Dowland: A Fancy (P 73a) plus All in a Garden Green

  And now, something to get your teeth into  

One of my first posts was this arrangement for ukulele of the traditional song 'All in a garden green'. I didn't realise it then, but John Dowland beat me to it by about 400 years. Had I known, I wouldn't have dared.

Actually, Mr D just used the first few notes as a basis for his genius flights of fancy, and then he was flying.

Our garden green in July

I'm afraid to say that this isn't the easiest piece that I have transcribed, especially when you know that Dowland wrote for the 7-course lute and used the very low diapaison. This arrangement is notated following Poulson & Lam's (1995) transcription for keyboard. I'm so glad that I didn't have to do it from the MS.

Despite the challenges in performance the piece has many memorable passages – real ear-worms.

I include
(a) The original song,
(b) A simplified version of the first statement including the melodic line, with simplified versions of the other voices sufficient to make a playable piece.
(c) The full arrangement is as complete a transcription as I can fit onto the ukulele. Bars 35 – 38 are challenging, with  rapid scale fragments, but I have yet to find a way to simplify them. The subsequent bars are equally rapid, but in a repetitive format which makes them not too difficult. (The notation format I used is not academically correct but, I think, easier to read.)


LYRICS
(from https://www.chandos.net/chanimages/Booklets/BT0083.pdf)

All in a garden green / Two lovers sat at ease,
As they could scarce be seen  / Among the leafy trees.
They long had loved y-fore, / And no longer than truly,
In the time of the year / In the time of the year
Cometh ‘twixt May and July.

Quoth he, ‘Most lovely maid, / My troth shall aye endure;
And be thou not afraid, / But rest thee still secure.
That I will love thee long / As life in me shall last;
Now I am young and strong, /  Now I am young and strong
And when my youth is past’.

She listed to his song, / And heard it with a smile.
And, innocent as she was young, / She dreamed not of guile.
Nor guile he meant, I ween, / Since he was true as steel,
As was thereafter seen /  As was thereafter seen
When she made him her weal.

The arrangement is available for free download in the following formats:

• pdf
• TablEdit
• MIDI

Good luck!

Robinson: Fantasia 4

A charming fantasia, originally written for cittern

I have made this arrangement from a piece for 14-course (!) cittern by Thomas Robinson, transcribed into keyboard notation by John M Ward: Sprightly and cheerful musick, The Lute Society, 1983, p.55. Ward distinguishes up to four voices, which is easier done on two staves than on a single stave.

This gamut of the original (C2 to E4) means that the lowest voice has been raised an octave where possible in this arrangement. There have necessarily been some compromises, but I have tried to make the lines coherent.

The arch cittern, for which this piece was written, was tuned (according to Wikipedia) 

e’, d,’ g, bb, f, d, G, F, E, D, C, BBb, AA, GG;

alias (I think) 

E4, D4, G3, B♭3, F3, D3, G2, F2, E2, D2, C2, B♭1, A1, G1.

The lower 8 courses must have been diapaisons – open strings that were not fretted. When you think that the lowest note on the modern guitar is E2, they must have been very heavy, very long, or very slack strings. Or, perhaps, I have mis-read.

In comparison, the low-G ukulele has a range G3 to about F5. 

My reason for transcribing a piece for cittern was to find a composition that did not necessarily have those voicings, frequently found in renaissance guitar music, that fall so easily under the fingers. This means that some passages are not very convenient to play, but not impossible. You may not find it feasible to hold a few of the notes for their full lengths. Nevertheless, I have kept as close as possible to the original, and leave it to the player to make any appropriate adjustments.

I have inserted the names of the chords, but this could well be inappropriate. The fantasy is somewhat reminiscent of the polyphonic vocal style, where the chords arise not as blocks of notes, or as part of underlying grounds, but as the consequence of overlapping vocal lines. In other words, composed horizontally rather than vertically.

I have played the piece back on MIDI using the simulated flute, and it sounds almost ecclesiastical. Ward, the transcriber, wrote:

“The style of writing is not so consistently imitative as Holborne’s [a contemporary composer], the integrity of the voices is less rigorously observed, the sequence of musical events is not so predictable. Characteristic of the composer are the scraps of cantus-firmus* like melody combined with more lively voice parts, and the change of time and texture midway through the piece.”

