One advantage Renaissance music had, specifically Elizabethan instrumental music, was an overabundance of genres - flipping through large collections like the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book produces a wealth of genres, not only a ton of dance forms but also oddities like "dump", "robin", "nancie" and "dream". It's a shame almost all of these have never returned (with the exception of Herbert Howells's excellent clavichord sets, Lambert's Clavichord and Howells's Clavichord), because I'd love to see someone like Ligeti take a crack at a "fortune" or "whistle". The Elizabethan viol player and composer Tobias Hume was no stranger to these forms, and just the other day I was introduced to a charming 30'' piece of his in one of the more intriguing forms, "toy":
I promise not to tell if you admit to not being able to read that. Written for bass viol, the piece is designed to be accompanied by a chord instrument such as a lute or guitar, and thankfully a wonderful man on YouTube can play both viol and guitar. Ernst Stolz is a Renaissance music expert who has put up dozens of performances of pieces from all walks of the 16th and 17th centuries, and he was kind enough to supply the score with this performance. He also included that neat woodcut at the top of this article, so if you're not a fan of playing soccer just imagine how annoying it would be to play wearing pantaloons.
~PNK
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