Making recordings with the lute, this set-up had worked well. The difficulty of comprehending the deep structure of the vihuela repertoire is one thing, but the situation is even more mysterious with the structure and manufacture of the instruments. This vihuela had fewer little bars and the top was thicker. The the instrument’s internal workings are obscure. Unfortunately, the story of its birth, death, and twentieth-century reincarnation is known only to a handful of specialists. Hola amigos: Escribo aqui unas líneas para ver si alguien tiene o sabe de donde puede sacar los planos de la vihuela. It was a rather crude thing made by a Swedish guitar maker, owned a visiting student who had come to town for a few lessons. Spanish vihuela emerged in Aragon as a flat-backed, single instrument to be played either bowed or plucked with a plectrum. This type of composition easily outnumbers any other type in the whole vihuela literature. There are plenty of lute tutors, and they examine every aspect of the music, but for the vihuela’s performance practice, its context and organology there is only a remnant. Today, aside from designating a period instrument, the term vihuela refers to a type of guitar played in Central and South America. A Second and Third Try: Basic Ideas are Refined, New Information is Incorporated. Usually an inside voice or bass line. This is very useful when playing the more ambitious music of Milan and Mudarra, as it gives the eye and hand a more easily comprehended frame of reference. You can download the paper by clicking the button above. The first vihuela, though a success in many respects, had some problems:  Too large, too quiet, back too flat, too many bars. One is strumming a fat, round-backed guitar known as a vihuela, another, the deep-sounding guitarron, while two young singers gamely try to be heard: "De colores, de colores, se visten los campos en la primavera.". The Ecuadorian Saint Mariana de Jesus played the instrument now placed in the Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus in Quito, Ecuador, made around 1625. The vihuela books contain distinct genres of music: movements in the Italian chordal dance style, such as Pavanes or Galliards; variation forms with repeating bass lines, related to dance style; Fantasia-style; in which vocal and instrumental style may blend; and the intabulation of pre-composed vocal music in three or four parts. A desire to play the music on something like this, rather than the lute, immediately seized me. Building any instrument starts with a good set of plans. Of all the music which I have in streaming digital distribution, this is by far the most frequently streamed. Eventually, the first vihuela was purchased by a collector in White Rock. There are two keyboard sources of music which draw on the music of the vihuela: Obras de musica para harpa, tecla e vihuela, (1578, posthumous) by Antonio Cabezon and Libro de Cifra Nueva para tecla, harpa e vihuela, 1557 by Venegas de Henestrosa. I either draw these myself or acquire a set of plans from a museum or another instrument maker. The vihuela, as it was known in Spain, was called the viola da mano in Italy and Portugal. The experiment also resulted in the realization that guitars may easily be produced in small-scale production by a single artisan, but the lute is a carving, and does not lend itself either to decoration, repeatable operations or parts-bin manufacture. I built two matching vihuelas (from a run of four), and it seemed that it would be a great opportunity to arrange some music by Antonio de Cabezon, one of the greatest geniuses of the 1500’s:  It had been a long time ambition. It is in the basement of a mansion overlooking a vineyard and Skaha Lake. You must — there are over 200,000 words in our free online dictionary, but you are looking for one that’s only in the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary.. Start your free trial today and get unlimited access to America's largest dictionary, with: . Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. Sanz’s music is deeply rooted in folk idioms and melodies—true guitar music; while Guerau’s book, published twenty years later, has many features which remind us of the intellectual style of the vihuela. Shown is a plan for an orpharion. Planos de la vihuela. This anthology presented some of the best pieces of the vihuela repertoire on their own terms. Valderrabano’s music is today not as well-known as it should be compared to the previous three masters. The modern player should learn to read vihuela pieces from the original tablature. Picking up the volume, and flipping through, it appeared to be a large collection of keyboard music in staff notation, with a long study of the music in Spanish. Isabella d’Este and the “Spanish” Vihuela Julio Gimeno Throughout history, we often find the terms “Spanish”, “Spanish style” or something similar applied to string instruments. Wikipedia. Each of them was made of exotic Australian woods and they were instruments that were more successful. The repertoire of the Spanish vihuelists that is known to have survived is found inseven books and in a few unpublished manuscripts dedicated specifically to the vihuela,as well as in two books of music considered interchangeable with the harp, lute, andvihuela.64 Diana