Thank you for this Howard and for your time.
My starting point in any discussion on performance practice is a
belief that the performance should respect the composer's intentions
(to the best of our present knowledge) and thus what auditors expected
to hear. The range requirements of these solo (English) lute songs is
not great and well within the capabilities of most sopranos or tenors
with only a modest ranges. So, as pointed out earlier, the only reason
to transpose these particular lute songs is to perform them with a
voice type (eg alto) it is highly unlikely the composer expected to be
used. In short, it is indeed both unecessary to have to transpose on
sight and to use the alto voice for these pieces (your 'two issues').
As I wrote earlier, other modes of performance are perfectly possible
and if nowadays some people like them, or even prefer them, then so be
it. But, like Hill, I do object to it (ie use of male altos in the
repertoire) being touted as the way the Old Ones expected their music
to be performed. And, yes, regarding evidence: I do think we should
try and seek it to bolster our suppositions rather than relying on
personal unsubstantiated prejudices. We may not know everything with
100% certainty but that's no excuse for ignoring what evidence we
actually do have.
Incidentally, the second part of David Hill's paper has now appeared
(Early Music Review No 145). Hill is very well aware of the antipathy
this 'uncomfortable truth' may raise in some quarters but feels it is
so very important to set the record straight. Towards the end he writes
".... these two articles have not been an attack on countertenors,
merely their continuing unquestioned use in repertoire that they are
very unlikely to have performed....". I salute his courage as well as
his scholarship and urge you to read it. You can subscribe to Early
Music Review for only around -L-20 a year and for that you get both the
Review and the Diary which lists many international concerts,
festivals, conferences, workshops and lectures...............
Martyn
--- On Fri, 2/12/11, howard posner <howardpos...@ca.rr.com> wrote:
From: howard posner <howardpos...@ca.rr.com>
Subject: [BAROQUE-LUTE] Re: Male alto in Lute songs? wasTransposing
lute tablature on sight
To: "Baroque lute Dmth" <baroque-lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>, "lute
mailing list list" <l...@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Date: Friday, 2 December, 2011, 18:28
On Dec 2, 2011, at 7:58 AM, Martyn Hodgson wrote:
> As David Hill points out (have you bothered
> to read his paper?) the voice generally expected when the songs
were
> composed was soprano/tenor. As he says, the male alto, to take
David
> Van Oijan's personal preference, was certainly around but in
England
> "was not deployed as a solo voice outside of a cathedral,
collegiate or
> courtly chapel......."
You've been bandying about two issues here, and I think you've confused
them. First, is it anachronistic to transpose lute songs (and the
subsidiary question about whether David van Ooijen is some kind of
freak because he transposes tablature accompaniments without writing
out the transposition)? Second, is it anachronistic, in a
renaissance-faire sort of way, for male altos to sing lute songs? Your
answer yes to both questions, and indeed cite the second answer as
dispositive of the first question.
I see several fundamental flaws in your conclusion.
First, male altos' range considerations are no different from those of
female altos or baritones or basses. So male altos are relevant to the
question of transposing lute songs only in that they would add numbers
to the class of singers who would need to transpose a song published in
the soprano/tenor range, which would indicate that more than half the
available singers might need to transpose at least some of the songs if
they wanted to sing the top line. The class of transposers might
actually have been considerably more than half: the songs were written
for home use, largely by amateur singers, which might mean that a
larger percentage of the singers would have had lower voices --
amateurs tend to sing lower because they tend to use the same register
singing as they do speaking, but let's put that aside for now. The
point is that male alto or no male alto, many singers would have needed
to transpose their favorite lute song.
Second, the idea that male altos weren't "deployed as a solo voice
outside of a cathedral, collegiate or courtly chapel" is irrelevant to
the question of whether they sang lute songs. Again, these songs were
published so that amateurs could sing them in their homes. The singers
were not "deployed." They did what they did. Male altos sang in
English choirs. Do you think they were completely silent when they
walked out of the church? NEVER sang when they got home? If you
don't think that, what do you suppose a male alto would have sung at
home in 1608, particularly if he had a lute in E? Do you think no male
alto EVER sang a lute song that way? (Note to Martyn: before
answering, look up "rhetorical question")
Third, your whole paradigm is inapplicable, because it assumes that
there is some sort of verifiable performance practice for lute songs.
There can be performance practice only where there is performance.
We're not talking about the deployment of theorbos in Venetian
polychoral motets in 1603 or countertenors in Handel's operas in 1729,
where you can expect that there was a regular practice. Lute songs
weren't written to be performed. We're talking about what people did
in their homes, adapting the songs to their own circumstances.
Fourth, I note that during this thread you've asked David what
"evidence" he had that lutenists historically might have transposed
tablature, and what "evidence" he had that male altos sang lute songs.
Asking that question is sometimes an exercise in critical thinking and
intellectual rigor, and sometimes an exercise in silliness. If you
demand evidence in a situation where there's no reason to expect it,
you're like the anti-Stratfordians who cite, as evidence that William
Shakespeare could not have written Shakespeare's plays, the "fact" that
he owned no books, which they infer from the absence of evidence that
he owned any. They could, on the same evidence, infer that he owned no
shoes.
Let's assume there's no evidence for sight-transposition of tablature
or male altos singing lute songs. So what?
If I comb payroll records, or contemporary accounts, or written
programs or playbills, and find lots of details about singers in London
in 1729 but no evidence of countertenors, I can rationally infer that
there were none, because I'd expect to find evidence if there were.
But I can't rationally expect to find much evidence of transposition on
sight, because by definition it doesn't leave written evidence. I
can't comb payroll records or playbills to find out whether
countertenors sang lute songs in their homes, and it's sheer luck if
there's a contemporary account that bears on the subject. The absence
of evidence is meaningless. Before you ask whether there's evidence,
you need to think about whether it's a relevant question or just a
silly one.
A final thought, then I need to get back to earning a living: If David
van Ooijen can transpose tablature, do you think Dowland couldn't?
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