[LUTE] Re: Emotion, introvert vs. extrovert playing
There's no question, empirically, that going to concerts is good for your playing and listening to CDs is bad for your playing. Everyone has to make that choice--whether they are a listener or a player. Another way to look at it is that no one in the renaissance or baroque ever listened to CDs, it was never part of their training. CDs are a product of modern aesthetic values. To train yourself in renaissance and baroque style, I think it is important to study what they studied, up to a point. I draw the line at candles. A CD will never reveal how you play--at best it realizes the imagination of the artist, at worst it is frozen food--but even at its best it cannot approach the enchanted realm of live music As for an interpretation that is not to one's taste, some interpretations are polarizing; that means that the artist has taken a significant stand. That's a sign of artistic independence. BRAVO! To the performer who can both charm and annoy. The point about married to one performance is interesting--although one can only be married to a recording, since the performance itself is just a passing fancy. Perhaps the listener of yore would have been horrified and bored by hearing the exact same piece the same way over and over again, like having a TIVO that could only record the same episode of Grey's Anatomy, or the Lost Pilot for Groundhog Day, where the hero is stuck making ice sculptures and taking beginning piano, but never escapes. dt At 03:19 PM 2/9/2010, you wrote: 30 years of listening! Hah! I certainly would like to. But implicitely my point was that too many lute recordings are on the brink of being too bland for my humble taste. Now even Robert Barto falls prey to this. This I did not expect. g On 10.02.2010, at 00:12, howard posner wrote: On Feb 9, 2010, at 2:47 PM, Gernot Hilger wrote: My reference interpretation, a beloved compagnion for more than thirty years is Hoppy's 1978 rendition on the 1755 Widhalm lute, Reflexe edition, not the later recording on his van Lennep lute. I find this particular piece overflowing with emotion, ardently played, very moving. It just hits and touches me. The music is so deep and calm and nevertheless arousing. What a masterpiece. And an example of what can be done on the lute. Upon further reflection, I find that Robert does in fact express himself, but only on a smaller scale. More civilised, perhaps. Which I find a pity. Why is it that the emotional range of many lute recordings is so small? Or compressed? It can be done otherwise. Or is it just a matter of my ears being clogged? They may very well be clogged. If you've been married to one performance for 30 years, it's only natural to think of it as THE performance, and think of every other performance as if it were an attempt to duplicate it; therefore any other performance can hardly differ from it without being inferior. We all tend to judge music- making by some model we've internalized, and recordings are very powerful internalizers. You may be right about emotional scale, but I think you should be scientific about this: put away the Smith Reflexe recording, spend 30 years listening to Barto's, and then get back to us. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Emotion, introvert vs. extrovert playing
Hello Gernot: We just listened to our old LP version of the Tombeau by Inspector Smith, and heard a young man with a real sense of poetry, still discovering the music and not afraid of taking risks, inspired by the virtues and vagaries of an historical instrument, and loads of traffic in the background. (We live in a very quiet place without much real traffic.) Conversely, there has to be a risk for a mature artist of becoming just a tiny bit weary of playing a monumental work yet another time. Best wishes, Ron Donna www.mignarda.com Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 23:47:02 +0100 To: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu From: gernot.hil...@netcologne.de Subject: [LUTE] Emotion, introvert vs. extrovert playing Hi, after a while, I am back to the lute list. There is a reason for this posting. Yesterday, finally, I got my Barto Weiss vol.10 CD. This includes the Tombeau sur la mort de M. Conte de Logy, which is an all-time favourite of mine. Robert Barto is one of my favourite baroque lute players. I really like his sound, his interpretation and so-to-say quite everything. There is a reason why I have got each and every CD he has issued. But I was frankly disappointed by his rendering of the tombeau. Too much in metrum, no agogics, seemingly emotionless. He does some variation in the reprise of the first part, nice, but he soon leaves this path and plays the written part. My reference interpretation, a beloved compagnion for more than thirty years is Hoppy's 1978 rendition on the 1755 Widhalm lute, Reflexe edition, not the later recording on his van Lennep lute. I find this particular piece overflowing with emotion, ardently played, very moving. It just hits and touches me. The music is so deep and calm and nevertheless arousing. What a masterpiece. And an example of what can be done on the lute. Upon further reflection, I find that Robert does in fact express himself, but only on a smaller scale. More civilised, perhaps. Which I find a pity. Why is it that the emotional range of many lute recordings is so small? Or compressed? It can be done otherwise. Or is it just a matter of my ears being clogged? g To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html __ Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection. [1]Sign up now. -- References 1. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/201469227/direct/01/
[LUTE] Re: Emotion, introvert vs. extrovert playing
