Tielman Susato (c. 1500-1561) - Dulcian

Tielman Susato (also Tylman) (c. 1500 – 1561) was a Renaissance Flemish composer, instrumentalist and publisher of music in Antwerp. While his place of birth is unknown, some scholars believe that because of his name -- Susato meaning de Soest, of the town of Soest -- he may be from the town of that name in Westphalia.

Not much is known about his early life, but he begins appearing in various Antwerp archives of around 1530 working as a calligrapher as well as an instrumentalist: trumpet, flute and tenor pipe are listed as instruments that he owned. From 1543 until his death he worked as a music publisher, creating the first music press in the Netherlands; until then printing had mainly been done in Italy, France and Germany. Soon afterwards, Susato was joined by Pierre Phalèse at Leuven and Christopher Plantin, also in Antwerp, and the Low Countries became a regional center of music publishing. It is possible that Susato also ran a musical instrument business, and he attempted several times to form partnerships with other publishers but none were successful. Sometime after his death his son, who died in 1564, took over his publishing business.

Susato was also an accomplished composer. He wrote (and published) several books of masses and motets which are in the typical imitative polyphonic style of the time. He also wrote two books of chansons which were specifically designed to be sung by young, inexperienced singers: they are for only two or three voices. Most important of his publications in terms of distribution and influence were the Souterliedekens of Clemens non Papa, which were metrical psalm settings in Dutch, using the tunes of popular songs. They were hugely popular in the Netherlands in the 16th century.

Susato also was a prolific composer of instrumental music, and much of it is still recorded and performed today. He produced one book of dance music in 1551, Het derde musyck boexken ... alderhande danserye, composed of pieces in simple but artistic arrangement. Most of these pieces are dance forms (allemandes, galliards, and so forth) and are simple and homophonic in texture; many are based on current popular songs.



Danserye (1551)

Basse Dansen (Low Dances)

V. Bergerette ("La Brosse") ("Pavanne")





[A simplified version of Susato's Fanfare "La Morisque," despite the incorrect title and part designations]

VI. Fanfare "La Mourisque" - Mi Fa Sol Melody & Tonic-Dominant Harmony

(Wind and Percussion Consort)



(Recorder Consort)




Ronden (Rondes)

Ronde XV / Hupfauf

(Recorders)



Ronde XV (Mixed Consort - Shawms, Sackbutts, Drum)





Branlen (Branles / Brawls / Brawl Dance)

III. Hoboecken Dans (Oboe Dance) (Recorders, Drums, Tambourine)




Allemanden (Allemandes)



Allemande VI-VII




Allemande VIII


IX-X. Recoupe


Pavanen (Pavanes)



IV. Si Pas Souffrir (Dance) (Recorders and Drums)




Gaillarden (Gaillardes)

Gaillard XV ("Le Tout") ("Saltarello)





[Michael Praetorius - Dulcians / Curtals]

Susato - Le Premier Livre des Chansons (1554)

Chanson "Ce Qui Souloit" (Consort of Curtals [Dulcians])



Often Susato dedicated his publications to prominent citizens of the town. Sometimes he devoted an entire volume to the works of one composer (for example Manchicourt and Crecquillon). Not surprisingly, he seems to have favored other Flemish composers as subjects for publication. He was also one of the first to publish music of the great late Renaissance composer Lassus.

***


The dulcian is a Renaissance bass woodwind instrument, with a double reed and a folded conical bore. Equivalent terms include "curtal" in English, "dulzian" in German, "bajón" in Spanish, "douçaine"' in French, "dulciaan" in Dutch, and "fagotto" in Italian.

The predecessor of the modern bassoon, it flourished between 1550 and 1700, but was probably invented earlier. Towards the end of this period it co-existed with, and was then superseded by the baroque bassoon, although it continued to be used in Spain until early in the twentieth century. It was played in both secular and sacred contexts, throughout northern and western Europe, as well as in the New World.

