Tablature
Europe, 1300–1750
Edited by John Griffiths Edited by David Dolata Edited by Philippe Vendrix
Hardback (Published)
(September 2026)
ISBN: 9782503624945
9 x 11 inches
Price: $157.00
On back order
Tablature: Europe 1300-1750 offers an encyclopaedic panorama of the variety of tablatures that formed part of the Western musical mainstream until c.1750.
Tablature is a generic term for music written as a table or a score, most often using letters or numbers instead of conventional music notation. It was mainly used for solo instruments such as keyboards, lutes and guitars and was a mainstream notation until the mid-eighteenth century. Tablatures were also used for many single-line instruments—strings, winds, and brass—as well as the human voice. Composers and choir masters were among the other musically bilingual musicians who used tablature in their professional lives. Tablature was the most natural way to write music in score until conventional notation was gradually adapted for score writing during the seventeenth century.
Tens of thousands of tablature works survive from the early modern period until c.1750. Often dismissed as eccentric and impenetrable, tablature has frequently been seen as an obstacle, and often overlooked in music history studies. One of the principal aims of this book is to break down the barriers that have hindered the general assimilation of tablature repertories into the way we understand music of the past. Chosen from among thousands of surviving sources, this book presents a representative group of 435 tablatures selected by a team of leading international scholars to show the beauty, diversity, and practicality of the notation. For each chosen work, a facsimile shows the original notation and is accompanied by a modern transcription and commentary to demystify music that has too frequently been regarded as obscure or enigmatic.
List of Works
Introduction
Acknowledgements
Instruments & Tablatures
Angelique
Bandora and Orpharion
Bandurria
Baryton
Calichon and Mandora
Cimbalom
Citrinchen
Cittern
Guitar
Harp
Hunting horn
Keyboard
Lira da braccio
Lirone
Lute
Mandolino
Mandore
Musette
Recorder and Flageolet
Sordellina / Buttafuoco
Theorbo
Tromba marina
Trumpet
Vihuela
Viola da gamba and Lyra viol
Violin
Voice
Bibliography
Image credits
- Edited by John Griffiths
- Edited by David Dolata
- Edited by Philippe Vendrix
Other Titles in this Series
John Dunstaple Reading Boethius
John Dunstaple’s Annotations to Boethius’s “De institutione musica” in the Manuscript Oxford, Corpus Christi College Library, MS 118
Christophe Ballard, imprimeur-libraire en musique sous Louis XIV
Avec un inventaire des editions des Ballard de 1672 a 1715
Similar Books
A Late Antique Harrowing of Hell and Its Medieval Reception
Eusebius of Alexandria's Sermons 15 and 17 (CPG 5524; 5526) and their Latin Rewritings
Volume 99
Behind the Scenes of Medieval Roofs
An Overview of the Roofing Systems of Italian Churches
Volume 90
Beyond Sovereign Courts
Agents and Practices in Early Modern Spanish and Habsburg Diplomacy
Volume 3
Circulation, Use, Impact
The Consumption of Architectural Books in the Early Modern Eastern Adriatic
Volume 1
Innovation and Medieval Communities
The Circulation of Ideas and Practices in and out of the Town (1200-1500)
Volume 63
Legal Visuality
Exegesis, Ambiguity, and Dissimulation of the Donation of Constantine in the Early Modern Period
Linguistic and Cultural Dynamics in a Frontier Society
New Perspectives on Northeastern Bavaria and Western Bohemia in the Early Middle Ages
Volume 9
Medieval Debates on Foreknowledge: Future Contingents, Prophecy, and Divination
Acts of the XXVII Annual Colloquium of the SIEPM, Trento 12-15 September 2023
Volume 31
Medieval Yeghegis, Armenia
History, Archaeology, Society. Local Multiplicities and Global Connections of a Rural Centre on the Silk Road(s)
Naples as Laboratory / Laboratorium Neapel
Style Options, Artistic Rivalry and Self Fashioning in Neapolitan Baroque Painting / Plurale Stilbildung, Kunstlerkonkurrenz und Self Fashioning in der neapolitanischen Barockmalerei
Power and Women in Southeast and Central Europe in Late Medieval and Early Modern Period (1300-1600)
Volume 10
Students, Scholars and Their Books at the University of Louvain (1425-1797)
Studium Lovaniense: Learning across Borders, 1
Volume 17
