At Court and at Home with the vihuela de mano: Current Perspectives of the Instrument, its Music and Its World

Abstract

Discusses the musical style of the early 14th-century Italian caccia and its relation to other early canonic works. Using an analytical method based on periodicity, it proposes a theory of how Italian composers liberated it from initially being a circular canon.

Full text

At
Court
and
at
Home
with
the
Vihuela
de
mano:
Current
Perspectives
on
the
Instrument,
its
Music,
and
its
World
BY
JOHN
GRIFFITHS
T
HE
VIHUELA
DE
MANO
WAS
THE
MOST
prominent
solo
instrument
in
sixteenth-century
Spain.
It
enjoyed
a
popularity
that
extended
across
a
broad
social
spectrum
and—much
more
than
has
generally
been
recognized—was
equally
familiar
to
the
middle-classes
as
to
royalty
and
the
nobility.
For
both
pleasure
and
learning,
it
served
court
and
domestic