Fantasia for lute (Albani collection)

For me this tricky didactic style piece is the best fantasia in Albani’s collection, containing some techniques not found elsewhere, a feature of higher level lute music, whose players were secretive, knowing that their ideas would be stolen by an ear on the wall. Some of these shapes can be found in German manuscript sources Krakow and Donaueschingnen (or earlier in Bakfark 1565), less so in prints of Molinaro, Terzi, Besard (though the latter with Cherbury contains some Pinti indeed, who in polyphonic style can be compared to Jacob Reys, the most represented composer in Cherbury…not Bacheler, not Dowland, not the “English” Gaultier, not Ballard etc). I think this fantasia must be by a known player, perhaps Pinti (The Knight of the Lute). The other fantasias in Albani’s collection don’t quite stand out, although two more fantasias are almost certainly by Pinti. When you read lots of repertoire, it is actually not difficult to pick up on unique characteristics of certain composers due to how closely the music was shaped by their hands on the instrument. There are strikingly similar devices found for example in the Romanesca “del signor cavaliere” and the Spagna setting in Albani’s collection, stuff you don’t find in Reys (who has a large body of surviving work, c.50-60 pieces)