perhaps the larger instruments were more suited to ensemble playing and accompaniment while smaller instruments were preferred for polyphony, as a sort of musical “lap-top” of the sixteenth century.
In the scant 16 years between the publication by Narváez and Fuenllana there are discernible trends. The volume of compositions included grew with Muddarra doubling Narváez's content and Valderrabano and Fuenllana more than doubling Mudarra's. The ratio of intabulations to original compositions grows in favor of intabulations. While the number of compositions and intabulations grows the number of embellishments added to the intabulations shrinks: Mudarra added the most while Fuenllana added the least. In their enthusiasm for the profound polyphony of the past the vihuelists painted themselves into an increasingly obscure, if rarified, corner. Within the three or four decades from the publication of Fuenllana's Orphénica lyra, references to the vihuela rapidly decline. By 1600, it was a relic. It could be wondered if there is a warning in the vihuela's story for modern symphonies and opera companies with their insistence on performing music, indeed great music but music more than a century old, to dwindling audiences.
But the vihuelists were a special breed. They equated their study of music, especially that for the vihuela, with self-improvement and spiritual enlightenment. And what musician, then or now, would not be improved by studying the music of Josquin.

Composer NARVAEZ, MUDARRA, VALDERRABANO, FUENLLANA

Instrument VIHUELA

Century 16CENT

Region

Medium

Music genre INTABULATIONS

Research field MUSIC, SOURCE STUDIES, ANALYSIS, NOTATION, REPERTORY & STYLE, PERFORMANCE PRACTICE