The Lyre and the Lyric: Spanish Vihuelists and the Courtly Poetry of the Renaissance

Abstract

This article provides a close examination of sixteenth-century vihuela books to understand the ways in which vihuelists affected courtly poetry in Renaissance Spain. Analysis of their cancioneros in the light of other poetry collections and accounts of the aulic life reveal aural and performative aspects of the production and consumption of poetry that otherwise would have remained hidden to literary studies. These aspects range from voice register of the singer to tempo and musical ornamentation, but also textual manipulation of ballads and sonnets—which they help popularize among courtiers—and management of noise and interruptions.

Notes

1 José Manuel Blecua, ‘Mudarra y la poesía del Renacimiento: una lección sencilla’, in his Sobre el rigor poético en España y otros ensayos (Barcelona: Ariel, 1977), 45–56.

2 Scott A. Trudell, Unwritten Poetry: Song, Performance, and Media in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford U. P., 2019), 7.

3 Joseph Roussiès, ‘El lamento de una monja: el madrigal “Ay de mí, sin ventura” de Gutierre de Cetina y una famosa melodía europea’, in Artes hermanas: poesía, música y pintura en el Siglo de Oro, ed. Jesús Ponce Cárdenas, Calíope. Journal of the Society for Renaissance and Baroque Hispanic Poetry, 20:2 (2015), 81–117 (p. 84); José Sierra Pérez & Manuel Tizón Díaz, ‘Poesías en los Preámbulos de los libros impresos de música en España durante los siglos XVI y XVII. Parte 1. Siglo XVI: vihuelistas y organistas’, Nassarre. Revista Aragonesa de Musicología, 34 (2018), 15–50 (p. 16, n. 2).

4 Luis de Milán, Libro de música de vihuela de mano intitulado ‘El maestro’ (Valencia: Francisco Díaz Romano, 1536), BNE R/14752 (digitized copy available via the Biblioteca Digital Hispánica at <http://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000022795> [accessed 17 February 2023]); Juan Vásquez, Recopilación de sonetos y villancicos a quatro y a cinco (1560), ed. & estudio de Higinio Anglés (Barcelona: CSIC, 2015).

5 Blecua, ‘Mudarra y la poesía del Renacimiento’, 48.

6 Alonso Mudarra, Tres libros de música en cifras para vihuela (Sevilla: Juan de León, 1546), BNE R/14630; digitized copy available via the Biblioteca Digital Hispánica at <http://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000108275&page=1> (accessed 17 February 2023).

7 Juan Boscán, Obra completa, ed., con intro., de Carlos Clavería Arza (Madrid: Cátedra, 1999), 115–20. For a translation and study of Boscán's essay, see Anne J. Cruz & Elias L. Rivers, ‘Three Literary Manifestos of Early Modern Spain’, PMLA, 126:1 (2011), 233–42.

8 These songbooks are: Milán, Libro de música de vihuela; Luis de Narváez, Los seys libros del Delphín de música de cifras para tañer vihuela (Valladolid: Diego Hernández de Córdoba, 1538), BNE R/14708 (digitized copy available via the Biblioteca Digital Hispánica at <http://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000134585&page=1> [accessed 17 February 2023]); Mudarra, Tres libros de música; Enríquez Valderrábano, Libro de música de vihuela intitulado Silva de sirenas (Valladolid: Francisco Fernández de Córdoba, 1547), BNE R/14018 (digitized copy available via the Biblioteca Digital Hispánica at <http://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000011806&page=1> [accessed 17 February 2023]); Diego Pisador, Libro de música de vihuela (Salamanca: Diego Pisador, 1552), BNE R/9280 (digitized copy available via the Biblioteca Digital Hispánica at <http://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000011806&page=1> [accessed 17 February 2023]); Miguel de Fuenllana, Libro de música para vihuela intitulado Orphénica lyra (Sevilla: Martín de Montesdoca, 1554), BNE R/9278 (digitized copy available via the Biblioteca Digital Hispánica at <http://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000188748&page=1>[accessed 17 February 2023]); Esteban Daza, Libro de música en cifras para vihuela intitulado El Parnaso (Valladolid: Diego Fernández de Córdova, 1576) BNE R/14611 (digitized copy available via the Biblioteca Digital Hispánica at <http://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000161355&page=1>[accessed 17 February 2023]).

9 We are aware of the extended urban use of vihuela and vihuela songbooks during the sixteenth century in Spain, as described in John Griffiths, ‘Hidalgo, Merchant, Poet, Priest: The Vihuela in the Urban Soundscape’, Early Music, 37:3 (2009), 355–65. Nevertheless, this article will only study the aulic implications of vihuela songbooks.

10 See Amedeo Quondam, El discurso cortesano, ed. & intro. de Eduardo Torres Corominas, trad. Cattedra di Spagnolo del Dipto di Scienze Documentarie, Linguistico-Filologiche e Geografiche della Sapienza Univ. di Roma (Madrid: Polifemo, 2013 [1^st Italian ed. 2007]), 66.

11 See John Milton Ward, ‘The Vihuela de Mano and Its Music, 1536–1576’, Doctoral dissertation (New York University, 1953), 247; Luis Gásser, Luis Milán on Sixteenth-Century Performance Practice (Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1996), 35; Juan José Rey, ‘El vihuelista Luis de Guzmán’, Revista de Musicología, 4:1 (1981), 129–32; Maricarmen Gómez, ‘Some Precursors of the Spanish Lute School’, Early Music, 20:4 (1992), 583–93; and Felipe Sánchez Mascuñano, ‘Luys Milán: la convivencia de dos mundos musicales’, Revista de Musicología, 16:6 (1993), 3322–29.

12 See Ian Woodfield, The Early History of the Viol (Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 1984), 77; John Griffiths, ‘Las vihuelas en la época de Isabel la Católica’, Cuadernos de Música Iberoamericana, 20:2 (2010), 7–36 (pp. 10 & 15).

13 See Giuseppe Fiorentino, ‘Unwritten Music and Oral Traditions at the Time of Ferdinand and Isabel’, in Companion to Music in the Age of the Catholic Monarchs, ed. Tess Knighton (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 504–48 (p. 545).

14 Tess Knighton, ‘The a capella Heresy in Spain: An Inquisition into the Performance of cancionero Repertory’, Early Music, 20:4 (1992), 560–82 (pp. 564–69).

15 Milán, Libro de música de vihuela de mano intitulado ‘El maestro’, A3^v.

16 Juan del Encina, ‘Arte de poesía castellana’, in Obra completa, ed. & estudio de Miguel Ángel Pérez Priego (Madrid: Fundación José Antonio de Castro, 1996), 7–24 (pp. 15–16).

17 Ignacio Navarrete, Orphans of Petrarch: Poetry and Theory in the Spanish Renaissance (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1994), 47.

18 María José Vega, ‘Poética de la lírica en el Renacimiento’, in Idea de la lírica en el Renacimiento (entre Italia y España), ed. María José Vega & Cesc Esteve (Pontevedra: Mirabel, 2004), 15–43 (pp. 20–21).

19 Pilar Ramos López, ‘Spanish Treatises on Musica Practica c.1480–1525: Reflections from a Cultural Perspective’, in Companion to Music in the Age of the Catholic Monarchs, ed. Knighton, 469–503 (p. 503).

20 Francisco de Salinas, De musica libri septem (1577), ed. facsímil, con intro., de Amaya García Pérez & Bernardo García-Bernalt Alonso (Salamanca: Univ. de Salamanca, 2013), 342. There is a Spanish translation of the above text from Latin (Francisco Salinas, Siete libros sobre la música, trad. Ismael Fernández de la Cuesta [Madrid: Editorial Alpuerto, 1983]). Miguel de Fuenllana indicates that those among his readers who would like to go beyond the mechanical execution of musical pieces ‘muy de veras conviene que aprenda la música si no la sabe: quiero dezir, canto de órgano, contrapunto, y aún entender la compostura’ (Libro de música para vihuela intitulado Orphénica lyra, fol. 7).

21 See Romancero, ed. Paloma Díaz-Mas (Barcelona: Crítica, 2001), 357.

22 Fiorentino (‘Unwritten Music and Oral Traditions’, 532) includes twelve ballads where the same occurs (Nos 74, 77, 79, 83, 100, 106, 113, 140, 146, 150, 445 & 446). In addition to these ballads, there are three villancicos by Juan del Encina; while these are complete in his personal cancionero, only the first stanza or first few verses are copied in this collection (Nos 79, 82 & 167).

23 Nancy F. Marino, Jorge Manrique’s ‘Coplas por la muerte de su padre’: A History of the Poem and Its Reception (Woodbridge: Tamesis, 2011), 78.

24 Fuenllana, Libro de música para vihuela intitulado Orphénica lyra, Libro 6, fol. 168.

25 Narváez, Los seys libros del Delphín, Libro 5, fol. 63.

26 Lluís del Milà, El cortesano, ed. a cura de Vicent Josep Escartí, estudis introductoris de Vicent Josep Escartí & Antoni Tordera, 2 vols (València: Univ. de València, 2001), A2^r, 176. The first page reference corresponds to the facsimile edition (Vol. I), while the second refers to the modern transcription (Vol. II).

27 See Luis de Ávila y Zúñiga, El cancionero de la corte de Carlos V y su autor, Luis de Ávila y Zúñiga, ed. Nancy F. Marino (Madrid: Iberoamericana/Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert, 2018).

28 For a commentary on this composition, see Ávila y Zúñiga, El cancionero de la corte de Carlos V, ed. Marino, 74–75.

29 Ávila y Zúñiga, El cancionero de la corte de Carlos V, ed. Marino, 222.

30 Encina, ‘Arte de poesía castellana’, 24.

31 Although they can be simplified as three mensural signs, Juan del Encina actually employs a total of six different symbols: ₵ indicates a binary rhythm; O, ₵3 and C· indicate a ternary rhythm in 3/2, 3/4, 3/8, 6/8; and, lastly, ₵5 and 32 are used for 5/4 and 5/8. See Juan José Rey, ‘La obra musical de Juan del Enzina: estudio musicológico’, in Obra musical completa de Juan del Enzina, 4 CDs (Madrid: Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia 1990 [1^st ed. 1981]), folleto, 7–19 (pp. 7–8).

32 Charles Jacobs, Tempo Notation in Renaissance Spain (New York: Institute of Medieval Music, 1964), 15–16.

33 Valderrábano, Libro de música de vihuela intitulado Silva de sirenas, A5^v.

34 For the inconsistencies among the different methods and its consequences, see Jacobs, Tempo Notation in Renaissance Spain.

35 Mudarra, Tres libros de música, A3^v.

36 Pisador, Libro de música de vihuela, A2^v.

37 Fuenllana, Libro de música para vihuela intitulado Orphénica lyra, fol. 5^r.

38 John Griffiths, ‘The Vihuela: Performance Practice, Style, and Context’, in Performance on Lute, Guitar, and Vihuela: Historical Practice and Modern Interpretation, ed. Victor Anand Coelho (Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 1997), 158–79 (p. 167).

39 Ward, ‘The Vihuela de Mano and Its Music, 1536–1576’, 75.

40 See Ward, ‘The Vihuela de Mano and Its Music, 1536–1576’, 41; and Wolfgang Freis, ‘Perfecting the Perfect Instrument: Fray Juan Bermudo on the Tuning and Temperament of the Vihuela de Mano’, Early Music, 23:3 (1995), 421–35 (p. 422).

41 Juan Bermudo, Declaración de instrumentos musicales (Osuna: por Juan de León, 1555), BNE R/5256, fol. 90^v; digitized copy available via the Biblioteca Digital Hispánica, <http://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000046174> (accessed 20 February 2023).

42 Griffiths, ‘The Vihuela: Performance Practice, Style, and Context’, 166.

43 Gásser, Luis Milán on Sixteenth-Century Performance Practice, 111.

44 A-re in Freis, ‘Perfecting the Perfect Instrument’, 422. Note that ‘A-re in’ is an imagined tuning for vihuelas, lutes and other Renaissance stringed instruments

45 Vicent Josep Escartí & Antoni Tordera, ‘Un programa educatiu per a la noblesa?’, in Milà, El cortesano, ed. Escartí & Tordera, I, 53–74.

46 We use the word ‘contralto’ as a uniform term to designate what, at the time, had different labels, such as ‘alto’, ‘contralto’ or ‘countertenor’. Gásser also explains that for a vihuela tuned in G, a tenor could sing some of the songs in the lowest register. If, on the contrary, the performer were to have a larger vihuela or one tuned in E or lower, then the tenor singer could sing in his natural range, but the stretches and movements required of the left hand playing the vihuela would have been very difficult to execute (Gásser, Luis Milán on Sixteenth-Century Performance Practice, 111).

47 Francisco Javier Roa Alonso, ‘Alonso Mudarra, vihuelista en la Casa del Infantado y canónigo en la Catedral de Sevilla’, Doctoral dissertation, 2 vols (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2016), I, 358–410.

48 The only exceptions are the song ‘Qué son aquestos’ for tenor and the villancico ‘Ysabel, perdiste la tu faxa’ for either soprano or tenor.

49 Fuenllana, Libro de música para vihuela intitulado Orphénica lyra, fol. 4^v.

50 Bermudo, Declaración de instrumentos musicales, Libro 1, Cap. 18, ‘De algunos avisos para los cantantes’, fols 17–18). It seems that Bermudo might have taken this idea from Andreas Ornithoparcus’ Musicae activae micrologus (1517). This work was translated by John Dowland and published as Andreas Ornithoparcus, His Micrologus, or Introduction: Containing the Art of Singing (London: Thomas Adams, 1609), and contains a similar imagologic analysis of different national singing traits, including those of Spain, Italy, France, England and Germany (Book 4, Chapter 8, p. 88); available at Early English Books Online, University of Michigan, <https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A08534.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext> (accessed 24 March 2022). Please note that this link provides an English translation of Ornithoparcus’ work, which was originally published in Latin.

51 Bermudo, Declaración de instrumentos musicales, Libro 4, Cap. 43, ‘De algunos avisos para los tañedores’, fol. 85.

52 Luis Venegas de Henestrosa, Libro de cifra nueva para tecla, harpa y vihuela: en el qual se enseña brevemente cantar canto llano y canto de órgano y algunos avisos para contrapunto (Alcalá: en casa de Joan de Brocar, 1557), BNE R/6497, fol. 3^r; digitized copy available via the Biblioteca Digital Hispánica, <http://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000039213&page=1> (accessed 20 February 2023).

53 Thomas de Sancta María, Arte de tañer fantasía (Valladolid: por Francisco Fernández de Córdoba, 1565), BNE M/15088, Ch. 19, fol. 46^v; digitized copy available via the Biblioteca Digital Hispánica, <http://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000158382&page=1> (accessed 20 February 2023).

54 Sancta María, Arte de tañer fantasía, Ch. 23, fol. 58^v.

55 Valderrábano, Libro de música de vihuela intitulado Silva de sirenas, A3^v.

56 See Pisador’s Libro de música de vihuela, A2^r.

57 Fuenllana, Libro de música para vihuela intitulado Orphénica lyra, fol. 5.

58 Pisador, Libro de música de vihuela, Libro 1, fols 4^v–5^v.

59 Salinas, De musica libri septem, ed. García Pérez & García-Bernalt Alonso, 346.

60 Cancionero musical de palacio (c.1505), ed. Joaquín González Cuenca (Madrid: Visor Libros, 1996), No. 131, p. 95.

61 Mary B. Quinn includes several interesting musico-poetic analyses of ballads in ‘Epic Nostalgia: The Ballads of the Cancionero musical de palacio and the Vihuela Songbooks’, in her The Moor and the Novel: Narrating Absence in Early Modern Spain (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 31–53.