Another thing we do now is to narrow our field mostly to other plucked string instruments and interpretations. The lute players who created the music we are talking about heard lots of bowed strings, wind instruments, keyboards etc. and it must have influenced their repertoire and how they played. How many articles have been written comparing versions of lute pieces with each other and ignoring the versions for other instruments? One more point - the interpretations of Dowland by Hoppy and Paul O'Dette are very, very different, but you can enjoy listening to both of them. Listening is a different thing than picking aspects of the performances that you can borrow for your own performances of those pieces. Nancy At 12:37 AM 2/10/2010, David Tayler wrote: There's no question, empirically, that going to concerts is good for your playing and listening to CDs is bad for your playing. Everyone has to make that choice--whether they are a listener or a player. Another way to look at it is that no one in the renaissance or baroque ever listened to CDs, it was never part of their training. CDs are a product of modern aesthetic values. To train yourself in renaissance and baroque style, I think it is important to study what they studied, up to a point. I draw the line at candles. A CD will never reveal how you play--at best it realizes the imagination of the artist, at worst it is frozen food--but even at its best it cannot approach the enchanted realm of live music As for an interpretation that is not to one's taste, some interpretations are polarizing; that means that the artist has taken a significant stand. That's a sign of artistic independence. BRAVO! To the performer who can both charm and annoy. The point about married to one performance is interesting--although one can only be married to a recording, since the performance itself is just a passing fancy. Perhaps the listener of yore would have been horrified and bored by hearing the exact same piece the same way over and over again, like having a TIVO that could only record the same episode of Grey's Anatomy, or the Lost Pilot for Groundhog Day, where the hero is stuck making ice sculptures and taking beginning piano, but never escapes. dt At 03:19 PM 2/9/2010, you wrote: 30 years of listening! Hah! I certainly would like to. But implicitely my point was that too many lute recordings are on the brink of being too bland for my humble taste. Now even Robert Barto falls prey to this. This I did not expect. g On 10.02.2010, at 00:12, howard posner wrote: On Feb 9, 2010, at 2:47 PM, Gernot Hilger wrote: My reference interpretation, a beloved compagnion for more than thirty years is Hoppy's 1978 rendition on the 1755 Widhalm lute, Reflexe edition, not the later recording on his van Lennep lute. I find this particular piece overflowing with emotion, ardently played, very moving. It just hits and touches me. The music is so deep and calm and nevertheless arousing. What a masterpiece. And an example of what can be done on the lute. Upon further reflection, I find that Robert does in fact express himself, but only on a smaller scale. More civilised, perhaps. Which I find a pity. Why is it that the emotional range of many lute recordings is so small? Or compressed? It can be done otherwise. Or is it just a matter of my ears being clogged? They may very well be clogged. If you've been married to one performance for 30 years, it's only natural to think of it as THE performance, and think of every other performance as if it were an attempt to duplicate it; therefore any other performance can hardly differ from it without being inferior. We all tend to judge music- making by some model we've internalized, and recordings are very powerful internalizers. You may be right about emotional scale, but I think you should be scientific about this: put away the Smith Reflexe recording, spend 30 years listening to Barto's, and then get back to us. -- To get on or off this list see list information at [1]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html Nancy Carlin Associates P.O. Box 6499 Concord, CA 94524 USA phone 925/686-5800 fax 925/680-2582 web site - [2]www.nancycarlinassociates.com Representing: FROM WALES - Crasdant Carreg Lafar, FROM ENGLAND - Jez Lowe Jez Lowe The Bad Pennies, FROM SPAIN - La Musgana and now representing EARLY MUSIC - The Venere Lute Quartet, Paul Beier, The Good Pennyworths Morrongiello Young
[LUTE] Re: New Lute Book/CD Edition
I thought I'd use this posting from Allan as a personal/public thank you. I recently ordered two of Allans publications: The Magic Lute A Variety of Music for Renaissance Lute. I compliment Allan on the quality of the publications the CD's. It is nice to be able to listen to a piece and follow the tab at the same time. I have already selected a few pieces to learn and put into my small repotoire. I am also in possesion of Allans Celtic Lute volumes and his Castles in the Sky CD. Again excellent. I personally recommend these publications. Thank you Allan. Neil Woodhouse. -Original Message- From: lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu [mailto:lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On Behalf Of Allan Alexander Sent: 05 February 2010 20:24 To: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Subject: [LUTE] New Lute Book/CD Edition Hi Gang, we have a new edition. The Queen's Musick Book/CD 27 pieces in French TAB http://www.guitarandlute.com/queens.html The pieces are as follow: La Mutia - Santino Garsi da Parma Correnta - Santino Garsi da Parma La Cesarina - Santino Garsi da Parma Calata ala Spagnola - Joan Ambrosio Dalza Moresca Prima, deta le Canarie - Julio Cesare Barbetta Pasamezzo - Adrian Leroy Favorito - Diomedes A Gigue - R. Askue Fortune - John Dowland Il Pastor Leggiadro - Cesare Negri La Vilanella - Vincenzo Capirola An Almaigne - Thomas Robinson from The Schoole of Musicke Polish Dance - Bartlomiej Pekiel Galliard - Francis Cutting Villanella - Marco Fabrizio Caroso Villanella - From The Chilesotti Collection Chiara Stella - From The Chilesotti Collection A Jig - Anonymous A Sleight Conceit - Anonymous Canario - Cesare Negri, Variations by Allan Alexander Fantasia Prima - Simone Molinaro Cutting's Comfort - Francis Cutting Saltarello 3 - Simone Molinaro Italiana - From The Chilesotti Collection Untitled Piece - From The Chilesotti Collection Courante - From The Chilesotti Collection Fantasia 40 - Francesco da Milano To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Emotion, introvert vs. extrovert playing