[*Cantus firmus refers to a melody with long, slowly moving notes used as the basis for a composition, and was built on and decorated by successive voices. Perhaps Ward is referring to upper line of the first 8 bars.]

The most obvious pattern that I can see is that bars 1 to 5 are repeated with minor variation (and some omission of the upper voice) in bars 9 to 13.

A common motif in the lower voices are rising scale fragments:

• D-E-F-G-A (starting in bars 1, 10, 23)
• A-B-C-D-E (bars 3, 12, 20) 

and descending fragments:

• E-D-C-B-A-G-F (bar 14)
• A-G-F-D-B (bar 8, 25)
• A-G-F-E-C#-B (bar 24)

There is a slight crunching of the gearbox during brief changes from minor to major (e.g. bars 7 & 8): at first I kept thinking I had fingered the wrong note. You get used to it, though.

I hope you enjoy playing it, and can keep the lines flowing.

Available to download in the following formats:

• pdf
• TablEdit
• MIDI

Osborn Commonplace Book revisited: English renaissance guitar music.

Update

I have revised the transcriptions of English renaissance guitar music that I posted last September.

You can find the new versions here, and three more pieces here.

Happy hunting!

Robinson: Passamezo pauan

Another piece based on the passamezzo antico, this one originally written for cittern

The publication from which I made this arrangement.
The author seems to have been particularly fond of the cittern, which we can see being played in the cover illustration. Unlike the renaissance guitar, the cittern had wire strings fixed not to the bridge (which was moveable) but to a tailpiece attached to the body,

I made this arrangement for ukulele from a piece for 4-course cittern by Thomas Robinson in New citharen lessons (1609), transcribed into keyboard notation by John M Ward: Sprightly and cheerful musick, The Lute Society, 1983, p. 66 (see fig.).

Ward distinguishes up to four voices, which is easier done in 2-stave format than on a single stave. I have done my best.

My reason for transcribing this piece was to find a composition that did not necessarily have those voicings, frequently found in renaissance guitar music, that fall so easily under the fingers on the ukulele. This means that a few of the chord shapes may be unfamiliar, but I have not re-worked them to fit into the guitar/ukulele idiom. Feel free to modify them as you wish.

The “standard” version of passamezzo antica is:
i     | VII  | i   |  V  || III | VII | i, V     |  i    ||

This piece follows it closely, with some elaborations:
i,V,i | VII  | i,V |  V  || III | VII | V,I,IV,V | I,V,I ||

The first section is mainly chord plus melody, the second is more developed and contrapuntal with duets, and the third greatly elaborated and syncopated. Pieces with lots of divisions can sound, at best, workmanlike, just masses of notes, but this one is quite tuneful and fun to play. In places I can hear echoes of John Dowland’s lute piece “Go from my window”, which I have posted here.

Available for free download from the following links:

• pdf
• TablEdit
• MIDI

Mulliner: Pavan on passamezzo antico

 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.

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.

Available to download freely in the following formats:

• pdf
• TablEdit
• MIDI

Mulliner: Chi passa

A Tudor or Jacobean guitar piece based on an Italian song

This piece occurs in MS in The Mulliner Book (very approximately 1650), Folios 119v – 120v, in the British Library.

Folio 119v of The Mulliner Book  (very approximately 1650), in the British Library. Facsimile at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_30513_fs001r. (Folios 119v – 120v.)
Note the word "gitterne" at the top left: most of the arrangements in the MS are for cittern.

The original song was ”Chi passa per sa strada” by Filippo Azzaiolo. I found a neat and helpful transcription at http://stcpress.org/miscellaneous/chi_passa/chi_passa.pdf

This transcription has been made from the facsimile, with a few modifications noted in the score. Section A was informed by the transcription by Page (2017); in particular, his bar 8 was added to maintain the structure of the original song (here it is bar 7).

There are a few disagreements between the original song and Mulliner’s gittern arrangement, so some adjustments would be needed to perform the two together.

I have transcribed the piece into 3/4 time, but Page uses 6/4 time, which is probably more correct, and the song is in 6/2.

In the MS the first line of the tabs is barred regularly, as I have transcribed it here, but later becomes erratic. I have done my best to tidy things up. Bars 6, 15, 26 and 37 seem to be written in a hemiola rhythm, and I have barred them in 3/2 time. In the midst of fairly orthodox divisions, bar 13 is particularly inventive and attractive.

