Need Renaissance sheetmusic

[gnelson651]

My daughter needs a good Renaissance violin duet (or violin/mandolin) played during Shakespeare's time period.

It is for her high school Honors English class project which she is doing a report on Shakespeare.

Any suggestions where the sheetmusic can be found on the internet? She has 3 weeks to turn it in (that is play it with a friend).

BTW: She attends Las Vegas Acadamy which is a high school for the performing arts in Las Vegas.

Thanks,

Glenn Nelson
Las Vegas, NV

[Embergher]

Here is a page with many links to free sheet music archives. I haven't looked for duets yet, but as renaissance music is all 'public domain' , you have a good chance of finding something. Certainly try the Werner Icking Music #Archive.

Goodluck!

[onthefiddle]

Shakespeare's time was a golden age for music in England, though you will probably not easily find a piece written for violin duet (or even mandolin).

The Violin was not well regarded in England at this time - this was the age of the Viol (Viola da Gamba). A common musical ensemble at this time was the "Broken Consort" - a mixture of largely unspecified string and woodwind instruments (which would be quite likely to include a Cittern, and possibly a Mandora) so she could quite justifiably use instrumentation of her own choice for this music (within reason).
I would start by looking in The Werner Icking Archive. There is music there by John Dowland, one of the most highly regarded composers of that time, also notable is Anthony Holborne, and there is more music by other English composers of that time in the archive also. For links to other archives try the links page here, which is very far from complete - but a start at least.

The fiddle was used almost exclusively for dance music in England at this time, and your best hope for this is to look at Playford's Complete English Dancing Master - a facsimile copy of which is available here. This is written in the notation of the time, and as far as I can recall does not include any pieces written as duets, but you could arrange anything you particularly liked as a duet of course I think that Playfords was first published a little after William Shakespeare's time, though of course many of the tunes are older.

Finally, have you seen this article from the Encyclopaedia Britannica?

Jon

[JimD]

Try the Canzonets for two voices by Thomas Morley.

Morley was a contemporary of Shakespeare and the canzonets would have been either played or sung. During the renaissance many composers did not really specify instruments per se -- so, instruments were used more at the discression of the performers.

The Morley canzonets are very popular among recorder players.

[Eugene]

Much of the quality stuff of this era was in lute tablature, which (unless you happen to be an avid lutenist) will be a real chore to decipher. You might want to seek guitar arrangements of some of the popular tunes and skim off the top couple lines. A couple a propos bits: seek Francis Cutting's setting of "Greensleeves," John Dowland's "Tarlton's Ressurection," or "Kempe's Jig." Also, be aware that spelling of the era favored the creative; these titles could appear under a number of spellings.

[Eugene]

I like the Morley recommendation too.

[JimD]

The Morley canzonets can be found here:
Morley's Canzonets for Two Voices

[Martin Jonas]

That facsimile edition of Playford is great for historic value, but for performing purposes, it might be better to go for the abc edition which is here. This is a text file which has all of the tunes of the 1651 first edition. In order to convert them into standard notation, open this file in ABC Navigator, which has readable output and basic playback. To convert on a tune-by-tune basis into higher quality standard notation, cut and paste individual tunes from the text file into the input window at this web site. No duets in Playford, though, so it would need some rearranging.

I've recently stumbled across a good, if slightly erratic, source for Renaissance music, many of them multi-voice, at this French site. There a number of Renaissance books transcribed into modern notation and published as PDF files there, such as Tielman Susato from 1544, Thoinot Arbeau from 1589 and Robert de Visee from 1682. For your purposes the most useful, however, is a compilation from various sources, with Renaissance tunes starting at page 4. This one has a number of duets which could be played on two violins, though they weren't intended to, including several by Susato and by Dowland. The editing is a bit of a mess, though.

Martin

[Jim Garber]

Mutopia has this under a search for Renaissance.

There is also Allan Alexander's Renaissance Music for Mandolin.

I am not sure how many of these are duets for mandolin/violin pitched instruments.

Jim

[gnelson651]

My daughter says thanks for your submittions to help her with her project.

She is going over the material you generously provided to decide which piece to play.

I'll give this group an update on her final performance.

Thanks again,

Glenn Nelson
Las Vegas, Nv