Nancy Carlin schrieb: One more point - the interpretations of Dowland by Hoppy and Paul O'Dette are very, very different, but you can enjoy listening to both of them. Listening is a different thing than picking aspects of the performances that you can borrow for your own performances of those pieces. That's one of the most fantastic and beatiful things in lute world - the interpretations are not as fixed as - for instance - in the violin or piano world. A real treasure! Thomas To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Emotion, introvert vs. extrovert playing
Thomas Schall schrieb: That's one of the most fantastic and beatiful things in lute world - the interpretations are not as fixed as - for instance - in the violin or piano world. A real treasure! Thomas Thomas, I honestly do not believe that this is the case. There is a mainstream among lute performers as well among pianists or fiddlers. There are always some gifted people who do it different from others. Think of Martha Argerich or Ivo Pogorelic, or even Nigel Kennedy, I am not so familiar with violinists. What I meant is that the emotional range of many lute recordings is rather limited. I do not mean there are no emotions in the playing, but I always feel that there must be more room in the limited volume range of the instrument. For example, Chris Wilson. I like his playing quite a lot and I was fortunate enough to be at a mini recital in DvE's home where he played pieces in transitional tunings. This was one of the finest lute concerts I remember, very subtly but deeply felt playing. But I have great difficulties hearing his CDs. The delicacy doesn't make it through the reproduction process. Playing music for CDs is probably a bit like writing music for the opera, a need for a bigger brush. Then again I have just bought another clavichord record, Pensées nocturnes by Mathieu Dupouy which is plainly wonderful in spite of the similarly limited dynamics of the instrument. This is definitely a silver point interpretation, no big brush thing. Re the tombeau: there will be a recording by Edin Karamazov, at least that is what I hear. Edin - even if do not always like how he treats his instrument - is one lutenist who tries things that I am often missing with others. If there is not something really obnoxious like the minor final chord in Forlorn Hope, I'll probably like his rendition. He is sometimes over the brink, but full of life and passion. I like that. Enough for now. And thanks to all the gentle people who explained their view, I do appreciate this. Gernot To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Have You Seen The Bright Lily Grow
Hello chaps! I was wondering if anyone might be able to recommend an edition of Morlaye's tablatures for Renaissance Guitar? I just picked up a ukulele and am having some fun on it... I have half a mind to badger some friends of mine who play treble intruments to join me in jamming some Playford and suchlike. Completely un-HIP, but fun nonetheless! Edward C. Yong ky...@pacific.net.sg To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] whoops. wrong title!
oops sorry chaps, sent that with the wrong title... Edward C. Yong ky...@pacific.net.sg To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: whoops. wrong title!
Hi, Edward, I liked the first title better. Kept me guessing! There's an old (well, not THAT old) Mel Bay edition of 16th c. guitar music that seems to have just about everything, including Morlaye, in modern notation. It's late here, but if you're interested, I'll dig up the full info tomorrow. Best, Chris. Edward C. Yong ky...@pacific.net.sg 2/10/2010 11:50 PM oops sorry chaps, sent that with the wrong title... Edward C. Yong ky...@pacific.net.sg To get on or off this list see list information at [1]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute
[LUTE] Re: whoops. wrong search engine
Chris: Going back to the Attaingnant question, you are correct that the AbeBooks search turns up nothing, but if you search the Picard inventory here: http://www.antiqbook.com/books/bookseller.phtml?owner_id=pic you will get a hit for the Daniel Hearz edition, apparently still on sale for $42.41 I bought the book from them 8 or 10 years ago, and I love it. Well done scholarship and decent editing of the music for the era. There are typos in the tablature in a few places, but the pitch notation above it seems to be correct in most of those instances. Hope this works out for you. Regards, Daniel Heiman -- Original Message -- From: Christopher Stetson cstet...@smith.edu To: Edward C. Yong ky...@pacific.net.sg Cc: Lute List lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Subject: [LUTE] Re: whoops. wrong title! Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2010 23:58:27 -0500 Hi, Edward, I liked the first title better. Kept me guessing! There's an old (well, not THAT old) Mel Bay edition of 16th c. guitar music that seems to have just about everything, including Morlaye, in modern notation. It's late here, but if you're interested, I'll dig up the full info tomorrow. Best, Chris. Edward C. Yong ky...@pacific.net.sg 2/10/2010 11:50 PM oops sorry chaps, sent that with the wrong title... Edward C. Yong ky...@pacific.net.sg To get on or off this list see list information at [1]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute
