Unlocking music of the past: an introduction to historical tablatures

In this, and the next, course session, you will learn how to read and transcribe from Renaissance lute tablature as a way to access historical harp music from Scottish lute manuscripts such as the Balcarres Lute Book. We will transcribe 'Port Gordon' from the Balcarres lute book — it is a beautiful tune that is representative of the typical port form and flavour, and in its 'lute form' provides interesting challenges and questions to harpists making their own realisations. You will be introduced to the cultural relevance of professional and amateur lute players in Renaissance Scotland to the music of Gaelic harpers.

[Dr Tamzin Elliott]

[Dr Tamzin Elliott]

From the 16th century to the middle of the 18th century, music for harp in Spain was written in tablature. This form of notating the music is particularly important to historical harp performers since it shows not only the strings to be struck but also the fingerings and how to divide the texture between the two hands. In this respect it is unique. These two course sessions will teach you how to read and play directly from the tablature. Starting from Don Diego Fernandez de Huete's collections, we will go backwards and finish with the compositions of the harpist and organist at the Spanish royal court, Antonio de Cabezon.

[Mara Galassi]

[Mara Galassi]

The Robert ap Huw manuscript contains the earliest music for harp, cerdd dant, originally composed by bardic harp players in North Wales in the 14th–15th centuries, and taught orally for several hundred years. In the sixteenth century it was notated in a unique tablature, and was later copied by Robert ap Huw in the early seventeenth century. We will learn how to read the tablature, as we explore Gosteg yr Halen, or the Gosteg of the Salt, said 'to have been played before the knights of King Arthur when the salt cellar was put on the table.'

[Bill Taylor]

[Bill Taylor]