William Byrd (1540-1623): "Munsers Almaine", or "Mounsiers Almaine" Originally for keyboard or virginals from "My Ladye Nevells Booke" (c. 1590) Consort setting by Thomas Morley, from "Morley's Consort Lessons" (1599) This is a widely copied late Tudor dance tune with somewhat murky authorship. Byrd appears the most likely composer, as he is credited with having written all 42 tunes in "My Ladye Nevells Booke". Most recorded versions use the spelling "Monsieurs Almaine" and are credited to lutenist Daniel Bacheler (1572 - 1619), although as far as I can tell he just wrote a set of lute variations to Byrd's earlier tune. Either way, my arrangement is adapted from a 5-part broken consort setting by Thomas Morley, via a transcription by Steve Hendricks, at: https://sca.uwaterloo.ca/sca/Hendric...y/mounsie2.pdf I've dropped the chordal treble part down an octave and played it on tenor guitar. Other parts on two mandolins, octave mandolin and mandocello. Vintage Viaten tenor guitar Mid-Missouri M-0W mandolin 1915 Luigi Embergher mandolin Mid-Missouri M-111 octave mandolin Suzuki MC-815 mandocello https://youtu.be/xNqFR_eZ8vk Martin
Very ambiguous project Martin. I really enjoyed the guitar chords and then feeling of call and response. BTW shouldn't there be an apostrophe in the title? There's only the one monsieur?
Thanks, Simon! Did you mean "ambitious" rather than "ambiguous"? Regarding the spelling, the piece is pretty widely recorded these days as a solo piece either on classical guitar or on lute (based on Bacheler's lute setting), sometimes with and sometimes without the apostrophe. The majority seems to be without, so that's what I went with to make it easier to find. As for the original spelling, Byrd used "Munsers" and Morley used "Mounsiers", in each case without apostrophe. Martin
It was indeed ambitious. This is another great tune and I really liked your approach.