62 Valderrábano, Libro de música de vihuela intitulado Silva de sirenas, fol. 26.

63 Gásser, Luis Milan on Sixteenth-Century Performance Practice, 25–28. A musical analysis of this ballad may be found in John Griffiths, ‘Luis Milán, Alonso Mudarra y la canción acompañada’, Edad de Oro, 22 (2003), 7–28 (pp. 16–19).

64 Roa Alonso, ‘Alonso Mudarra: vihuelista en la Casa del Infantado’, I, 361. The ‘Line’ column indicates the rhyme of the ballad, while the ‘Music’ column reveals the musical theme of each line.

65 Ignacio Navarrete, ‘The Problem of the Soneto in the Spanish Renaissance Vihuela Books’, The Sixteenth Century Journal, 23:4 (1992), 769–89 (p. 771).

66 Lorena Uribe Bracho, ‘Orphans of Orpheus: Music Lost and Regained in Spanish Golden Age Poetry’, Hispanic Review, 89:2 (2021), 193–216 (p. 198).

67 Navarrete, ‘The Problem of the Soneto’, 787–88. Roa Alonso (‘Alonso Mudarra: vihuelista en la Casa del Infantado’, I, 346) counts twenty-nine sonnets, but of the six in Luis Milán’s book, only three can be considered sonnets in prosodic terms. Similar issues are found in Mudarra’s classification of a section of an eclogue by Sannazaro, and in Valderrábano’s consideration of a stanza from Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso as a sonnet etc. It is apparent that vihuelists used the term soneto almost as a synonym of song in Italian metres.

68 Ward, ‘‘The Vihuela de Mano and Its Music, 1536–1576’, 288–91.

69 Boscán, Obra completa, ed. Clavería Arza, 116.

70 Milà, El cortesano, ed. Escartí & Tordera, I, V2^r–v; II, 473–74.

71 Milà, El cortesano, ed. Escartí & Tordera, I, V6^r–X3^v; II, 501–14.

72 Ines Ravasini, ‘Poesía y vida de corte: los sonetos en El cortesano de Luis Milán’, Revista de Poética Medieval, 28 (2014), 335–57 (p. 343).

73 Ignacio López Alemany, ‘El sonsoneto y la práctica poética cortesana en el siglo XVI’, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, 50:3 (2016), 583–603.

74 Milà El cortesano, ed. Escartí & Tordera, I, X6^r; II 519.

75 Roa Alonso, ‘Alonso Mudarra: vihuelista en la Casa del Infantado’, I, 380–82. I indicate the poetic rhyme in capital letters and the musical motifs in lower case after each verse. The apostrophe in f’ and g’ indicates a variation on the musical theme.

76 Listen to Spanish Songs, Emilio Pujol (vihuela) & Rosa Barbany (soprano) (EMEC, 2016 [1^st recording 1954]), CD, Track 8; Alonso Mudarra, Libro tercero de música en cifras y canto, Hopkinson Smith (vihuela) & Montserrat Figueras (vocals) (Astrée Digital Edition/Alia Vox, 2009 [1^st recording 1994]), CD, Track 10; and Alonso Mudarra, Tres libros de música, Pierre Pitzl (vihuela), Raquel Andueza (soprano) & Private Musicke (Accent, 2009), CD, Track 24.

77 See Garcilaso de la Vega, Obras completas con comentario, ed. Elias L. Rivers (Madrid: Castalia, 1974); Garcilaso de la Vega, Poesía completa, ed. Juan Francisco Alcina (Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1989); María Rosso Gallo, La poesía de Garcilaso de la Vega: análisis filológico y texto crítico (Madrid: Real Academia Española, 1990); Garcilaso de la Vega, Obra poética y textos en prosa, ed., prólogo & notas de Bienvenido Morros, con un estudio preliminar de Rafael Lapesa (Barcelona: Crítica, 1995); and Garcilaso de la Vega, Poesía, ed., con intro., de Ignacio García Aguilar (Madrid: Cátedra, 2020).

* Disclosure Statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.