Poulton, “The Lute in Christian Spain” The Lute Society Journal, Vol. Cypress is the timber usually used for flamenco guitars, and yellow cedar, despite the name, is a cypress which grows in British Columbia. The challenging and more technically demanding Fantasias, with their mix of consonances e redobles (chords and divisions) are found in the subsequent section. Vihuela, in full vihuela de mano, stringed musical instrument that in Spanish Renaissance art music held the popularity accorded the lute elsewhere in Europe. The two names are functionally synonymous and interchangeable. While I was making the recording, I had the strong impression that is would never be heard! With a sympathetic technique, considerably less physical effort is required to play the same music. When it came to the barring, there was no model; and at that time, there was very little information about the interior construction of the vihuela. It was invented during the Renaissance, but today is in use only for the performance of early music, usually with modern replicas of historical instruments.In Italy and Portugal it was known as a viola, though that term is only used for an unrelated instrument today. He is one of first composers to offer advice about right-hand fingering, annotating his score with dedillo (alternation of thumb and forefinger in the lute style) and dos dedos (two fingers). Likewise, the fantasias of Fuenllana left me unimpressed at first, but when I got around to playing them on a decent instrument, they awakened a reverence for the sober catholicity of his counterpoint. Because of his pioneering efforts, several of the best-known pieces of Mudarra and Narvaez became much better known through performances, and this has led to a more complete understanding of the entire literature. If you’ve ever seen a mariachi band, you’ve probably seen a vihuela and not even known it. So we decided to virtually place the vihuela in a church in Holland, with the mikes close and far, mixed together. In his 1945 edition of a selection of twenty of Fernando Sor’s studies for the guitar, Andres Segovia made this cryptic remark: “La rica tradicion vihuelistica se fue adelgazando hasa no poseer, al prolongar su vida en la guitarra… (The rich traditions of the vihuelistas gradually diminished until they lost their vitality in the guitar world…). The modern guitar has almost no true circularity, the shape is all based on two foci. The tied frets allow for un-equal temperament—playing chords that are better in tune, that is whose thirds do not beat rapidly, as in equal-tempered tuning. These sources are not usually included in the vihuela repertory, but they furnish a more complete picture of the way in which the riches of the vihuela tradition influenced the organ music of the sixteenth century. Even as the vihuela style declined, the guitar underwent a period of further development during the 16th and 17th Centuries. Translate Known as. Of the composers who left tablatures for the vihuela, perhaps Fuenllana is the key to the inner world of the vihuela. Pieces based on dance forms. This third design for the instrument proved to be a bit too small for me, though I greatly refined the making of tiles and inlay while constructing it. By comparison to lute music, vihuela music is often spare and rather stark. This may be due in part to our expectations of the music. All images provided by Clive Titmuss (click to enlarge). It sounded rather subdued on the upper strings, but it had a good bass. Wikipedia. I played it for a few years and gave many concerts with it—it was very sweet-sounding. Both instruments read from a type of notation known as tablature, both use strings that are arranged in six courses of two strings each. Translation of "also known as" in Spanish. Influssi della liuteria bresciana in Spagna e Inghilterra, Chordophone culture in two early modern societies: a pipa - vihuela duet, Reconstruction of a Sixteenth-century Vihuela with Historical Making Techniques, Blackburn Making Lutes in Quattrocento Venice: Nicolò Sconvelt and his German Colleagues. When she died, she donated her collection to the White Rock Museum, housed in the old Burlington Northern Railway station near the pier. The decline of the vihuela’s primacy in musical life may also be attributed to shifts in the social conditions in Spain. And it sounded pretty good, if a little short of breath. They are very tall, with no carving of the ends to fit a mortise in the lining. Encouraged by Michael Dunn, who liked it for tops on his Maccaferri guitars, here was a great material for the back and sides. One may play both period and modern instruments in succession without difficulty, even in concert and plenty of performers do this. In effect, lutherie had to catch up with the pace set by historians and the demands of performing musicians. It is a unique timber, with a straight grain, resinous, and an explosive pluck. It will accept a vigorous playing and it therefore has a wider dynamic range–much better than previous instruments. A big thank you to Clive for this fantastic and informative article previously published on Classical Guitar Canada. It is clearly music written for the organ, with many ideas taken from his vihuela-playing contemporaries. A reproduction of one of the original pages caught the eye–the neck and body of a vihuela, in woodcut, with note names written on the frets. Out of the entire repertoire of music for vihuela, the Fantasia-style pieces of Milan, Mudarra and Narvaez are those most frequently played on the guitar. “The vihuela, as it was known in Spain, ... in the late 16th century, along with the other primary instrument of the Spanish and Portugal Renaissance, the cross-strung harp. A number of these vihuelas were made with another cypress timber, Port Orford (Oregon) “cedar”. The decorative aspect of the vihuela is one of its most attractive features, as it is with the five-course guitars of 17th Century Italy. Anyone who has ever worked with another guitarist knows just how much time it takes to get those plucks together. Weitere Ideen zu alte gitarren, gitarre, instrumente. This closed a circle—this heritage building was the location of my first performances in BC, where I used to play concerts and have the student recitals. Guitar Nuts at performances were always asking about it. ( music) A guitar -like string instrument of 19th-century Mexico with five strings, typically played in mariachi bands. The gold and silver looted from the Americas destabilized the economy, there were military defeats at the hands of the British, and domination of the Netherlands proved costly. Today’s players are more interested in playing Fantasias and variation-forms derived from dances, but it is the intabulation-forms which were regarded by musicians of the mid-1500’s as the summit of their art. He sounded disappointed that they didn’t work better, and perhaps this is a matter of expectations. It seems Segovia, who frequently played the music of Milan, Mudarra, and Narvaez at the beginning of his recitals, felt that the force of their traditions had lost its immediacy, and he concluded that this is why we must look to the studies of Sor, Aguado and Tarrega to elevate the guitar’s technique and its repertoire. Learn more about our Terms, Conditions, Cookies, & Privacy Policy. It is common for guitarists to perform sequences of chords slightly arpeggiated, a legitimate practice for varying chord articulation in post- 18th Century music. Two important Spanish composers of music for five-course guitar in the second half of the 17th Century, Francisco Guerau (Poema Harmonico, 1694) and Gaspar Sanz (Instruccion…sobre la Guitarra Espanola, 1674) still bear the unmistakeable marks of the dichotomy mentioned by Fuenllana. Fuenllana’s Fantasias, for example, are rhythmically sober and strict in their preservation of voice-leading, sometimes at the expense of the virtuoso excitement we hear in contemporary Italian compositions. This book is still not usually grouped with vihuela sources in tablature, though it is an important source of information about the atmosphere and culture of the vihuela–an exceedingly rare commodity after 450 years. Elaborations built on a Cantus firmus. Like the lute in Italy during the 1500’s, the vihuela was associated with the divine, the angelic. It is worth remembering that in most of the world, a reference to playing ‘ancient’ ‘classical’ or ‘period’ instruments or music would result in puzzlement. The Spanish vihuela is also a larger instrument, and therefore sounds somewhat different. ‘The five-course guitar supplanted the aristocratic vihuela in the 17th century and came to be regarded as the typical Spanish instrument.’. Though recognition of the historical importance of early Spanish music and of the vihuela began in the early 20th Century, the impulse to play the music on a period instrument has taken much longer to develop. People who listen to music often have no idea how much of the signal is not really musical and what must be done to achieve an acoustically clean result. Naples and Sicily were part of the Spanish speaking possessions of the House of Aragón. I remember being terrified to cut into the soundboard to inlay the parquet tiles. I had to experiment with size, shape, thicknesses, materials, stringing and barring, for a long time before there was a benchmark. A few of his pieces were reproduced without attribution in Venegas de Henestrosa’s organ tablature of 1557. By comparison, the fantasia-style pieces can sound dull. Modern audiences have difficulty following the cantus firmus style; they have no cultural frame of reference for it. ." Why bother, one may as well make the instrument really stiff, but light. Guadalupe Six-Course Spanish Renaissance Vihuela 1525-i Seriously want one of these, I want a working replica . We worked on that piece and a few others, the Caballero, and the Gaillarda Milanesa, along with the Spagna bass dance. You may play any of these pieces on the guitar using vihuela tuning.]