While hunting for Mrs Hunt on the Grove, I found this interesting anecdote from one of Michel Corrette's method, showing that archlutes were still widely in use in the 1770's in England and, incidentally, that there is no end to human ridicule. But what on earth is "signalling a page-turn in Hebrew-fashion"? Alain
"I suppose it is unnecessary to warn those who wear glasses to have some for distance vision. I remember having been at a concert in a little town in England where I saw a trio of spectacles at the harpsichord. Each of the players was competing for the closest position to the music desk. After the heads had knocked against one another, the singer, who was a castrato newly arrived from Italy and who was having difficulty seeing in spite of three pairs of glasses on his nose, had the idea of sitting astride the harpsichordist’s hump-back. This advantage didn’t last long, because the archlute player at one side of the grotesque group had – unfortunately for him – a wooden leg; and as he was playing standing up and in spite of the telescope that he wore on his beet-nose saw no better than the others, he contrived through his contortions of beating time now on the castrato’s back, now on the harpsichordist’s hump, and of signalling the page-turn in Hebrew-fashion for the da capo, to let his wooden leg slip causing them all to fall like Phaeton. A spectator who appreciated novelty called out, ‘Bravo, bravo’. " At 04:57 PM 3/15/04, Howard Posner wrote: >Alain Veylit at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > Personally I think that this changes the focus of the story from Purcell > > (who granted, may still have been irate at not being the central point of > > attention...) to Arabella and the Queen, who perhaps asked Mrs Hunt to sing > > the tune teasingly after her unfortunate marriage. > >Not unless the Queen was extraordinarily tactless. In any case, the song is >not about marriage, and its "I came upon an unchaperoned young woman >outdoors and had sex with her" plot is pretty ordinary for the time. > > > A copy of the Purcell song is in the Orpheus Britanicus - I posted a > > facsimile of it at http://cbsr26.ucr.edu/wlkfiles/MayHerBlessed.gif for > > those who are curious. Should we see the switch from the melody to the bass > > as yet another inversion layer? > >I think not. Ground basses were Purcell's stock in trade. > >BTW, the bass part of "May her blest example" Orpheus Britannicus, which was >published posthumously, differs in spots from the one in the birthday ode, >which was busier and more interesting. But they are both obviously "Cold >and Raw." > >Howard Posner
