A short fancy, less challenging than the previous post
This fancy, P 74, is arranged from the keyboard notation of Poulton & Lam The collected lute music of John Dowland (Faber, 1995), pp 236 – 7, which I have followed closely – including the grace notes and right-hand fingering. They distinguished up to four voices which we cannot really reproduce on the ukulele, but I have tried to indicate as many as possible.
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| The original MS, from a facsimile at the wonderful Sarge Gerbode repository of lute music: http://www.gerbode.net/facsimiles/GB-Lbl_British_Library/ms_Add_31392_1595/24.png The date of the MS is about 1605. |
This piece may not be by John Dowland, but Diana Poulton thought it had many hallmarks of his style, and that’s good enough for me.
“Fancy” was a contemporary word for “fantasia”, but I get the impression (not necessarily correct) that a fancy was lighter in tone and content. They involved the composer starting with a theme, and then developing it as he saw fit, with no rigid structure.
This one is not too complicated, and although the sight of long runs of divisions often fills me with dread or ennui, the divisions here are engaging. Note that JD changes from major to minor and back again.
As regards the graces and ornaments, there is no certainty as to their meaning. The + and # signs obviously meant specific but different things to the scribe, but what they were … well, I leave it up to your skill and judgment to play them, or just ignore them. (In the MS and P&L's transcription they are placed before, after or under the note, but I have put them all in front.)
The dots under notes were there to indicate a lesser stress, probably by using the weaker index finger rather than the thumb: it helps to get a distinct rhythm going. I have written a blog post about the different interpretations of the little dots, by players vastly more knowledgeable than me.
The presence of fingering indications may indicate that this was intended for an amateur, so I have reproduced them rather than converting them to "i"s (I’m a learner too).
The first notes of this piece were also used in "Fantasia P 1", which I will transcribe soon, although it is 95 bars long.
Available to download free (from Google Drive) in the following formats:
