130 FONTES AR TIS MUSICAE 60/2
index proper (granted, there is the occasional
update; it includes, as the thematic index did
not, a 2011 reissue of the 1938 recording by
Arturo Toscanini of the Adagio for Strings,
Op. 11). I can only surmise that this appendix
is intended to be put online, as Heyman noted
in her introductor y “Organization of the
Catalogue” that “. . . this catalogue will be pub-
lished both in print and online (p. xxvii),” and
that this is the format that the discography will
have in its online appearance.
One unique feature of this volume is that,
according to the author, the incipits can be
heard on the International Center for American
Music’s website (www.icamus.org). These are
not recorded performances, but rather were re-
produced with the computer program Sibelius
Scorch, which is free software that allows the
user to hear scores that have been notated
using Sibelius. Appendix F is a “Register of
Incipit Files,” and is reproduced on the ICAM
Web site. At the time of writing this review
(October 2012), only some of the files are avail-
able, and the one that I listened to (of the open-
ing bars of the Violin Concerto) was of poor
sound quality. Clearly this resource is not yet
fully implemented, and the possibility that Avid
Technology (which purchased Sibelius in 2006)
may be less supportive of Sibelius in the future
may hinder this part of the project.
There is a relatively brief “Selected Bibliog-
raphy,” with an emphasis on manuscripts and
correspondence, and an Index. Throughout the
volume are numerous reproductions of pho-
tographs and Barber manuscripts. Although I
cannot easily see where the online manifesta-
tions of this thematic catalogue are headed, the
print copy is masterfully done, the result of
decades of painstaking research. It is highly rec-
ommended for all post-secondary collections.
John Schuster-Craig
Grand Valley State University
Allendale, Michigan
A Guide to Playing the Baroque Guitar.
By James Tyler. (Publications of the Early
Music Institute) Bloomington; Indianapolis,
IN: Indiana University Press, 2011. [ix, 160 p.
ISBN 978-0-25-322289-3. $34.95]
I often begin the introduction of the five-course
or Baroque guitar in my guitar literature semi-
nar with the statement: “In many ways, the
modern classical guitar is closer to the lute and
related instruments than it is to the baroque
guitar.” Like most early plucked string instru-
ments, early guitars used pairs of strings, called
“courses,” rather than single strings as on the
modern guitar. The string tensions of early and
modern instruments are hugely different, with
the Baroque guitar’s stringing much lighter
than the modern instrument with its emphasis
on volume. And like other early plucked
strings, music for the early guitar survives pri-
marily in tablature, including some quite un-
usual forms of tablature not seen in other in-
struments. Playing techniques varied as well,
but while a modern classical guitarist can adapt
fairly easily to the lute or lute music, there is no
real equivalent of the lightly brushed strums of
the five-course guitar which were so essential
to its sound, nor of the use of cross-string scales
and individual octave strings on the bass
courses. Here we have a case of two instru-
ments, the Baroque and modern classical gui-
tars, separated by a common name.
For modern performers approaching the
five-course guitar, which was common in
Europe from the late sixteenth century to the
end of the eighteenth century, there are pre-
cious few resources other than facsimiles and
microfilms of the original sources themselves
or modern editions.1 Early sources are seldom
pedagogical and, even when they are, are more
than likely in a language other than English and
with goals peculiar to their own place and time.
The beginner Baroque guitarist needs a guide
before approaching unedited tablature, and
James Tyler’s new book, A Guide to Playing the
Baroque Guitar, appearing just after his death
on 23 November 2010, fulfills that need ad-
mirably. This work expands upon the relatively
1. For a list with several thousand prints and man-
uscripts for five-course guitar, as well as related
plucked string instruments, see the review author’s
web pages: Music for the Lute, Guitar, and Vihuela
(1470–1799) at http://applications.library.appstate
.edu/music/lute/home.html and Music for the
Baroque Guitar at http://applications.library.appstate
.edu/music/guitar/home.html.
