Extremos: desarrollo y declive de la vihuela (original) (raw)

Hispanica Lyra Revista De La Sociedad De La Vihuela, 2013

Abstract

Explores the periods that precede and follow the years of the vihuela's written repertoire, ca. 1465–1535 and 1575–1625. In the half-century preceding the 1536 publication of Luis de Milán's El maestro, vihuelas were used in diverse strata of society by amateurs and professionals, were made by the same makers who made lutes, harps, rabeles, and monacordios, and were used to play a variety of musical styles. In most cases the music was improvised. There is documentation about some 50 vihuelists of the period, and 16 makers. The nature of the early vihuelas has not been resolved. Later categorizations, such as the division of the instruments into plucked and bowed, seem not to apply. Ian Woodfield's account of the early vihuela in The early history of the viol (RILM [ref]1984-05302[/ref]) needs revision, especially his exclusion from consideration of instruments played on the shoulder. Woodfield relies too exclusively on iconographical materials, without invoking literary or documentary sources, and outlines a naively linear process of development for the vihuela de mano. Evidence suggests, on the contrary, that the standard 16th-c. pattern of the vihuela de mano emerged from multifaceted experimentation. No scholarly study has been directed toward the question of how and why the vihuela was supplanted in popularity by the guitar in the years around 1600. The sources of evidence are outlined, particularly the late MS repertoire. In the marketplace, copies of 16th-c. vihuela books continued to be traded during the first decades of the 17th c., and instrument makers were able to satisfy both ends of the market with vihuelas and guitars built essentially to the same patterns, but strung and played according to different needs.

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