For each fantasia, numbering follows that of the main source for Musica Britannica vol.62, which is London, British Museum, Madrigal Society Mss.G.37-42, a set of partbooks assumed to have been compiled for use in the court of James I and his elder son, Henry, Prince of Wales. The bracketed numberings are those used by Ernst Meyer in his pioneering doctoral study and by Gordon Dodd for the VdGS Thematic Index [ see http://www.vdgs.demon.co.uk/publications-ThematicIndex.htm ]
I hope that the analytical charts are clear and helpful for consorts who wish to perform these great fantasias with an understanding of their structure and motivic generation. Alfonso's compositional methods can be observed in many ways, ranging from monothematic designs to his common pattern of developing two sections from the motivic materials, some of which are interrelated. He employs the Renaissance conventions of ricercar, canzona (fantasias 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 13, 15, 19, 20) or "quilt canzona" (fantasia 14), occasionally madrigal (fantasia 16), villanella (fantasias 3, 5, 8, 11, 14, 16, 17, 21), canzonetta (fantasia 7), duos (fantasias 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 12, 15, 17) and cantus firmus (fantasias 14, 16). He seems to combine melodic and rhythmic elements of the Italian canzona with the longer-arching polyphonic lines of the ricercar. Rarely does he utilize features of the madrigal style that appears in works of many contemporaries. Rather, he continued more in the tradition of William Byrd, with strongly-profiled motives masterfully exploited and shaped with harmonic excursions and arrivals—an influence which was maintained especially by John Jenkins. Ferrabosco has an especially fluid control of the melodic, rhythmic, or harmonic elements of his materials, all of which provide musical enjoyment to the individual player and the consort as well as they discover the derivations and transformations of the initial motives. He was evidently a master of thematic transformation, with some pieces (fantasias 11, 13, 19, 20) displaying his brilliant control of the monothematic ricercar, moving into distant harmonic areas beyond the scope of other composers of his day. The climax of his achievement appears with the last fantasia, in two sections: a Hexachord fantasia, where the six-note cantus firmus motive in the Treble ascends chromatically from C to G and in the second section returns chromatically to C. As in all of his fantasias, freely-manipulated counterpoints produce a smooth texture that belies its intricacy. This is true chamber music of virtuoso quality, both for the composer and for the performers.
Alfonso's use of traditional musica ficta devices transcends conventions and creates a very modern exploitation of chromatic alterations. One of the characteristics of many Renaissance composers is also a mainstay of his: the use of cadential figures in order to shape phrases and longer sections. These are marked in the analyses with the number marking of the measure and then the tonal area arrived at or passed through—for example, in Fantasia 1: 5F 10F 10d and so on. The more principal cadences define full sections and are marked accordingly. By observing the various cadence structures, players can bring out the dissonant tensions and consonant releases by using bow strokes to shape the phrases into a more expressive performance.
Finally, I have thought it useful to provide a summary for each fantasia, and in places suggest some possible means of articulation and bowing so as to bring out the particular character of a phrase.
Please Note: In MB 62, the scores of the Hexachord Fantasia presented here as Fantasia 22, part 1 and part 2, are not included, even though there are parts provided in the associated String Parts edition (H350) published by Stainer & Bell. The scores are presented for comparison with the five-part versions in MB 81, no 1a and 1b.