REVIEWS
little-known tutor produced by Tyler nearly 30
years ago: A Brief Tutor for the Baroque Guitar
(Helsinki, Finland: Chorus Publications, 1984).
This slim volume was the best introduction to
the topic available, full of practical information
and interesting music for the aspiring Baroque
guitarist. The current volume under review
should quickly reach wider circulation than
its predecessor and act as an introductory
textbook and anthology for all interested in the
subject.
Tyler is to be commended for not abandon-
ing the use of various sorts of original notation:
he includes examples in Italian and French tab-
latures, which should be familiar to any
lutenist, as well as ones that use the chordal al-
fabeto, often mixed with Italian tablature. This
chordal shorthand may seem strange and
chaotic to the modern performer—the letter
“A” indicates a G major chord, the letter “B” in-
dicates a C major chord, etc.—but actually the
chord shapes are fairly easy to learn and, once
absorbed, open up a huge body of solo and ac-
companimental music for the instrument in
original sources. Anyone who has worked with
these sources in detail would agree with Tyler’s
conclusion that transcription in no way replaces
the original notation. The eccentricities of the
five-course guitar and its technique are best
dealt with in a notation as close to the original
as possible. Somewhat surprisingly, Tyler does
include a modern transcription for all of the
pieces in the book, but he warns modern clas-
sical guitarists that these are not transcribed for
their instrument:
A transcription in staff notation (one-line treble
clef sounding an octave lower) follows. This is not
a guitar transcription . . . The staff notation tran-
scriptions are give for reference and study pur-
poses only as they show pitches, voice leading,
and other details in the tablature that some might
find useful.” (p. 32)
It is admirable to include such transcriptions,
although one wonders how many eager gui-
tarists might ignore the warnings (or not read
them) and move straight to the notation most
familiar with them, classical guitar in hand. No
real harm could come of this and experienced
guitarists may be able to re-finger the pieces to
produce decent versions, but the transcriptions
131
do add to the length of the book without serv-
ing a tremendous need. One also could wish for
a few less page turns in the pieces themselves:
sometimes a piece of only two pages is placed
on the recto and verso of the same page. (See,
for example, the “Passacaille dite Mariona” by
Lelio Colista (p. 67) or the “Allemande ‘La
Furieuse’ ” by François Campion (p. 77) )
Surely these pieces could have been placed on
facing pages of an open book?
As for the modern tablature versions in the
anthology, Tyler warns that “Editors and play-
ers accustomed to reading from these original
sources or from editions that use re-creations of
authentic typefaces, partial rhythm signs, and
bars split over two systems will doubtless frown
upon the tablature style I’ve adopted in this an-
thology” (p. 32). Personally, I had little trouble
reading from most of the pieces—and editorial
corrections are also welcome as a change from
the error-ridden original tablatures—but occa-
sionally the modern tablature is actually less
legible than the original, especially for the
pieces from the Elizabeth Cromwell manuscript
(pp. 38–39) and Carré (p. 47). Perhaps a few
such editorial tablatures early in the anthology,
giving way to facsimiles of the originals, would
have been more appropriate. In either case, the
player should be encouraged to leave the com-
paratively safe world of edited tablatures for the
“real” world of the originals as soon as possible.
