Re: TD 391 -- Thanks for correction on Huyghens, Monz

Hello, there, and thanks to "the Monz" both for a timely question, and
a very important correction:

> Can you give me precise dates and full names for Costeley and
> Vicentino?

First, the requested information: Guillaume Costeley (c. 1531-1606),
and Nicola Vicentino (1511-1576).

> And shouldn't 'Christoper Huyghens' be 'Christian'? (or is it
> Christiaan'?)

Thank you for this correction; I wonder if I was thinking of the
modern performer and author Christoper Page <grin>. Of course you're
right, and Barbour has 'Christian Huyghens'.

Vicentino's description of his tuning system and his archicembalo
appears in his treatise of 1555, _Antica musica ridotta alla moderna
prattica_, translated in a recent complete English edition by Maria
Maniates, _Ancient Music Adapted to Modern Practice_ (New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 1996). Maybe _ridotta_ could also be
rendered as "reduced," although "adapted" seems a nice translation of
Vicentino's approach.

Costeley's presentation of 19-tet appears in the Preface to his
_Musique_ of 1570, in a commentary on his included chromatic spiritual
chanson _Seigneur Dieu ta pitie/_ based on this tuning. For a
fascinating discussion of both the tuning and the chanson, see Kenneth
J. Levy, "Costeley's Chromatic Chanson," _Annales Musicologues:
Moyen-Age et Renaissance_, Tome III (1955), pp. 213-261.

Costeley's statement mentions that he composed the chanson about 12
years previously (c. 1558), and gives an interesting description of a
19-tet keyboard, see Levy at pp. 214-216:

"...it is necessary to add, within a keyboard octave containing eight
white keys and five black ones, another seven black keys, thus making
twelve black keys in all, distributed among the eight white ones....
The white and black keys will then be graduated by equal intervals of
a third of a tone, from one end to the other, providing the means of
achieving thereby something admirably agreeable and novel."

Costeley's "eight white keys" in an octave evidently include the keys
at both the beginning and end of the octave, e.g.:

Cb= Fb=
F# Gb G# Ab A# Bb B# C# Db Eb D# E#
F G A B C D E F

Thanks to John Chalmers and Brian McLaren for calling my attention to
this article and discussing it with me, although glitches (of which
I've proved myself well capable of twice in the last Digest) are, of
course, my responsibility.

Most appreciatively,

Margo Schulter
mschulter@value.net