la guitarre royalle

[Bill Brettschneider]

Page 69, saraband. Measure 16. What is going on here? Was it common, when the composer wanted to sustain a more or chord beyond the bar line, to simply delete the bar line?

[Bill Brettschneider]

Note, not more.

[Peter Sinnaeve]

Well yes, it's just a classic hemiola.

[Bill Brettschneider]

I'm not used to the bar lines being left out like that. It took me a while to make sense of it. At first I thought maybe the note values were wrong. So is that a normal solution, for the composer to just leave out the bar line?

[Monica Hall]

Yes - but he is not exactly leaving out the bar lines- it is a change of metre from 3/4 to 3/2 but they don't put in changes of time signaure.   They just put a three at the beginning.   If they want to write three minims  in a row they put them in a single bar rather than tying them over a bar line.

[Roberto]

Not sure if this is the same issue, but in the last two bars of the Passacaglia (p.21) in Corbetta's 1648 book, should the last two notes of the penultimate bar and the first two of the last bar be crotchets?

[Monica Hall]

Yes - they should be.   There should be a bar line before the final chord.   Corbetta's 1648 book is very badly printed.

[Roberto]

Thank you, Monica.

[Bill Brettschneider]

Ok, but it works out to the same thing. So this was a common practice?

[Monica Hall]

It was certainly common practice to alternate bars in 3/4 or 6/4 with bars in 3/2.   Baring may sometimes be irregular.   Some early sources are not barred at all - Foscarini for example.  The early 17th century saw a lot of changes in the way mensural music was notated which reflect the change in musical styles.

[Bill Brettschneider]

Thank you very much. I was not aware of this.