The dulcian is generally made from a single piece of maple, with the bores being drilled and reamed first, and then the outside planed to shape. The reed is attached to the end of a metal bocal, inserted into the top of the small bore. Unlike the bassoon it normally has a flared bell, sometimes made from a separate piece of timber. This bell can sometimes be muted, the mute being either detachable, or built into the instrument. The outside of the instrument can also be covered in leather, like the cornett.

Although the bass in F is the most common size, the dulcian comes in many other sizes: tenor (in C), alto (in F or G) and soprano (in C). There are also examples of a "quart bass" dulcian in C and contrabass in F. The range of each instrument is two and a half octaves, centred around the range of the corresponding singing voice: for example, the bass ranges from C two octaves below middle C, to the G above middle C.

The reed on the dulcian is fully exposed, allowing the player to control the sound and intonation with his embouchure. At the time it first appeared, other double reed instruments either had the reed fully enclosed, like the crumhorn or the bagpipe, or partially enclosed, like the shawm. It has been argued the dulcian displaced the bass shawm, on account of its more convenient size, but it has also been argued that the two co-existed and that the bass shawm appeared at about the same time as the bass dulcian. The instrument seems to have been in wide use by the middle of the sixteenth century. A set of instruments in various sizes exist in Brussels: these have a maker's mark of "Melchor" and are thought to be Spanish. Another well known example is a slightly later instrument in Linz, leather covered and with a built in mute. The latest commonly copied example is by Denner, circa 1700, which also has a built in mute. Modern copies of the Linz instrument have a smoother sound and reach the high notes more easily, this is even more the case for modern copies of the Denner instrument.

The dulcian is a flexible instrument, capable of being loud enough to play in outdoor bands, quiet enough for chamber music, and expressive enough to join in with the choir. Its uses would have included playing dance music with the shawms and sackbutts of the city watch, chamber music, and of course the grand polychoral repertoire from Venice and Germany, such as Giovanni Gabrieli and Heinrich Schütz. There are explicit dulcian parts in the sonatas by Dario Castello.

[8504 Funj Sultanate / 8500 Susato / 8500 Luis de Milan]

Luis de Milan (c. 1500-1561) - Vihuela

[Orpheus playing a vihuela. Frontpiece from the famous vihuela tabulature book by Luis de Milán, Libro de música de vihuela de mano intitulado El maestro (1536). The text surrounding the image praises Orpheus as the inventor of the vihuela.]

Luis de Milan (b. c. 1500) - El Maestro (1536): Fantasia XI (Vihuela)



Luis de Milán (c. 1500-1561) was a Spanish Renaissance composer, vihuelist (instrument similar to the guitar), and writer on music. He was the first composer in history to publish music for the vihuela de mano, an instrument employed primarily in the Iberian peninsula and some of the Italian states during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and he was also one of the first musicians to specify verbal tempo indications in his music.

He probably lived all his life in Valencia, though details are sketchy at best. He seems to have been employed by the ducal court until around 1538. In 1535 he published his first book, a parlor game with music, entitled El juego de mandar; in the next year he published what was to be his most important book, Libro de música de vihuela de mano intitulado El maestro. This book was dedicated to King John III of Portugal; this dedication, and the existence of six villancicos which Milán wrote in Portuguese, suggest that he may have traveled to that country and spent some time there.

The book is the first collection of vihuela music in history. It may have been intended as a book for students of the vihuela. The music is presented in grades from simple to complex, so that a beginning vihuelist can proceed from elementary to gradually more complicated pieces as he learns. It contains more than forty fantasias, six pavans, twelve villancicos, as well as sonetos (settings of Italian sonnets), and other pieces; some of the pieces are for solo vihuela, and others for voice accompanied by vihuela. Many are of considerable virtuosity, though not all the ornamentation is provided in detail. The style of the compositions varies from simple homophony to polyphony and virtuoso passage-work; unusual chromaticism also occurs, including strange double-inflections which were quite rare in music from other parts of Europe at the same time. It appears that the book was prepared with great care; alternate passages are given for players who wish to avoid more virtuosic parts, sections of pieces are indicated as optional, and he provided verbal tempo indications, for example ni muy apriessa ni muy a espacio sino con un compás bien mesurado ("neither too quickly nor too slowly, but with a moderate measure"). Half of the villancicos are in Castilian Spanish, and half are in Portuguese.

