Jean-Marie, Actually I haven't said I don't agree with what you wrote. I just reacted to Peter's email in which he said: "we seem to have arrived at one bar of galliard = half a bar of pavan" Which in my opinion is not correct because it depends what you mean by bar. If you use modern notation and play from contemporary transcriptions than yes it is true, but if we use original manuscripts then very often it won't be so. And this is exactly what you write later in your email. The whole discussion started after my citation from Donnington. Actually I feel respect to his work and wouldn't be so keen to negate everything he wrote only on the basis that it was some time ago. For me as a active musician the problem Pavan - Galliard doesn't exist because when I accompany dancers the pulse is so obvious that I don't need to analyze all the history of these dances. What I only wanted to say originally was that Galliard was not as fast a dance as some may think. As I said in my previous email Galliards by Dowland particularly have to be dealt with care because they are mostly solo instrumental pieces not suited for dancing. Best wishes
Jaroslaw -----Original Message----- From: Jean-Marie Poirier [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2008 1:33 PM To: lute Subject: [LUTE] Re: Playing in time Jaroslaw, I think it's right ! I have attached two examples : the first strain of the Pavane La Bataille in Phalčse, Chorearum Molliorum, 1583, and the eqivalent first strain of the adjoining Gaillarde. What I tried to explain is apparent here and the "tactus inequalis" applies perfectly. I was probaly confused and confusing too in my attempt to explain. The Pavan has a regular tactus , one breve down, one breve up. The Gaillard keeps the same breve down,( i.e. 2 semibreves) and the up beat is "inequalis", that is unequal, so the hand goes up with one semibreve of the Gaillarde instead of one breve in the Pavan. The interesting point is you keep the same "tactus" for the down beat, and thus it is very easy to return to duple time and keep a proper equivalence. How this applies to the lute litterature is a quite different story altogether... Actually, the transcriptions from polyphonic music to tablature are not always consistent and you can observe variations in the equivalence adopted between "score" and tablature. Musical flair and good sense have to come to the rescue I'm afraid... Some will split the dance (Pavan) into half measures, which then become whole measures in the tab, some will stick to the original format... So where do we stand ? That's the critical moment when the structure of the piece has to be thoroughly dismantled and analysed to try and understand the better possible solution, in terms of rhythm, phrasing and, possibly, steps. As for Elizbethan dance movements such as Pavan etc., I think we have to be very careful before deciding if theyhave to be "danceable" or if they are stylised forms. Both cases coexist in the repertoire, and here again nothing is clearly indicated in the sources. Only a very close analysis and a good dose of musical sense will help you come to an acceptable solution. If you think of Chopin's Waltzes for the piano, you can hear very different versions of them, some more dance like than others. IMHO it may be the same with early baroque dance forms and I put a good deal of the Elizabethan lute music in that category. Best, Jean-Marie ======= 06-02-2008 12:29:10 ======= >Peter, >I am afraid this is not correct. I've just took the first manuscript from my >shelf with Italian renaissance music without any particular digging for >something special and what I can see? This is a facsimile edition of >"Intabolatura de lauto" by Antonio Rotta edited in Venetia 1546. If we turn >the title page we have the first piece which is Passamezzo with two flags >(crotchets using contemporary system of notation) per bar. The next piece is >Gagliarda with three flags per bar (of the same value). If we play both >pieces it becomes quite clear that one bar from Passamezzo equals one bar >from Gagliarda. So Donnington was right I am afraid ( the citation was from >his 1990 edition) and most things we can find in his book are still valid. >The whole mess with Pavan - Galliard proportions comes from our modern >thinking in uni-proportional system. In multi-proportional system which was >commonly used in renaissance this problem wouldn't exist because proportion >for this set of dances was very clear and easy; modus imperfectus equals >modus perfectus. This is why I said the pulse remains the same only dancers >change their steps. >All the best > >Jaroslaw [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://poirierjm.free.fr 06-02-2008 To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
