Three more easy ones
It was common practice in the Renaissance for musicians to make compositions based on the grounds (or more, accurately, harmonic sequence) of the Passamezzo Antico. I have discussed these grounds in an earlier post, with examples. Various dance vrhythms could be used, such as the galliard and pavane.
In England they would be called various forms of the word "passamezzo".
Here we have three easy versions which I have garnered from the excellent 58 Very Easy Pieces for Renaissance Lute, pub. The Lute Society, 1999.
- Pasa Mesure Galiarde (the Lodge Lute Book)
- The Pass a Measures Pavion (Lodge)
- Passamezze (Le Roy)
i | VII | i | V |
III | VII | i, V | I ||
Each bar may be represented by several bars, or just part of a bar.
The three examples here follow the pattern quite closely, but with the III replaced by i. All the originals are set in C-minor which, when transcribed for the ukulele with fingerings as close as possible to the lute original, results in D-minor. This rather restricts the options for including the bass line. Therefore, I have also included versions in Gm, so that we can use the low bass string; this gives a setting closer to the original, but with a few small challenges.
1 & 2. The original pieces can be seen here in a facsimile of the Lodge MS at the Folgar Library, Washington. https://luna.folger.edu/luna/servlet/view/search?search=SUBMIT&q=v.a.159&dateRangeStart=&dateRangeEnd=&sort=call_number%2Cmpsortorder1%2Ccd_title%2Cimprint&QuickSearchA=QuickSearchA
3. Original in Adrian Le Roy’s (1568) Lute tutor: A briefe and easye instruction … The original French edition can be seen here https://stimmbuecher.digitale-sammlungen.de//view?id=bsb00072004, but does not incluse this piece.
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