Monica Hall
Tue, 05 Jan 2010 04:39:50 -0800
A few more thoughts on the passacaglia. I spent a bit more time looking at Foscos passacaglie and of course he does make a distinction between the passacaglia which is in a minor key and ciaccona which is in a major key. The same distinction is made by Corbetta in his 1643 book although it is not so clear as the pieces aren'tindividually titled. Gallot - who copied most of them does rather inconsistently label them either passacaglie or ciaccona. Bartolotti just refers to all his as Passacaglie on p.1 apart from the Ciaccona on p. 49.
Not sure what that proves but it seemed interesting. Cheers Monica----- Original Message ----- From: "Stuart Walsh" <s.wa...@ntlworld.com>
To: "Vihuelalist" <vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu> Sent: Sunday, January 03, 2010 11:02 AM Subject: [VIHUELA] Foscarini Passacaglio
On the ning site Monica wrote: 'Passacalles literally means "pass through the streets".' Interesting. And so you could be passing through the streets purposefully or perhaps just meandering about.At the beginning of his book (his collected works, as it were) Foscarini gives the 'Passacalli sopra tutti le lettere' which seem to be just four bars with four chords (not starting on first beat of bar). And, more or less, that's how most passacalles I've ever seen are structured: a four bar scheme endlessly repeated. (Some in the Gallot MS don't always fit, though) But Foscarini's own examples of the passacalles don't fit this at all. They really do seem to just meander about, always hinting at a typical passaccalles but never quite being it. Monica has had a go at an edited reconstruction of one in E minor. *http://tinyurl.com/y8mvxfd (page 17) -Passacaglio Variato sopra l'+* // There is no (easily discernible) repeated four bar structure and no (easily discernible) direction to the music. And it's in two parts! After 57 bars the first part ends and second part sort of carries on in more or less the same way for another 64 bars. And it's as if Foscarini really liked the sound and feel of certain chord changes - especially E minor at second position to B minor with a g in the melody on top. I've had a go at the first part. Technically it is not difficult piece but I always manage to make a pig's ear of one bit or another and my guitar runs out of tone in bars 16-19; it's like squeezing an orange with no juice left. But I suspect a good player could make something of the piece and the Part 2 would go yet deeper into the strange little world. Maybe the use of repicco and trillo would spice it up a bit? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XiJS0GVT5A Stuart To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html