. The vihuela mexicana is the younger cousin to the guitar in mariachi music, and it’s perfectly set up to duet with its six-string counterpart. . Despite these impediments, players should familiarize themselves with some of the pieces in this style, as many of them are rewarding to play and to hear. The last known vihuela is dated 1700 and represents the instrument's final stages of development. There is also a substantial number of songs surviving for vihuela and voice. The Early Music Studio collection includes an Italian-style harpsichord with both case and soundboard made from Port Orford. Building a Vihuela inspired by Luis Milan. The lower tension makes the profuse ornamentation much easier to perform cleanly. The studio masterminded by Stu Goldberg. As makers began to employ evidence of vihuela construction gleaned from the few surviving instruments and details taken from pictorial sources, it became clear that the care and attention lavished on the vihuela literature by its greatest exponents was justified by the merits of the instrument itself. Although it is not unidiomatic, it is one of the most difficult kinds of music to play effectively because it makes little allowance for the player’s fingers, and places great responsibility on the inner ear. They even exhibited the cases. After a series of concerts and speaking to the audience afterward I was surprised at the interest and questions I fielded from guitar players, rather than the usual early music lovers or lute players. The Spanish vihuela . The entire 50 metre long building had been moved back ten metres and converted to a museum. There was Renaissance music in the first half and music for two six-course guitars in the second half. Brought to you by Bradford Werner, British Columbia, Canada. An established tradition of composition existed in the minds of the vihuelistas, and this determined the content of the music. The intent is to contrast the texture and articulation of (staccato) rapid notes and (legato) open chords. 25.11.2018 - Erkunde mattwags Pinnwand „Vihuela“ auf Pinterest. Vihuelas are simple, and once the tiles and the design are fixed, there are infinite variations. Their books deserve examination, if only to widen the player’s familiarity with the style. The modern player should distinguish the elements of the vihuela style. The Spanish vihuela looks like a small, delicate 12-string guitar with gut or nylon strings. The church’s grip on the Spanish crown and military began to loosen, and some of the supports that contributed to the vihuela’s commanding position shifted. It’s a moving experience just to be there. As recently as 1976 close examination revealed that it appears to be a surviving vihuela. "In the Muse Jacquemart-Andre of the Institut de France, 158 Boulevard Haussmann, Paris, there is an extremely interesting old instrument which has all the appearance of being a Spanish vihuela de mano. There is an arrangement of Valderrabano’s extraordinary Musica para discantar sobre un punto (Divisions on a Single Note [from Silva de Sirenas]) for two equal vihuelas. The vihuelas were made using pieces from that construction. Once the player has altered the hand position slightly to account for plucking both strings of the course, the remaining challenge is to accustom the inner ear to hear the counterpoint and emphasize its linear character. That proved to be a misjudgement, and I now see that even his simple pieces are brilliant masterworks. Spanish influence, especially Naples, and also Rome during the Borgia papacies. Everyone seems to understand when they are listening to a masterpiece. We have the impression that Mudarra and Fuenllana were deliberately raising the standard of the guitar’s music in their publications—to the level of the vihuela. The book employed a printing technique called ‘rubrication’, in which the cantus firmus (the plain song melody, or the vocal part) was indicated in the tablature in red. Facing the audience at last, it was no surprise that of all the music played in that program, the Cabezon pieces created the greatest hush among the listeners. The earliest of the vihuela books is Luis Milan’s El Maestro, 1536 and it works well as an introduction to the repertoire. Here is an illustration of the way that an understanding of the sources might influence the performance of the repertoire: One of the most famous of the vihuela pieces, Fantasia que contraheze la harpa en la manera de Ludovico (Fantasy which imitates the harp in the manner of Ludovico) by Alonso Mudarra, is often played on the modern guitar. This book was duly purchased for three dollars in 1976, and it was the beginning of a long journey, a discovery of the vihuela and its literature. It is much easier to suggest the atmosphere of its music transcribed for the guitar than that of the baroque lute, for example. tuning machines instead of pegs. In 1955, the Spanish musicologist and guitarist Emilio Pujol published the landmark Hispanae Citharae Ars Viva (The Living Art of the Spanish Guitar, still in print), which combined clear modern printing and precise modern-style fingering for the guitar with the proper tuning of the vihuela. Diferencias. Again, a big thank you to Clive for this epic article. This is an indication that from the viewpoint of the vihuelistas, the guitar was a separate tradition. I have never made a recording in which the sound of the finger plucking the string is more faithfully reproduced than this one. Make sure to visit his website to see more of his work and recordings (earlymusicstudio.com). Other books of vihuela music which have survived to this day include : Los seys libros del Delphin by Luis de Narváez (1538) The mould was taken from Milan’s picture of Apollo (“The first vihuela player in the world”). The “upright” tablature of Luis Milan is virtually identical to modern number tablature. It was a very private and internal dialogue between