El cant dells ocells

This is a tiny little arrangement of a Catalan Christmas song, possibly from the 17th Century. What a charming little piece this is. Set in D minor, but with a rich vocabulary of harmonies, there is something almost Dowland about this. The fourth guitar, tuned down to D, adds a depth and sustain over which Marc Bataïni has placed the tune and some nicely decorated inner parts whose style does not sit at all uncomfortably with the period of the piece.
This is a confident arrangement with an immediate fugal start to the piece, which always gets an audience’s attention. Thereafter, the tune appears an octave (and two players) further down, making a nice contrast. There is a thoughtful mix of long and short notes so that the piece has flow without feeling duttered.
Unlike many of D’Oz’s publications, there is information about the piece and there is copious fingering. There are no dynamics, but being a song, there would be many repetitions of the whole piece in a real performance.
The parts are, as is expected of this publisher, dear and easy on the eye.
For a teacher looking for something unusual for a Christmas concert, this could be just the thing. 
Derek Hasted (Classical Guitar Magazine)

Villanelles

A ‘villanelle’ is a kind of short rustic poem divided into verses that end in the same chorus, even when set to music as a song. The subject was usually pastoral, a simple ballad, which gave them a popular appeal. However, the regrouping of the songs by Marc Bataïni does not strictly obey the fixed scheme as outlined in the definition above. It was the scholar Jean-Baptiste Besard (circa 1567-circa 1625) a composer, lutenist, lawyer and doctor, who was the first person in 1603 to publish an anthology of Renaissance and early Baroque music in tablature. The volume was called Thesaurus Harmonicus, containing 403 instrumental works and songs by different composers, including some of Besard’s own. All the songs display the simple beauty that is present in the italian madrigals from the beginning of the Baroque period. They are suitable for a medium to medium low voice, and the standard would be grade IV and above. Most of the songs are short, only a page long with verses which use the same accompaniment. The songs are in italian, with no translation. They are grouped as Villanelles in one voice, and Villanelles in three voices. In this volume the scordatura tuning of the G string to F sharp is widely used, and the capo is recommended as a tool to find the best key for the vocalist. A few songs use regular tunings and these often have more sharps and are slightly higher in pitch. The standard for the guitarist is grade V and above, the music is set on the lower positions of the guitar, never traveling higher than fret five, with chords that connect easily. For the Singer the challenge would be the correct pronunciation of the italian language, and interpreting the style of the songs. The cover is made of stiff white card with a long red strip on the right hand side, on this back¬ground; the facsimile is displayed of the original cover of Thesaurus Harmonics. Marc Bataïni, an experienced transcriber, has freely adapted the tablature of Jean Baptiste Besard but he has taken a lot of care to retain the original features of the songs, while expanding the score to make the accompaniments more interesting to modern ears. He is keen to promote the repertoire that is available for guitar and voice from this period that is too rarely heard in live performance.

Sandra Hambleton Smith (Classical Guitar Magazine)