20Aug24

20Aug24: Added A-Wn:Austrian National Library Music Collection ms. 9704: Jacobus Thurner Lautenbuch (c.1500). The first part of this ms appears to be very old. It has no bar lines in most of the ms and rather random rhythm flags. and only 3 kinds of these: vertical bars, single hooks, and 2, 4, and 6 member cross hatches. No dotted rhythms. This requires a certain amount of guesswork on the part of the editor. I have tried to produce a plausible edited version, but have included the original unedited version for comparison. Further, throughout, there are only two voices and a very limited number of chords used. In this part of the ms, many of the pieces begin with a little 4-note pickup ornament that is characteristic of many of the pieces in the Lochamer Liederbuch, dated 1460. These characteristics lead me to to believe that the ms was started around 1500 or a little earlier, which would make it one of the very earliest appearances of German tab. The latter part of the ms had to be completed later, as the odes it contains are more or less exact copies of those given in Judenkoenig “Utilis et Compendium introductio”, which itself is a very early work (c1515) consisting of intabulations of Horatio Odes set to music by Petrus Tritonius and published in 1507.

The ms consists of 24 pieces, 6 of which are the aforementioned odes, along with several dances and some intabulated lieds. and folk songs, some of which were later arranged by such notables as Senfl and Meiland.