The Use of Notational Formats at the Keyboard
Creators: name: Judd, Bob
Publisher: name: unknown
Year: 1989
Subjects: subject: Keyboard instruments
subject: Musical notation
subject: Sixteenth century
subject: Seventeenth century

description: Part One of this study seeks to define the nature of Spanish and Italian printed keyboard sources in the 16th and 17th centuries. In Chapter two, seven Spanish keyboard prints or theoretical works are examined, dating from 1546 to 1626. These works clearly state a conception of the ideals of keyboard playing; they also show the beginnings of a shift in orientation for the keyboard player towards learning to play the instrument more quickly, but with less understanding of composition. 

The conclusions from Spanish sources are applicable to Italian printed keyboard music, 1500-1700 (Chapter three). About 250 Italian volumes are surveyed for their comments and notational evidence to determine for whom the music was written, the purpose of the music, the needs of its users, the preconceptions and opinions of its creators, and the motives for publishing or copying the works. A summary of this material is presented in classified form; all the volumes are chronologically indexed in appendices, where a number of extracts from prefatory or theoretical writings are given and translated. 

In Part Two, four manuscript sources which contain music by Claudio Merulo (1533-1604) are surveyed and analysed. Two originated in north Italy (The Bourdeney Codex, open score; Bagnacavallo MS CMB 1, Italian keyboard score); one in south Germany (Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale, MS Giordano 2, New German Tablature); one in Liege (Liege, Bibliotheque de l'Universite, MS 153, French keyboard score). The purposes of the manuscripts~ their origins, scribal methodology, users, and possible exemplars are examined. 

Taken as a whole, these studies show that the tradition of unnotated fantasia lay behind the origins and use of keyboard sources of the period, that notated keyboard music was used for particular purposes, and that the rise cf virtuoso performers who could not play fantasia was intimately related to the notational experiments and developments of the period.
description: Part One of this study seeks to define the nature of Spanish and Italian printed keyboard sources in the 16th and 17th centuries. In Chapter two, seven Spanish keyboard prints or theoretical works are examined, dating from 1546 to 1626. These works clearly state a conception of the ideals of keyboard playing; they also show the beginnings of a shift in orientation for the keyboard player towards learning to play the instrument more quickly, but with less understanding of composition. The conclusions from Spanish sources are applicable to Italian printed keyboard music, 1500-1700 (Chapter three). About 250 Italian volumes are surveyed for their comments and notational evidence to determine for whom the music was written, the purpose of the music, the needs of its users, the preconceptions and opinions of its creators, and the motives for publishing or copying the works. A summary of this material is presented in classified form; all the volumes are chronologically indexed in appendices, where a number of extracts from prefatory or theoretical writings are given and translated. In Part Two, four manuscript sources which contain music by Claudio Merulo (1533-1604) are surveyed and analysed. Two originated in north Italy (The Bourdeney Codex, open score; Bagnacavallo MS CMB 1, Italian keyboard score); one in south Germany (Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale, MS Giordano 2, New German Tablature); one in Liege (Liege, Bibliotheque de l'Universite, MS 153, French keyboard score). The purposes of the manuscripts~ their origins, scribal methodology, users, and possible exemplars are examined. Taken as a whole, these studies show that the tradition of unnotated fantasia lay behind the origins and use of keyboard sources of the period, that notated keyboard music was used for particular purposes, and that the rise cf virtuoso performers who could not play fantasia was intimately related to the notational experiments and developments of the period.