musician and instrument, and the composer-players of the sixteenth century didn’t really leave us many clues about the way that the instrument was played. The most recent vihuela encounter resulted from collaboration with long-time friend and colleague Alan Rinehart. Each of the Spanish vihuela prints contains a range of pieces, from purely instrumental works such as fantasias to vocal works with instru- mental accompaniment. The binding creaked, dust motes floated in the June sun, the pages were thick and a warm yellow at the edges. It is my feeling that it is the broken chord figurations, and the bold dissonances of the second half, not the running passages, which imitate the harp. Facsimile editions of the books were published in the 1980’s and 90’s and in 2003 facsimile images of the entire oeuvre became available on a single printable and searchable CD [Libros de Musica para Vihuela, (edited by G. Ariaga and C. Somoza)], sponsored in part by the Spanish government. The best-known surviving vihuela, at the Jaquemart-Andre Museum in Paris, has mudejar inlays intended to suggest the reliquary, the jewelled vessel which contained remains of the Saints and martyrs of the Church. These intabulations sound well on the original instrument. At the time not every builder was convinced that lighter construction would result in a better instrument, and this vihuela had construction features from both camps— details that were lute-like,  but a structure that was heavy and guitar-like. See image credits at end. The Chambure vihuela photo was taken from the Cite de Musique website-. When I played there, you had to stop when the train went by at around 9 pm, make a joke about the modern world, and go back to your pieces. Spanish composer and vihuelist. The result is one of the most polished and refined sounding recordings in my experience. This vihuela was still did not have an ebony body, but in the same letter Lorenzo says that he will immediately begin construction of this instrument which his lady so desires and that it will be "authentic in the Spanish style in form as well as in sound." Enriquez de Valderrabano’s Silva de Sirenas (The Forest of the Sirens, 1547) is organized according to types and difficulty, and has pieces which are intended for two vihuelas of differing pitches. Modern guitars have evolved to having high-tension strings and fixed metal frets. This piece of information came from Jose Romanillos, who compiled a lot of research into early Spanish lutherie going back to the 16th century. Each iteration of the vihuela benefitted from a thicker soundboard and a stiffer area around the rose. As late as the early 19th Century, Fernando Sor still advocated the alternation of thumb and index finger for scales and repeated notes. Surprisingly, it sounded incredible, with a ring that seduced the ear. It is the instrument itself which stimulates the player, but it is the mysteries of the music which most inspire. In vihuela music, the consonances (chords) of two or three tones should not be arpeggiated; it will blur the counterpoint. Skelly, también conocido como "Johnny Simpático", presidente. Part of this had to do with widening the neck and bridge so that the strings are farther apart. The non-Iberian medieval guiterne was the ancestor of the four-course guitar. He employed lute tablature to notate this music. Culturally, the Arabic world was associated with the lute (al’oud). This takes some time to become accustomed, since there is little resistance to the plucking motion. The double-stringing of the vihuela, baroque and later six-course guitars renders single notes that have a haunting other-wordly timbre, so vibrato is not required to make them sing. The true vihuela is a pre-Baroque construction, and the bridge sits at the centre of the circle, reflecting an entire cosmology. My reservations about the starkness of vihuela writing were unfounded; the recording filled the ear wonderfully. I suspected that it would never work. The iconography–pictures, carvings and intarsia indicate that the vihuela had a devotional aspect manifest in its literature. After we recorded the pieces we edited and mastered them, everything complete in one marathon session of nearly ten hours. Spanish term for variations. The decline of the vihuela’s primacy in musical life may also be attributed to shifts in the social conditions in Spain. Building a Spanish Vihuela. History. The point is history in which the circle was replaced by the ellipse in art and architecture is one of the markers of the early Baroque wind of change. The vihuela (Spanish pronunciation: ) is a 15th-century fretted plucked Spanish string instrument, shaped like a guitar (figure-of-eight form offering strength and portability) but tuned like a lute.It was used in 15th- and 16th-century Spain as the equivalent of the lute in Italy and has a large resultant repertory. The books by Diego Pisador (1552) and Esteban Daza (1576) show a decline in quality from the heights established by earlier masters, as the vihuela ceded its central position to other domestic instruments, the developing guitar, keyboard instruments and the violin/viol family. See 2 authoritative translations of Known as in Spanish with example sentences and audio pronunciations.

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