La lira d’Orfeo
La Musica strumentale del Parnasso delle corde a pizzico …
GASPAR SANZ Paradetas
FRANCESCO CORBETTA Folias
GIAN PAOLO FOSCARINI Passacaglie per varie lettere
ALESSANDRO PICCININI Toccata
HIERONYMUS KAPSBERGER Canarios
HIERONYMUS KAPSBERGER Arpeggiata Addio
HIERONYMUS KAPSBERGER Chacona
TRAD Passacalles andaluz
GIAN PAOLO FOSCARINI Tasteggiata
GIAN PAOLO FOSCARINI Aria di Firenze
HIERONYMUS KAPSBERGER Toccata
GIROLAMO FRESCOBALDI Cosi mi disprezzate
BERNARDO GIANONCELLI Corrente
AUS DEM LAUTENBUCH DER MARGARET BOARD Home again
THOMAS ROBINSON Passamezzo
GIAN PAOLO FOSCARINI Romanesca
ANTONIO CARBONCHI Scaramanzia
DIEGO ORTIZ Recercada
DIEGO ORTIZ Passacaglia
SANTIAGO DE MURCIA Tarantellas
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Numerous legends are associated with the lyre – according to Greek mythology the first musical instrument – and particularly with that of Orpheus. The lyre, it is said, was invented by Hermes, who left his mother the day he was born, killed a tortoise and drilled holes in its shell, through which he drew the gut strings of cattle. He had stolen the latter from his brother Apollo, to whom he ultimately gave the lyre in order to appease his fury over the theft. Apollo in turn gave this instrument to his son Orpheus, who was not only able to play the lyre enchantingly, but was also the first person to sing to it. As is generally known, he was able to move even the gods with his playing.
From the tortoise’s shell soon developed numerous variations and special forms of plucked instruments, such as the keyed fiddle or nyckelharpa known in 16th- and 17th-century Germany – two examples from the southern German and Austria region can be admired in the Salzburg Museum – or the two-stringed colascione from southern Italy, which gradually disappeared in the early 18th century. However, the guitar used by singer-songwriters to accompany their singing also belongs to this group of instruments, for which beautiful and virtuoso works by many masters of the Middle Ages and Renaissance survive, mainly in manuscripts, such as pieces by the Venetian composer Hieronymous Kapsberger (1580–1651), who is often compared with Monteverdi.