[VIHUELA] Re: History of the guitar on BBC1 (one!)

[Monica Hall]

I videoed it and have just watched half of it.   What a waste of time.

The cittern player was Michael Tyack who is a member of the Lute Society. 
I suppose it takes all sorts...

Monica

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rob MacKillop" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Nelson, Jocelyn" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Monday, October 06, 2008 7:21 AM
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: History of the guitar on BBC1 (one!)


  I made the mistake of actually staying up to watch the programme. It
  was definitely the worst programme I've seen in a long time. We had
  John Williams, for instance, saying that the 4c guitar never had any
  polyphonic music, it was only strummed, and that the modern classical
  guitar was superior. Thanks, John! What an ignoramous. There were quite
  a few gems along those lines.

  I forgot the name of the lute/cittern/vihuela player they found. He was
  dressed in period costume (the presenter called it a 1970's medieval
  costume, and he was quite accurate) and gave the impression he dressed
  and lived like that all the time. The message was clear: early music
  people are nuts.

  I should say that I have a personal story here. The researcher for the
  programme phoned me about two months ago to ask if I could give him
  information about the so-called English Guitar. He knew only one story,
  apparently, about the harpsichord maker, Kirkman, buying guittars to
  give to prostitutes in order to put the middle-classes off of buying
  them, buying his harpsichords instead. He kept giggling uncontrollably
  about this story and refused to listen to anything I said. He sounded
  like a 14-year old. I refused to take part in the programme. My fears
  were justified.

  Looking forward to Part 2!

  Rob MacKillop

  --


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