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• 8 Pieces from the Flötner Playing Cards

8 Pieces from the Flötner Playing Cards

for 4 instruments.

These pieces have come down on the back of a set of playing cards, preserved in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nürnberg: they are reproduced in full in Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Bayern, NeueFolge, Sonderband 1: Die Flötnerschen Spielkarten, Wiesbaden, 1967. They were produced, probably in the 1540s, by the artist Peter Flötner (c.1490-1546), who worked in that city.The four parts of the music are divided over one set (e. g. kings, twos. etc), which rather reduces the usefulness of the cards for actual games. We can only assume that the cards were intended as art objects, or collector´s items. The music is supplied only with an opening line or two, so we must suppose that the cards were intended for purely instrumental use, or that the texts were well-known in Nürnberg.
As in most German songs of the early sixteenth century, the main melody is in the tenor part. Stylistically the pieces are not much different from the typical Tenorlieder found in the collections of Johannes Ott and Georg Forster, etc. There are, however, occasional primitive touches, suggesting that the pieces were written by a minor composer, possibly even an amateur musician.
In this edition the original note values have been halved. Editorial accidentals appear printed small above the stave, applying to the one note only. In the last piece printed here, the bass part is editorial, as the card in question has not survived: there are also a few missing notes in other parts (shown in the edition in brackets).