Today I would like to write about Samuel Mareschall. He was a teacher, organist and composer born in Tournai (Netherlands) in 1554 but his first appearance in documentary is in Basel (CH). I did my master thesis (2018) about his treatise Porta Mvsices.
After twelve years as a teacher of music, Mareschall wrote Porta Mvsices (1589) as an answer to an academic reformation. Why is it interesting for gamba players?
Porta Musices is an introduction to music, some short tuning instructions for the gamba and exercises.
These instruments had five strings, tuned with a difference of a fourth between the strings. Mareschall not only represents the tuning, he specifies the range of each note and the clefs.