One also wonders whether the selection of
pieces and their organization serves the needs
of students of varying abilities. Clearly, this is a
book for performers with some ability on the
modern guitar or, preferably, the lute, not for
absolute beginners. (It might be suggested
here that the pieces by Foscarini and Calvi on
pp. 98 and 102 would be the best places for the
novice to begin, rather than reading through
the anthology in order.) All of the pieces in-
cluded are rather demanding and are organized
by “suitable” stringing. This last point will no
doubt be the most controversial amongst the
early guitar community and a review such as
this is hardly the place to engage in spirited de-
bate on a subject which has become a bit of a
red herring in recent years. To summarize the
debate briefly, we of course know how the five-
course guitar was tuned in relative intervals
(A-d-g-b-e’), but we are still arguing over the
132 FONTES AR TIS MUSICAE 60/2
use of bass strings or bourdons on the 4th and
5th courses. Throughout his career, Tyler con-
sistently grouped the sources into three string-
ings which he calls A, B, and C, grouped here
by actual pitches from the fifth to first courses:2
A: a/a-d’/d’-g/g-b/b-e’
B: a/a-d/d’-g/g-b/b-e’
C: A/a-d/d’-g/g-b/b-e’
The basic question is whether the lowest note
on the instrument would have been the 3rd
course g (as in stringing A) or whether the 4th
or 4th and 5th courses would have had a lower
bass. To complicate matters, Tyler has also pro-
posed an additional octave g’ on the 3rd course
in some sources, although the historical evi-
dence for this arrangement is tenuous at best.
For our purposes here, let me state that
while there are a few sources which are unam-
biguous, they are by far the exception. Most
sources say nothing at all about the octave dis-
position of the basses and scholars are far short
of agreement about them. For example, while
Tyler states that string A is by far the most com-
mon and that C is the least common, others
(myself included) would argue the exact oppo-
site. As for the anthology, it should be remem-
bered that Tyler doesn’t make too big of a point
about it and he does write of “suitable” pieces
for various stringings. Nonetheless, the entire
anthology is grouped by pieces without bour-
dons, with one bourdon, and with two bourdons
as if following some cues from the originals. All
this should really prove less discouraging to
the potential performer than it at first appears;
if one treats Tyler’s stringings as primarily sug-
gestions, one can experiment without fear of
anything more than some odd-sounding octave
displacements on occasion. It is also possible,
with the correct instrumental setup, to empha-
size only the upper octave of a pair and avoid
the bass string, alleviating the problems with
having a bourdon while still keeping it available
when needed. As for the pieces themselves,
they are well chosen and the detailed commen-
tary to each results in a virtual lesson with the
2. These labels have never really caught on;
guitarists generally refer to them simply as “with” or
“without bourdons” (C anc A) and “Corbetta’s” or the
“French stringing” (B).
master. A few names may be familiar to the clas-
sical guitarist, who has no doubt played or
heard transcriptions of works by Gaspar Sanz,
Francesco Corbetta, and Antoine Carré. Other
names may be less familiar, but deserve to be
more widely known: Ferdinando Valdambrini,
Angelo Michele Bartolotti, Giovanni Battista
Granata, and François Le Cocq. Le Cocq’s
“Folies d’Espagne” is a virtuosic show piece
that would stun a modern audience with pre-
conceived notions that strummed guitar music
goes back no farther than the turn of the
twentieth century and the modern flamenco
movement.
Despite quibbling with a few of his points
regarding bourdons or their absence, I would
still whole-heartedly recommend Tyler’s latest
book to anyone approaching the five-course
guitar. The sources and techniques are so ob-
scure for this instrument that both instructors
and students will gain much from this work.
Used judiciously, it can help students begin ex-
ploring a vast and important repertoire that lies
largely neglected by both mainstream musicol-
ogy and the guitar world in general. For those
of us who had the pleasure to have known Jim
Tyler, it is also, quite obviously, etched in the
sadness of his passing. Along with the latest
edition of his monograph on the guitar,3 it is a
fitting capstone to a long and successful career
in early music.
Gary R. Boye
Appalachian State University
The Music of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach.
By David Schulenberg. Rochester, NY:
University of Rochester Press, 2010. [xii,
341 p. ISBN 978-1-58046-359-1. $85]
No matter how long the intense revision of the
classical canon might continue, the name Bach
will arguably forever imply Johann Sebastian in
the first place. Educated music-lovers will of
course know that the fame of the composer’s
second son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, has for some
3. James Tyler and Paul Sparks, The Guitar and
Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, revised
2009).
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without
permission.