Dear Ed and Arne, There are two sets of instructions in that manuscript (London, BL, Ms.Sloane 1021), one in the newer style of play as advocated by Besard (and in translation by Dowland--most of JD's "Obseruations" is a translation of Besard). The second treatise on lute playing is about the older manner of Matthias Waissel (fl. 1595) That lute manuscript, which has Lithuanian lute pieces (suggesting it was not from Stobaeus's East Prussia), was probably just a book in Stobaeus's library (his signature is squeezed into a space in an interior folio), and it would be misleading to atttribute anything in it to Stobaeus. He was an organist and choir director in Königsberg, and is not known to play lute. Nor do I think it wise to second guess what Paul may have said at the UNM. Afterall he told Beier about the instructions and assisted with the translation.
Dowland is just one of several lutenists cited in the Besard-like treatise: Mercurius, Bocquet, Orazio Perla, Laurenzino, Huwet, "und andere mehr." All played thumb forward, and are reprresented in Besard's Thesaurus (1603). Change was in the air. And musicians often change instruments or technique if they are in danger of losing work because their playing is deemed old fashioned. And remember how Dowland was lusting for a place at the English court, and wrote almost apologetically about having to work on "forreign" soil. Here recently a new principal flute played a wooden instrument. And soon the second flute had one, too. Berlin was calling, so Mr. Zoom didn't last long, and the new principal plays a gold flute. And I think I spotted another gold flute the other evening. Keeping up to date and in fashion can be expensive. And a wooden flute is really too expensive to use as kindling. A case in point was Waissel's son, Matthias Jr. He applied for a position at the Königsberg court, and was turned down because his playing of "Koloratur" was deemed "old fashioned." (because he used thame under????). So I see no reason to doubt what the writer of the treatise says. But we don't know if JD played thumb forward from the beginning. But I wouldn't dismiss his having changed. There was too much at stake. ----- Original Message ----- From: Ed Durbrow To: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Sunday, July 17, 2005 1:51 PM Subject: Re: Neceffarie obferuations On Jul 17, 2005, at 11:26 PM, Michael Thames wrote: > When Paul Odette was here at UNM I asked him if > Dowland had changed > his > technique to thumb out..... Paul said, that he saw > nothing in Dowlands > music, that would merit a change to thumb out. He then > played Lady > Clifton's > Spirit, and demonstrated he used both alternating > Index and middle, > as well > as thumb and index. He mentioned the remark by > Johann Stobaeus, > but seemed > to think it was questionable. The thing that always smelled funny to me about that Stobaeus quote was, why would the most famous player in the world radically change his technique? Was it not working well? Just seems unlikely to me, but not impossible. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
