2022-12-22

22Dec22: Completed work on arrangements for lute and voice of 33 songs and consort pieces by Henry Tudor (Henry VIII). All are from GB-Lbl British Library Add. ms. 31922 (1515), except for a solo version of “Pastime with good company”, arranged from Add ms. 5665 (1612). All must be fairly early works, since he was born in 1491 and thus must have been 24 at the time of the ms. I suppose his life became overfilled with events for him to have composed stuff later. Nonetheless, he shows himself to be a competent, if not stellar, composer. My intabulations are literal ones. I have not tried to insert lutenistic ornaments or passagework, partly because I don’t know what would really be appropriate for that time period. The harmonies could be filled out a little, as I have seen being the case for some harpsichord arrangements of the consort pieces. Sometimes, I have had to change the key and put the top part up an octave to make a suitable lute solo.

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