His last publication, El cortesano (1561), modeled on Il Cortegiano by Baldassare Castiglione, gives a vivid and entertaining picture of life in the Valencian ducal court. While it contains no music, is a valuable account by a professional musician at the time.

The music of Luis Milan is popular with performers on the present-day classical guitar because it can be adapted very easily to their instrument.

***

Vihuela is a name given to two different guitar-like string instruments: one from 15th and 16th century Spain, usually with 12 paired strings, and the other, the Mexican vihuela, from 20th-century Mexico with five strings and typically played in Mariachi bands.

The vihuela is considered by some to be the (more ancient) precursor to the modern classical guitar. In Italy and Portugal this same instrument was known as viola da mano.

The two names are functionally synonymous and interchangeable. In its most developed form, the vihuela was a guitar-like instrument with six double-strings (paired courses) made of gut. Vihuelas were tuned almost like a modern guitar, with the exception of the third string, which was tuned a semitone lower. Six-course vihuela tuning was identical to six-course Renaissance lute tuning -- 4ths and mid-3rd (44344).

Plucked vihuela, being essentially flat-backed lutes, evolved in the mid 1400's, in the Kingdom of Aragón (located in North-Eastern Iberia (Spain)). In Spain and Italy (and other regional kingdoms under their influence) the vihuela was in common use in the late 15th and 16th centuries.

There were several different types of vihuela (or different playing methods at least):

Vihuela de mano — 6 or 5 courses played with the fingers
Vihuela de penola — played with a plectrum
Vihuela de arco — played with a bow (ancestor of the viola da gamba)
Tunings for 6 course vihuela de mano (44344):
G C F A D G
C F Bb D G C

The vihuela faded away, along with the complex polyphonic music that was its repertoire, in the late 16th century. The vihuela's descendants that are still played are the "violas campanicas" of Portugal. At least some of the vihuela's place, role, and function was taken up by the subsequent Baroque guitar (also sometimes referred to as vihuela or bigüela). Today, the vihuela is in use primarily for the performance of early music, using modern replicas of historical instruments.

Vihuela bodies were lightly constructed from thin flat slabs or pieces of wood, bent or curved as required. This construction method distinguished them from some earlier types of string instruments whose bodies (if not the entire instrument including neck) were carved out from a solid single block of wood. The back and sides of common lutes were also made of pieces however, being multiple curved or bent staves joined and glued together to form a bowl.

Vihuela (and viola) were built in different sizes, large and small, a family of instruments. Duet music was published for vihuelas tuned one step, a minor third, a fourth, or a fifth apart, as well as unison tuned.
The physical appearance, "the look", of vihuela was varied and diverse — there was little standardization and no mass production. Overall and in general, vihuela looked very similar to modern guitars. A little known fact is that the very first generation of vihuela, from their birth in the mid 1400’s on, all had sharp cuts to their waists, similar to the silhouette of a violin. The second generation of vihuela, beginning sometime around c.1490, took on the now familiar smooth-curved figure-eight shaped body contours. The waist-cut models, however, continued and survived well into the early to mid 1500’s, and side by side with the later pattern. Many early vihuela had extremely long necks, while others had the shorter variety. Top decoration, the number, shape, and placement, of sound holes, ports, pierced rosettes, etc, also varied greatly. More than a few styles of peg-boxes were used as well.

Vihuela were chromatically fretted in a manner similar to lutes, by means of movable, wrapped-around and tied-on gut frets. Vihuela, however, usually had ten frets, whereas lutes had only seven. Unlike modern guitars, which often use steel and bronze strings, vihuela were gut strung, and usually in paired courses. Gut strings produce a sonority far different from metal, generally described as softer and sweeter. A six course vihuela could be strung in either of two ways: with 12 strings in 6 pairs, or 11 strings in total if a single unpaired chanterelle is used on the first (or highest pitched) course. Unpaired chanterelles were common on all lutes, vihuela, and (other) early guitars (both Renaissance guitars and Baroque guitars).

