16th-Century Keyboard Tablature as Performance Notation

Christina Kwon

As a harpsichordist and HIP performer, I was so fascinated with 16th-century keyboard tablature notation on my first encounter some years ago. Since then, I have been inspired to explore playing from original notation as part of my HIP training. This research is a big part of this artistic endeavor, addressing 16th-century keyboard tablature notation from Spanish and German sources and finding answers for what it is, why it was invented, why it is not in practice today, and how one may bring it back to practice. At the beginning stages of this exploration, I noticed that keyboard tablature was not really in practice as performance notation in the current HIP dialogue. I wanted to investigate why and, through this thesis, present it as a relevant, stimulating topic. This research presents historical and theoretical analysis of this notation and the results of an extensive systematic experiment-survey I devised and conducted with 32 non-musicians and musicians of all levels. Personally, the contents of this thesis have greatly deepened my understanding of historical performance of keyboard music in the 16th century and enriched my experience as an Early Music performer.

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For Further Reading

Apel, Willi. “The Importance of Notation in Solving Problems of Early Music.” Papers Read by Members of the American Musicological Society at the Annual Meeting, 1938, pp. 51–61. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43873119.

Bent, Margaret. “Editing Early Music: The Dilemma of Translation.” Early Music, vol. 22, no. 3, 1994, pp. 373–392. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3128085.

Bent, Margaret. “IMPOSSIBLE AUTHENTICITIES.” Il Saggiatore Musicale, vol. 8, no. 1, 2001, pp. 39–50. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43030370.

Blackburn, Bonnie J. “The Editing of Early Music: Now and in the Future.” Early Music, vol. 36, no. 4, 2008, pp. 671–672. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27655282.

Boorman, Stanley. ”Early Music Printing: Working for a Specialized Market,” Print and Culture in the Renaissance: Essays on the Advent of Printing in Europe. Ed. Gerald P. Tyson and Sylvia S. Wagonheim. Newark, DE: Univ of Delaware Press, 1986), 222.

Dumitrescu, Theodor, et al., editors. Early Music Editing: Principles, Historiography, Future Directions. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2013.

Kelly, Thomas Forrest. Capturing Music: The Story of Notation. New York: W.W. Norton, 2015.

Krummel, Donald and Sadie, Stanley, eds. Music Printing and Publishing. New York: W.W. Norton, 1990.

Kuijken, Barthold. The Notation Is Not the Music: Reflections on Early Music Practice and Performance. Indiana University Press, 2013.

Owens, Jessie Ann. Composers at Work: The Craft of Musical Composition 1450-1600. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1997.

Rastall, Richard. The Notation of Western Music: An Introduction. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982.

Riemann, Hugo. Studien zur Geschichte der Notenschrift. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1878.

Richardson, Constance. “BACH’S COPIES OF AMMERBACH.” Music and Letters, vol. XXXVIII, no. 2, 1957, pp. 209-a-209. Crossref, doi:10.1093/ml/XXXVIII.2.209-a.

Schulze, Hans-Joachim. “Wer Intavolierte Johann Sebastian Bachs Lautenkompositionen?” Die Musikforschung, vol. 19, no. 1, 1966, pp. 32–39. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41116014.

Young, William. “Keyboard Music to 1600, I.” Musica Disciplina, vol. 16, 1962, pp. 115–150. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20531957.

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