Mudarra, Alonso (EN)

Mudarra Alonso, *ca. 1510 in the Diocese of Palencia, †1 April 1580 Seville, Spanish vihuelist, guitarist and composer. In his youth, he entered the service of the Dukes of Mendoza, Diego Hurtado and Iñigo López in Guadalajara. On 18 October 1546, he became a canon of Seville Cathedral and remained there until his death, actively participating in administrative work, including organising the solemn celebration of Corpus Christi, bringing in musicians, supervising the installation of new organs (1566–73), and in 1568 the chapter entrusted him with the supervision of all the cathedral’s expenses.

Mudarra published a 236-page tablature entitled Tres libros de musica en cifras para vihuela (Seville, 1546). He had been collecting his repertoire for many years, also travelling with the court of the Princes of Mendoza around Italy (perhaps in 1529) and Spain, so the content of the collection is diverse. The first book, after explanations of notation, begins with pieces for vihuela: 9 fantasias, treated by the composer as études (“for practising the hands”), two intabulations of fragments of Masses (by Josquin des Prés), followed by a piece also called a fantasia, based on a folla pattern and imitating the playing style of the harpist Ludovic, famous, among other things, for his ability to play chromaticism on diatonically tuned instruments. Due to its texture, structure and degree of dissonance, this fantasia has no equivalent in the known repertoire for vihuela and lute. Mudarra then included two cycles of variations (based on the “Conde claros” and Romanesque patterns) and two pavanas and a galliard, in which he also used the variation technique. The book concludes with pieces for the 4-string guitar: four fantasies, a pavane (using the same harmonic pattern as the first of the vihuela pieces) and a second cycle of romanesca variations. The pieces in the second book (for vihuela only) are grouped into eight sections according to successive tones. Each group begins with a tiento and a fantasia; this pair in five tones is followed by composturas glosadas, compositions in which intabulated sections of mass fragments (four by Josquin and one by A. de Fevin) are preceded by their paraphrase, a kind of instrumental parody. In three groups, instead of such a piece, and in the fourth, in addition to it, there are fantasias. The division made by Mudarra, placing some fantasies in book 1 and others in book 2, is not justified by their texture. In both cases, these pieces are most often a combination of imitative sections and free polyphony with chordal sections and monophonic passages. There is also no significant difference between them in terms of tonality, especially since the transposition of the finalis and frequent oscillations between the diatonic and chromatic forms of individual degrees (e.g. F sharp in Phrygian mode) blur the division into eight modes and lead to a dualism of minor and major types. There appears less less polyphony in the tientos; they are also generally shorter, and their material affinity often links them to the fantasia that follows them, making them a kind of prelude. The third book contains works for solo voice and vihuela: 3 motets (by A. Willaert, N. Gombert and Cananea), 3 romances (ballad narratives of scenes from the Old and New Testaments), 3 canciones, 3 sonnets in Castilian (the first, on the death of Charles V’s daughter, in the form of a dialogue), 4 versos en latin (the first to a contemporary text, on the death of a princess, followed by Virgil, Horace and Ovid), 4 Italian sonnets (Petrarch, anonymous, and 2 by J. Sannazaro), 5 villancicos and 2 Latin psalms. In literature, there is an opinion that Book 3 contains the earliest songs originally composed for voice with accompaniment, but the instrumental interludes in many of them, imitatively linked to the vocal line, suggest rather that these are intabulations such as those previously published by F. Bossinensis or P. Attaingnant. At the end of the collection, after the errata, there is an announcement of the publication of tablature for harp and organ, as well as a tiento, written as an example of a newly invented notation for these instruments; the publication project was probably not realised, and the notation did not catch on, but 20 pieces from Tres libros were published by L. Venegas de Henestrosa (1557) in a transcription for organ.

Throughout the entire print, Mudarra used the Italian lute tablature system, limited to four lines in guitar pieces. In Book 3, the first two motets are also written in this notation, except that the vocal line has been highlighted, as in L. Milan’s print, but not with a different colour, but with an apostrophe added to the corresponding numbers. In all subsequent pieces, the vocal part is written separately, using mensural notation. Mudarra used left-hand fingerings that were uncommon in lute tablature at the time, so transcriptions assuming a uniform tuning of instruments (Gamut or Alamire) require in many cases the introduction of several flats or sharps at the clef. This would confirm the practice, already observed in L. Milan’s tablature and described by J. Bermudo, of using transpositions of modes other than the downward fifth in Spanish instrumental music. E. Pujol adopted a different concept. Also based on Bermudo’s work, which mentions vihuelas tuned to all seven degrees, he stated that it was necessary to use vihuelas tuned to D, E, F, F sharp, G and A, and guitars also in C; however, it is unlikely that the composer would have made such requirements. Mudarra provides mensural notation without clef signs or with a single flat, specifying the fret and string to indicate the pitch corresponding to the first note; here too, Pujol adapts the vihuela to the vocal part, whereas the opposite situation was much more likely, and the composer only wanted to avoid unusual notation in mensural notation. 