The first person to publish a collection of music for the vihuela was the Spanish composer Luis de Milán, with his volume titled Libro de música de vihuela de mano intitulado El maestro of 1536. The notational device used throughout this and other vihuela music books is a numeric tablature (otherwise called "lute tablature"), which is also the model from which modern "guitar tab" was fashioned. The music is easily performed on a modern guitar using either standard guitar tuning (44434), sometimes called "new lute tuning", or by retuning slightly to Classic lute and vihuela tuning (44344).

The printed books of music for the Vihuela which have survived are, in chronological order:

El Maestro by Luis de Milán (1536)
Los seys libros del Delphin by Luis de Narváez (1538)
Tres Libros de Música by Alonso Mudarra (1546)
Silva de sirenas by Enríquez de Valderrábano (1547)
Libro de música de Vihuela by Diego Pisador (1552)
Orphénica Lyra by Miguel de Fuenllana (1554)
El Pamasso by Estevan Daça (1576).

There are only three definite surviving vihuela:

the well-known example in the Musée Jacquemart-Andrée, the 'Guadalupe' vihuela
the recently re-discovered 'Chambure' instrument in the Cité de la Musique (both of the above in Paris) an instrument in the Iglesia de la Compañiz de Jesús de Quito, in Quito, Ecuador.

The words vihuela and viola appear to be etymologically related.

[8500 Susato / 8500 - Luis de Milan / 8500 - Heurteur - Kortholt]

Guillaume le Heurteur (c. 1500-1550) - Kortholt

[Kortholts, from Michael Praetorius (1571-1621) - Syntagma Musicum (1619)]

In 1545 French composer Guillaume le Heurteur (c. 1500-1550) was choirmaster and canon at S. Martin in Tours. He published a volume of motets (now lost); his motets, masses, and chansons (in some of which he pokes fun at his clerical colleagues) appeared in anthologies from 1530 onwards.

Bicinium (Kortholts)



Chanson (Recorders)



In music of the Renaissance and early Baroque eras, a bicinium (pl. bicinia) was a composition for only two parts, especially one with a pedagogical purpose.

The term has had two usages in music history:

Recently, the term has come to mean any composition at all from the Renaissance or early Baroque period for two vocal or instrumental parts.

Historically, a bicinium referred specifically to a two-part composition used as a teaching tool, most often in Protestant, German-speaking areas.

The term was first used in Poland, by Jan z Lublina in a treatise of 1540. Volumes of bicinia were published in the next several decades in Germany, the Low Countries, and even in Italy, as the usefulness of bicinia as teaching aids became apparent. In addition, Martin Luther had strongly expressed that children should learn both music, and the psalms: bicinia with German texts from the Psalms fulfilled his purpose.

Students could be expected to master singing a single part in a duet more easily than a part in a larger ensemble. Usually a bicinium was designed to be sung or played by students of the same age and ability, rather than for a single student and a teacher.

This model of moving from two-part study, writing, and singing to three parts and then more was adopted by Heinrich Glarean in his Dodecachordon (1547), one of the most influential music theory and pedagogy treatises of the Renaissance.

In a similar manner, present-day music students typically learn counterpoint first by writing in two parts, and then later in three, only moving to four or more parts after mastering the earlier stages.

A similar pedagogical composition for three voices is known as a tricinium (pl. tricinia).

***

The kortholt is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. It was popular in the Renaissance period.

The name comes from the German kurz (becoming kort) meaning short and holz (becoming holt) meaning wood. This refers to the characteristic low sound that belies the short length of the instrument.

The kortholt is a capped reed instrument. Its construction is similar to that of the chanter of a bagpipe. A double reed is mounted inside a chamber. Blowing into the chamber produces a musical note. The pitch of the note can be varied by opening or closing finger and side holes along the length of the instrument.

The kortholt is actually double bored, similar to the modern bassoon. The cylindrical bore is doubled up inside the instrument producing a sound much lower than normally would be possible from an instrument of that length.

The sound is a similar to the crumhorn, but is softer. The kortholt came in various sizes, the most common being soprano, alto, tenor and bass. They could be played together in a consort.

[8500 Guillaume le Heurteur Kortholt]