Piece of the Month - October 2004 (revised March 2008)
Any suggestions, corrections or other comments will be most welcome: just email martin@luteshop.co.uk. Downloadable files are provided in Fronimo, Tab and PDF formats below. To hear a piece played just click on the MP3 file.
Prelude
This piece is the first of the preludes included in Pierre
Attaingnant's Très brève et
familère introduction,
printed in Paris in 1529. The only known concordance appears in the
Siena lute book (ff.17-17v.). Here I present a parallel text to
facilitate direct comparison, a commentary, and a playable version
which is based on Siena but with a few corrections derived from
Attaignant.
The two versions are very close, except for some missing bars in the Attaignant version. I refer to them as "missing" because in almost every case the counterpoint is dislocated, but restored to full health when the corresponding bars from Siena are inserted.
In his study of Attaingnant (Preludes, chansons and dances for lute, 1964) Daniel Heartz presented an interesting comparison between this piece and a fantasia by Francesco da Milano (G.A.Casteliono, Intabolatura de leuto, Milan, 1536, f.62, modern edition Ness no.24), noting many stylistic similarities.
I am grateful to Stewart McCoy for reigniting my interest in this piece and providing the basis for the parallel text. I should stress that the opinions expressed in the commentary are my own, and everyone should feel free to disagree with them!
Downloads:
edited version: prelude.ft2;
prelude.tab; prelude.pdf; prelude.mp3
parallel text: ptext.ft2
commentary: comment.htm
To download the latest version of Fronimo go to the Fronimo Users Group site. For previous pieces of the month, go to the Piece of the Month Archive.