I just uploaded a new selection of early music transcriptions to my Music Scores page — four excellent pieces from different epochs:

De mi perdida esperança (facsimile)

De mi perdida esperança (transcription)

1. The earliest one is a polyphonic piece by Juan de Triana titled De mi perdida esperança from the Spanish manuscript Cancionero de la Colombina (possibly copied between 1460 and 1480).
   Lyrics only appear in the upper voice. There are many options to interpret the piece, one singer, two singers, three singers, no singers, recorders, viols, lutes…
2. The piece Jay pris amours by Antoine Busnoys is from the Harmonice Musices Odhecaton A. It took me a long time to figure out the musica ficta towards the end of the piece, there seems to be no perfect solution, since there always remains a diabolus in musica. Any experts’ opinion?
3. The Sonata duodecima a3, from Sonate Concertate, Libro Secondo, Venezia 1644, by Dario Castello shows the mastery of the Italian early baroque composer and instrumentalist. The tutti are majestic and powerful within the allegro parts, the homorhythmic adagios create coral effects (parlato) and the contrapuntal adagios are full of harmonic tensions. The soli of each instrument lead to great excitement through the free narration of melodies, accompanied by a basso continuo.
4. And finally the last piece, Sonata terza, from Troisieme livre de Sonatas, Pour la flûte traversiere, Avec la Basse, was composed by French flute virtuoso Michel Blavet (1700-1768). I’m normally not a huge fan of Galant music but this piece, written for transverse flute, I find very beautiful. The facsimile is easy to read, but I transcribed the piece and transposed it a 3rd up, in order to play it on the alto recorder instead of voiceflute or transverse flute… So this transcription is useful to recorder players only, but i’m also adding the Finale files so you can transpose it back up if you wish so.

Enjoy & come back for new music scores next month!