Literature: J.M. Ward The Editorial Methods of Venegas de Henestrosa, “Musica Disciplina” VI, 1952; J.M. Ward The Use of Borrowed Material in 16th-Century Instrumental Music, “Journal of the American Musicological Society” V, 1952; J.M. Ward The Vihuela de mano and Its Music, dissertation, New York University, 1953; M. Schneider Un villancico de Alonso de Mudarra procedente de la música popular granadina, “Anuario Musical” X, 1955; C. Jacobs Tempo Notation in Renaissance Spain, New York 1964; D. Preciado Las esclavas del canónigo vihuelista Alonso Mudarra, “Revista de Musicología” II, 1979; J. Griffiths The Vihuela Fantasia. A Comparative Study of Forms and Styles, dissertation, Monash University, 1983; R. Chiesa Storia della letteratura del liuto e della chitarra. LI–LIV. Il cinquecento – Alonso Mudarra, “Il Fronimo” XIII–XIV, 1985–86; R. Stevenson La música en la catedral de Sevilla, 1478–1606. Documentos para su estudio, Madryt 1985; J. Griffiths La Fantasía que contrahaze la harpa de Alonso Mudarra. Estudio histórico-analítico, “Revista de Musicología” IX, 1986; C. Jacobs A Spanish Renaissance Songbook, University Park 1988; K. Wagner Los libros del canónigo y vihuelista Alonso Mudarra, “Bulletin Hispanique” XCII, 1990; J. Sage A New Look at Humanism in 16th-Century Lute and Vihuela Books, “Early Music” XX, 1992; G. Braun Die Spanischen Vihuela-Lieder im 16. Jahrhundert, dissertation, Universität Heidelberg, 1993; E. Bermúdez Sobre la identidad de Ludovico, “Nassarre” X, 1994; T. Binkley and M. Frenk Spanish Romances of the Sixteenth Century, Bloomington 1995; W.B. Hearn Performing the Music of Alonso Mudarra. An Investigation into Performance Practice in the Music of the Vihuelistas, dissertation, University of Arizona, 1995; J. Szurek Solowe utwory instrumentalne w „Tres libros de musica en cifras para vihuela” Alonso Mudarra – tonalność, harmonika, faktura, master’s thesis, Jagiellonian University, 1996; O. Schöner Die Vihuela de mano im Spanien des 16. Jahrhunderts, Frankfurt am Main 1999; D. Lawrence Mudarra’s Instrumental Glosas: Imitation and Homage in a Spanish Style, in: Encomium Musicae. Essays in Memory of Robert J. Snow, ed. G. Grayson Wagstaff, Hillsdale 2002; J. Griffiths Improvisation and Composition in the Vihuela Songs of Luis Milán and Alonso Mudarra, in: Gesäng zur Laute, ed. N. Schwindt, Kassel 2003; J. Griffiths Luis Milán, Alonso Mudarra y la canción acompañada, “Siglos de Oro” XXII, 2003; J. Griffiths The Vihuela: Performance Practice, Style, and Context, w: Performance on Lute, Guitar, and Vihuela. Historical Practice and Modern Interpretation, ed. V. A. Coelho, Cambridge 2005; J. Szurek Porządek modalny w Tres libros de musica Alfonsa Mudarry, in: Muzykolog wobec świadectw źródłowych i dokumentów. Księga pamiątkowa dedykowana profesorowi Piotrowi Poźniakowi w 70. rocznicę urodzin, ed. Z. Dobrzańska-Fabiańska, Krakow 2009; K. Schöning Vocal Basis in Tientos by Luis Milán and Alonso Mudarra: Myth of Reality?, in: New Perspectives on Early Music in Spain, eds. T. Knighton and E. Ros-Fabregas, Kassel 2015; F. Roa Alonso Alonso Mudarra. Vihuelista en la Casa del Infantado y canónigo en la Catedral de Sevilla, dissertation, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2016; M. Tizón Díaz Análisis retórico del género fantasía en Alonso Mudarra, “Neuma” 2018.