We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Thinking in chords, improvising melodies: a new manuscript attribution and the oral recovery of 17th-century guitar songs.
- Authors
Gavito, Cory M
- Abstract
This article sheds more light on the identity and activities of the Italian guitar maestro Francesco Palumbi (fl.1600–20), as well as introducing a new source discernably written in his hand. This source stands out because it is the only one written in Palumbi's hand that records his guitar songs in staff notation—his other manuscripts are notated only with alfabeto chord symbols. Building on our present knowledge of Palumbi, the article establishes his Neapolitan identity and his presence as a guitar maestro in Florence, perhaps as early as the 1590s, quite early in the era that marked the Spanish guitar's popularity in Italy. This information allows for an entirely new assessment of Palumbi's extensive repertory, which until now was thought only to exist in manuscripts inscribed with alfabeto. Measuring Palumbi's alfabeto -texts against his settings with staff notation, I consider some details of his 'song-writing' process. In particular, I show how Palumbi's guitar songs reflect improvisational practices such as fabordón, which may assist modern performers in the realization of those of his songs which are notated solely as alfabeto -texts, whose melodies are otherwise irrecoverably lost.
- Subjects
GUITAR music; SONGWRITING; ORAL communication; PART songs; VOCAL music
- Publication
Early Music, 2018, Vol 46, Issue 3, p439
- ISSN
0306-1078
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/em/cay023