Featured post

Please read: What to do if the links to transcriptions don't work

😩  All the links embedded in posts before 1 August 2020 are broken. As a workaround, please go directly to my repository on Google Drive  ...

Saturday 11 November 2017

Dowland: Mr Knight's Galliard (P 36)

This was not the most promising piece to transcribe for the ukulele – the lute original involves fingering on the low diapaison tuned to D' alias D1 (which is usually used open). So, rather than follow the native fingering I have transposed to the inevitable G to include as much music as possible. It's still a jolly tune, but obviously does not have that belly-vibrating bass line of the lute version.

There are three eight-bar strains, each repeated without variation. The first phrase, in the treble range, is repeated lower – by two octaves in the lute, by one octave in this arrangement – as in the extract below.  Diana Poulton notes that the motif is not original to Mr D, but occurs in earlier pieces by other composers. Versions of the motif occur in bar 3 (raised by a fifth), in Section B (bars 12–14) and more distantly in Section C (bar 19). I wonder if I've missed any.

Mr Knight's Galliard (simplified): the opening phrase and its repeat in the bass line



You can find the transcriptions here: