Simple variations on a Renaissance ground
A pleasure to transcribe. The MS is clean and (I think) almost error free – and what's more all the notes add up. (Mulliner did vary his system of writing: mostly with single "flag" note stems, but sometimes with the "grid-iron" format, as in the final two notes shown below.)
I have used Mulliner's barring, which means that the piece is in 4/2 time; since I don’t find this easy to read, I have inserted dashed bar-lines at the mid-points.
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| The Mulliner Book: the first two lines of the pavan in the MS, folios 120v – 121v. (The book was ruled for a 6-course instrument.) The small + signs indicate some kind of ornament; I have not included them in the score. Facsimile at the British Library: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_30513_fs001r. |
The first statement is mainly a single note melody with chordal accompaniment, the chords being in their lowest positions. The second is very similar in concept but with extensive divisions based on scale fragments, particularly in the second half of each bar.
This is more developed than some music for gittern and cittern, which involved little more than strums with simple runs on the upper strings: you can see these in pieces I have blogged from the Osborn Commonplace Book. If you feel like a strum, just add 4-note versions of those chords that have fewer than 4 notes, and bash away, at least for the statement.
You may have noticed that I am collecting pieces based on the passamezzo antico ground (chord sequence). This one keeps very closely to the format, but it is set in C minor rather than the usual G minor. The only small quirk is the inclusion of an F chord (IV) in the penultimate bars.
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