This groundbreaking composition is a unique item in the output of Mudarra, who wrote works for six-course vihuela, four-course guitar, and voice and vihuela. Today it is normally played in transcriptions for guitar, a very fine one of which has been made by Julio Prol. The "Ludovico" referred to in the title was Ferdinand V's court harpist.

Two characteristics make this piece unique: (1) it was the first piece to notate what may be called the Andalusian style, an important element of which is the Phrygian tetrachord (E to A, or, B to E ascending on the piano's white keys) that contains the plaintive, mournful minor second; (2) approximately the last third of the piece has extreme dissonances resulting from two different modes played simultaneously.

The work opens with simple slowly descending arpeggios (plus one passing tone, D natural) on an A major chord. Then a Lydian scale on A (A, B, C sharp, D sharp, E) is obsessively varied in a steady rolling pattern. Then a B major chord slowly descends, and the listener hears the previous Lydian scale in a new context. The rolling pattern is repeated one step higher (Ionian mode) and seems to cadence on a slowly descending E minor chord. But the process has still not stopped and the fantasy continues. The rolling pattern is a half step higher (another Lydian mode, but also Phrygian in relation to what has gone before).

This continual shifting of mode and key, of rolling variation and arpeggiated chord keeps the tonality floating, and pleases as well as delightfully confuses the ear. All the while, the steady pulse is non-relenting, but kept in the background until the last third of the piece. The rolling pattern begins to develop an overt, repeating, and slightly varied dance-like rhythm at this point of a distinctly Andalusian type: two measures of 3 + 2 + 3; varied as 3 + 2 + 3, 3 + 3 + 2. This obsessive insistence of this rhythm captures the listener.

The stinging yet bright dissonances come into play as the rolling pattern retains its D sharp (for instance, in a Lydian mode on A in quarters) against a D natural in the slower, lower voice (for instance, in an Ionian or major mode on A in half notes). This still sounds bizarre yet thrilling to us today, and is a wonderful tension naturally arising from the previously established musical context.

For the brief coda, containing Phrygian mode-based chords, the tempo slows to a grand pesante with the final arpeggiated, sixteenth century sound of a chord of octaves and a fifth minus a third, leaving us with a powerful yet neither "sad" nor "happy" concluding impression.

© "Blue" Gene Tyranny, Rovi