Nicholas Erneston Music Library

I. Overview

This is another edition of Millioni/Monte 1644, with even poorer stroke alignment than the 1652 edition. A newly paginated book of canzonette with lyrics only is attached, not

Title: Vero e facil modo d'imparare a sonare, et accordare da se medesimo la chitarra spagnuola . . . (Venice: Giacomo Bortoli, 1666).

Description:
48 pp. in movable type [plus attached song book of 16 pp.]
48 pieces
Foliation: AB (8 ff. each)
Page Size -- F-Pn: 15.8 cm. (width) X 10.3 cm.

II. Prefatory Material

p. (1) -- VERO / E FACIL MODO D'IMPARARE / A SONARE, ET ACCORDARE DA SE MEDESIMO / La Chitarra Spagnuola, non solo con l'Alfabeto, & accordatura / ordinarij, ma anco con un'altro Alfabeto, & accordatura / straordinarij, nuovamente inventati. / DA PIETRO MILIONI, ET LODOVICO MONTE COMPAGNI. / Con una Regola per imparare il modo d'accordare sei Chitarre, per po/terle sonare insieme in concerto, ciaschuna per differente chiave. / IN VENETIA, Presso Francesco Vieceri MDCXXXXIIII. [Guitar faces to left with 1-5 on frets]

pp. 2-10 -- contents = Millioni/Monte 1637 but reversed (p. 4 with chords M through P2/V; p. 5 with D-L; p. 4 with chords M through P2/V; p. 5 with D-L; p. 8: hands used for repeat signs, not flowers)

[Alfabeto:]

[The K, P, Q, R, V, and X chords are not used.]

[Alfabeto Straordinario: works with same pieces as normal alfabeto, but with A-c#-f#-c-e' tuning:]

p. 32 -- ALFABETTO ET INTAVOLATURA / Per la Chitarra alla Spagnuola [additional alfabeto for C and D fascicles]:

[Verbal Alfabeto (with fingerings):]

 

[The +, K, N, Q, S, T, V, X, Y, Z, &, Con, and Ron chords are not used in this section (pp. 33-48).]

III. Notation

Tablature: Equals Millioni/Monte 1644.

Instrument: 5-course guitar

IV. Indices

Title information in brackets [ ] is editorial; information in parentheses ( ) is from the table of contents.

Index of Pieces (solo guitar):

 

Notes:
1. This piece should have come after the Ballo del Monte Verde on p. 21. Return to text

2. [Appended after p. 48 with new pagination:] NOVISSIME CANZONETTE MUSICALI DE DIVERSI AUTTORI . . . IN VENETIA, Appresso Camillo Bortoli. M.DC.LXVI. Con Licenza de' Superiori. . . [Songs with text only (no alfabeto chords); these songs are all titled Canzonetta and are sung by characters such as Achille, Ciro, and Cleopatra; they are not indexed here.] Return to text

Index of Genres:

The following chart summarizes the solo guitar contents of the book by genre. Major genres are given by the form used in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2d ed., with the forms actually used in the book in parentheses. Lesser known titles are grouped under "miscellaneous dances" and "songs." Rhythmic variations and rotte are considered part of the main work.

 

Index of Keys Used (solo guitar only):

Keys used in the book; an * indicates that the key is only used in a passacaglia. Note that the pitch is relative and that since the guitarist was using tablature, there was no need to think in terms of traditional key signatures.

 

Index of Names:

MILIONI, Pietro
VERO E FACIL MODO D'IMPARARE A SONARE . . . DA PIETRO MILIONI, ET LODOVICO MONTE COMPAGNI. . . / p. (1)

MONTE, Lodovico
VERO E FACIL MODO D'IMPARARE A SONARE . . . DA PIETRO MILIONI, ET LODOVICO MONTE COMPAGNI. . . / p. (1)

VIECERI, Francesco [printer]
IN VENETIA, Presso Francesco Vieceri / p. (1)

V. Bibliography

Boye, Gary R. "Giovanni Battista Granata and the Development of Printed Guitar Music in Seventeenth-Century Italy" (diss., Duke Univeristy, 1995).

Boye, Gary R. "Performing Seventeenth-Century Italian Guitar Music: the Question of an Appropriate Stringing" in Performance on Lute, Guitar and Vihuela: Historical Practice and Modern Interpretation, ed. V.A. Coelho (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

Boye, Gary R. "The Case of the Purloined Letter Tablature: The 17th-Century Guitar Books of Foriano Pico and Pietro Millioni." Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music 11:1 (2005).

Hudson, Richard. Passacaglio and Ciaccona: From Guitar Music to Italian Keyboard Variations in the 17th Century (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1981).

Répertoire international des sources musicales: Einzeldrucke vor 1800. RISM B/VI/2 p. 586

Tyler, James, and Paul Sparks. The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002): 86.

Weidlich, Joseph. "Battuto Performance Practice in Early Italian Guitar Music." Journal of the Lute Society of America 11 (1978): 63-86.

VI. Exemplars

F-Pn = France: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département de la Musique (visited in 1992)

Condition: dark, very thin paper; but little bleeding and very legible.

Binding: Recent hard-cover with red and blue designs on brown paper.

Manuscript additions:
Cover -- white tape: "MUSIQUE/Rés.VmF/43 (1-2) and spine, brown tape "MILIONI" Inside Cover -- blue/white tape: "EX-LIBRIS ALFRED CORTOT"; red stamp: "BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE MUSIQUE"; in pencil: "MET 14 MILIONI"

1 folio added in front

+f1r: entry from French dictionary on Millioni/Monte pasted in, as well as red stamp: "B.N.MUS.DON 79-291 (179)"

p. 1 -- pencil: "Rès. VmF.43 (1)"; ink (very faded): "Gio[...?] Giac[?]mo Sort[?egno?]"; red stamp: "BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE MUSIQUE" and green stamp: "CA"
p. 17 -- red stamp: "BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE MUSIQUE"
p. 25 -- green stamp: "CA"
p. 48 -- red stamp: "BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE MUSIQUE"

Inside back cover -- white tape: "Bibliothèque nationale Désinfection 1979 No. 2920"