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Alonso Mudarra

Por ásperos caminos

 

Tres libros de música en cifra (1546), fol. III/28

mu061

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Source title Soneto. Entonase la boz en la prima al segu[n]do traste.
Title in contents   Por asperos caminos. Letra de Garcilaso.
Text incipit Por asperos caminos


Music

Category song

Genre Soneto

Fantasia type

Mode 6

Voices 4

Length (compases) 82

Vihuela

Tuning G

Courses 6

Final IV/0

Highest I/5

Lowest VI/1

Difficulty not specified

Tempo medium

Song Text

Language ES

Vocal notation texted staff notation

Commentary

Mudarra’s setting of a sonnet by Garcilaso de la Vega, sonnet 6. The principal defect in Mudarra’s tablature is the omission of verse 11 of the poem (compases 49-55) instead repeating the text of verse 10. Pujol’s setting of verse 11 is given below. The setting, based on the range of the melody is mode 6. Roa mistakenly classifies it as mode 8. The same music is used for the two quatrains of the poem, with both underlaid under the same music. The sestet is largely through composed other than the repetition of the same music for verses 12 and 13, but with different endings to each verse. Roa suggests that Mudarra may have composed this earlier than the other sonnets as the style of both melody and accompaniment align more with his settings of romances. While the stylistic observation is valid, there is no basis for assuming the style to be earlier.

Pujol’s commentary sums up the music well: “The muse of Garcilaso and Boscán had a magnetic attraction for Mudarra.In this beautiful sonnet, in which the musician's inspiration blends so well with the poetic concept, in the verse that says: Allí por los cabellos soy tornado, the composer manages to adhere with brief ascending figures to the sense of fatal obstinacy with which adversity sometimes rages against destiny. At the end of the composition, a fourth tritone (c. 75) by successive degrees, gives particular attractiveness and nobility to the ending of the plainchant.” (pujol1949, 80)

Song Text

Por ásperos caminos soy llevado
a parte que de miedo no me muevo,
y si a mudarme a dar un paso pruevo
allí por los cabellos soy tornado;
Mas tal estoy que con la muerte al lado
busco de mi vivir consejo nuevo,
[y] conozco el mejor y el peor apruevo
o por costumbre mala o por mi hado.
De la otra parte, el breve tiempo mío
y el errado proceso de mis años,
[en su primer principio y en su medio],
mi inclinación, con quien ya no porfío
la cierta muerte, fin de tantos daños,
me hacen descuidar de mi remedio.

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