Keyboard Tablatures and Imaginary Instrumental Interchange in the Sixteenth Century

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• Abstract(s)
  • The invention and widespread dissemination of music in tablature was one of the great novelties and a key factor in the proliferation of solo instrumental music during the 16th century. An alternative to mensural notation, tablature offered systems of writing music better suited to polyphonic instruments, particularly keyboards and plucked strings such as lute, guitar, and vihuela. Tablatures emerged in a variety of forms that used the letters, numbers and conventional mensural symbols, and many aspects were shared between the notations devised for keyboards and plucked strings. Although we recognise specific idiomatic styles associated with individual instrument types, there is also a significant amount of music that shares common features and that can be performed on diverse instruments. This was recognised by Spanish musicians such as Luis Venegas de Henestrosa whose tablature published in 1557 was advertised as being for ‘tecla, harpa y vihuela’. This paper explores the idea of interchangeability associated with such tablatures, and a range of issues extending from the particularities of the Venegas book and its emulation by Cabezón in 1578, beyond national borders to consider the nature of tablature across notation styles, and instrumental practice in distinct regions of Europe.
• Date Issued 2024
• Author(s) Griffiths, John | tours
  
• DOI 10.21939/HARPSICHORD-16C-03
• Publication Type book part
• Language en
• License CC-BY-4.0
• Publisher mdwPress