Vihuela

Orpheus playing a vihuela. Image from the famous tabulature by Luis de Milán, Libro de música de vihuela de mano intitulado El maestro (1536). The text surrounding the image praises Orpheus as the inventor of vihuela. Most vihuelas are much smaller than the engraving suggests.

Vihuela is the name of two string instruments, one from Spain and one from Mexico.

Contents

1 Spanish ''vihuela''
2 Mexican ''vihuela''
3 Notes
4 References
5 External links
6 Discography

Spanish vihuela

The Spanish vihuela de mano looks like a delicate 12-string guitar with gut strings and 1-5 decorated rosettes instead of the sound holes. It came in many sizes.

The first mention of the vihuela is in the 15th Century, in the Kingdom of Aragón. In Italy and Portugal it was known as a viola da mano.¹ The vihuela was in common use in the 15th and 16th centuries, but it became obsolete, along with the complex polyphonic music that was its repertoire. The vihuela's descendants that are still played are the violas campanicas of Portugal. The vihuela's place was taken by its descendant, the baroque guitar (also sometimes referred to as vihuela or bigüela). Today is in use only for the performance of early music, usually with modern replicas of historical instruments.

The first composer to publish a collection of music for the vihuela was the Spanish composer Luis de Milán, with his big book Libro de música de vihuela de mano intitulado El maestro of 1536. The notation of the music in this book is tablature, and all the music is easily performed on the guitar.

There were several different types of vihuelas in Spain:

Vihuela de mano - 6 courses played with fingers
Vihuela de pueblo - 4 courses
Vihuela de plectro - played with a plectrum
Vihuela de arco - played with bow (ancestor of the viola da gamba)

Tunings for the vihuela de mano:

G C F A D G
C F B-flat A D G

The printed books of music for the Vihuela which have survived are, in chronological order:

El Maestro by Luis de Milán (1536)
Los seys libros del Delphin by Luis de Narváez (1538)
Tres Libros de Música by Alonso Mudarra (1546)
Silva de sirenas by Enríquez de Valderrábano (1547)
Libro de música de Vihuela by Diego Pisador (1552)
Orphénica Lyra by Miguel de Fuenllana (1554)
El Pamasso by Estevan Daça (1576).

The four known surviving instruments are the well-known example in the Musée Jacquemart-Andrée, the recently re-discovered 'Chambure' instrument in the Cité de la Musique (both in Paris), the Portuguese 'Dias' vihuela in the Royal College of Music (London), and the rather enigmatic instrument in Quito, Ecuador. The last example was a relic of Saint Mariana de Jesús (1618-1645); it is kept in the Iglesia de la Compañiz de Jesús de Quito, and because of the near-impossibility of its availability for close study by scholars and organologists and its extremely fragile condition, it has not been comprehensively examined until very recently.

Mexican vihuela

While this instrument shares the same name with the Spanish instrument, they do not have anything to do with each other and are not related to one another. The Mexican vihuela instead shares more in common with the Timple Canario (see: tiple) due to both having five strings and both having vaulted (convex) backs.

The Mexican vihuela is used by mariachi bands, most notably in central Jalisco, Mexico. It is played with fingers strumming open chords on the fretted part of the neck.

Tuning: ADGBE (The ADG are tuned one octave above a guitar)

Notes

Note 1: The words vihuela and viola appear to be etymologically related.

References

Blattman, Erica et al. (2002). "[Mariachi Embraced in Our World]". Retrieved April 23, 2005.

External links

[Goldberg, "Los dos rinacimintos de la vihuela"] The twentieth-century resuscitation of the vihuela.

Several photos of Spanish vihuelas can be found among the [instrument photos at Wayne Cripps' lute pages].

Discography

[Delphin] (with Vihuela sound samples)
[Fuenllana: Vihuela Music]
[Milán, Narváez]
[Website with free MP3 files of vihuela music]

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