Arthur Ness
Sun, 21 Sep 2008 13:58:17 -0700
----- Original Message -----
From: "howard posner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "List Lute" <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2008 9:40 PM
Subject: [LUTE] Re: Respighi
|I believe the remaining pieces are from the "Chilesotti Lute
| Book" (Da un Codice Lauten-buch), a book of musicologist Oscar
| Chilesotti's transcriptions of a lute manuscript, which was published
| in 1891. The original lute book has not been available publicly, if
| at all, for more than a century. Rumors of its whereabouts drift
| around from time to time. Arthur Ness will doubtless have something
| to say on that subject.
<<<SNIP>>
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Hello, Howard
I do not think "rumor" is an appropriate characterization of an eye
witness report about the existence of the original manuscript for the
Codice Lauten-Buch. Certainly Eugene's "third-hand rumor" is even more
inappropriate.
We've been over this several times on this list and others. The Italian
musicologist Oscar Chilesotti purchased the original manuscript for "Da
un Codice Lauten-Buch" around 1886 from the famous Berlin music
antiquarian Leo Liepmannsohn. It was first offered by the book
dealer Rosenthal in Munich (Bavaria). It probably was compiled by a
Bavarian merchant from Nuremberg between 1570 and 1610. It is in Italian
tablature, the system frequently used in Bavaria. The manuscript never
saw the sun of Italy until Chilesotti brought it there.
Chilesotti also owned an important manuscript of music by S.L.Weiss. In
the 1960s ("sixties") a musicologist traveled to Chilesotti's hometown of
Bassano del Grappa in search of that particular manuscript.
When he inquired in Chilesotti's neighborhood, the old timers told him
that Chilesotti's house had burned down. That report resulted in the
familiar story (that is, "rumor") which we've all heard over and over
again--that the manuscripts were destroyed in a fire.
However, Dinko Fabris recently discovered that it was not
Chilesotti's house that burned. The "old timers," who were surely
children at the time, were mistaken and it was the house next door that
was
consumed in a spectacular midnight blaze. And indeed Chilesotti's
correspondence survives today in the recently founded Chilesotti museum in
Bassano del Grappa and all his working papers (e.g., his manuscript
transcriptions) have been deposited in the Fondazione Cini in Venice,
where they can be examined by
appointment. Had a fire consumed Chilesotti's residence, his
papers and transcriptions would also have been lost.
The valuable lute manuscripts were probably sold by his heirs shortly
after his death. Dinko thinks he knows who purchased the them, a famous
Italian composer with an interest in early music--NOT Respighi. Dinko was
one of the organizers of the recent Chilesotti conference, and
has special access to the Chilesotti archive papers. I think he's
correct. The composer lived a few miles down the road from Bassano del
Grappa.<g> Maybe it is his descendants who still own the manuscripts.
<<Contuinued in Part 2>>
=====AJN (Boston, Mass.)=====
This week's free download from Classical Music Library is Chopin's 3
Mazurkas, Op. 59, performed by Abdel Rahman El Bacha, pianist.
To download, click on the CML link here
http://mysite.verizon.net/arthurjness/
My Web Page: Scores
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzepq31c/arthurjnesslutescores/
Other Matters:
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