Page describes the piece as

“… an essentially two-part idiom, punctuated by four-note chords … the result is a lively and even bravura alternation between running, ornamented passagework on one hand and plucked or strummed chords on the other.” 

It’s not difficult to play, and you can make different effects on the block chords by plucking or by the more percussive strumming.

There are ornaments (of obscure meaning) marked in the MS, but I have not shown them here.

The harmonic structure of the original song (set, almost inevitably, in Gm) is:

§A:   V   |V        |i            |i           || (bis)

§B:   VII |VII i ii |III  iv  VII |iv  V |i  V  i  iv  V |I   || (bis)

This seems to be a variation on the later folia ground below (I have split the sequence onto two lines to make the agreement clearer):

V   | i   |

VII | III | VII   | i V  | i or I  ||

The harmonies of this gittern version follow the same broad pattern, but with more movement, and with i (Gm) often disguised as III (Bb).

It's good fun to play, and you can download the arrangements in the following formats:

• pdf
• TablEdit
• MIDI

Spignall: Cydippe Pauan

Cittern music transcribed for the ukulele

I recently treated myself to a copy of Sprightly and Cheerful Music by John M Ward (Pub: Lute Society, 1983). A most erudite publication, covering music in MS and print for the cittern and gittern/guitar in 16th and 17th-century England.

My main aim was to mine it for music to play, preferably obscure.

There is a lot of uncertainty about what was a gittern and what a guitar. Ward implies that a gittern was a cittern tuned like a guitar. I get the impression that he preferred the cittern.

Ever curious, I decided to transcribe a cittern piece, and see how it played on the ukulele (and Renaissance guitar).

Jan Vermeer: Lady with a letter (and cittern)

I have never seen a cittern. It differed from the guitar in having a teardrop-shaped body, and paired wire strings that went over a free bridge, and were attached to the base of the body. It had a longer existence than the 4-course guitar (which was replaced in the 1600s by the 5-course Baroque guitar) and carried on into the 18th century.

In the Tudor period they were tuned in a number of ways, which must have been very confusing. The commonest was:

1st  E4
2nd D4
3rd G3
4th B3

So, it was re-entrant, and difficult to get my head around. Fortunately, the music setting software I use (TablEdit) let me create a virtual cittern, and enter the tablature directly from the transcription in Ward, pp 52 – 53). This gave me both tabs and mensural notation. It was then possible to intabulate for the Ukulele from the notation. Both instruments being tuned in G (at least notionally),  this was not too difficult. Below you can see the first 4 bars of Ward's transcription ...

Ward 1983, p. 52.
The fingering positions: a = nut (open), b = fret 1, c = 2 ... y = i = 8, and so on.

 ... and the same bars in the TablEdit editing screen ...

From the top: Cittern notation and tabs, low-G ukulele notation and tabs

Cydippe (Ancient Greek: Κυδίππη, Kudíppē) could have been one of a number of Greeks in classical times, including one of the Naiads (water nymphs). I don't know to which one this piece was dedicated.

The arrangement fits pretty well on the uke, despite the weird tuning of the cittern. I have tried to keep as close as possible to the original, although some chords might be easier on the ukulele if other inversions are used.

I have changed the first chord in bar 11 to D major (sus 2) as the original chord sounds horrible. It then forms a bridge between the previous chord (A) and the next (G). The original discordant version is appended to the arrangement, for your delectation.

There are 3 strains of 8 bars (4 + 4), set in G, D and G. The harmonies can change rapidly, and the whole piece feels that it is an elaboration of grounds (block chords). In Ward’s book, many of the cittern pieces given as tablatures are obviously strums with single-string work, played using a quill as a plectrum. I chose this piece as it seems more suitable to finger-style.

This being the blog of someone learning as he goes along, I shamelessly follow Ward’s scholarship, and append a strummed consort version of the same name (almost) by John Farmer, which Ward transcribed from a publication (Rosseter 1609). Bar 17 in the published transcription contains enough notes for 2 bars, so I have split it, which also brings the total neatly up to 24 bars. The harmonic structure is broadly similar to that in more elaborate version (the three sections set in G, D and G), but the whole is much simpler and practically all chords are in nut position.

Available to download free in the following formats:

• pdf
• TablEdit (including both cittern and ukulele scores)
• MIDI (Basic; watch out for the horrible chord between pieces.)

Have fun!