It's kind of you to try and pour oil on troubled waters. But in his
opening paragraph Lex seems to imply that I have taken advantage of the fact
that I am a (ex officio) committee member of the Lute Society to comment on
his article. Why else should he mention it?
I was as surprised as he was when I got my copy of Lute and realized my
article had been published without my having seen the proofs. The
secretary explained to me in an E-mail yesterday why this had happened. I
was debating whether to contact Lex privately about the matter but he has
forstalled me.
As far as I am concerned this is a private matter not one for discussion on
this list.
Regards to all.
Monica
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rockford Mjos" <rm...@comcast.net>
To: "Monica Hall" <mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk>
Cc: "Lex Eisenhardt" <eisenha...@planet.nl>; "Vihuelalist"
<vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2011 6:12 PM
Subject: Re: [VIHUELA] Re: the lute 48
Monica,
I read no "attack" in Lex's posting.
To me it seems to be a calm response to issues and statements where the
two of you disagree.
I am not a member of the Lute Society, so I cannot comment on any of the
details. But I can imagine the immediacy of this forum has an advantage
of time rather than interested subscribers having to wait until the next
issue of The Lute. So posting here doesn't seem as out of place to me as
it does to you.
I am thankful to you both for your contributions to the early guitar
community.
-- R
On Aug 30, 2011, at 11:01 AM, Monica Hall wrote:
I don't want to get into a detailed discussion over this. But I think
it would have been more appropriate of Lex to have raised this with the
Lute Society in the first instance rather than launching an attack on me
on this list.
I will however say that I am sorry that the short article came as a
surprise to Lex. It was my intention to send a copy of it to him when
I received proofs of it. There was not much point my sending it to him
until I knew that it was definitely going to be included in Lute 2008.
In the event, due an oversight, none of the contributors to Lute 2008
were sent proofs before the Journal was sent to the printers which has
caused some problems.
Apart from this occasion I have never commented on anything that Lex has
said without his having an opportunity to read it first. I can't say
the same about him.
Regards to all.
Monica
----- Original Message ----- From: "Lex Eisenhardt"
<eisenha...@planet.nl>
To: "Vihuelalist" <vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Cc: <lute...@aol.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2011 2:03 PM
Subject: [VIHUELA] the lute 48
I just received The Lute 48, and I was surprised to see that there
is again a reaction by committee member Monica Hall, dealing with my
article 'Bourdons as usual' from issue 47.
Allow me to make some remarks (which can only be understood if you
have
nr 47 at hand):
What Monica writes about Corbetta is as much a matter of inference as
what I wrote.
On p. 26 I have given a number of reasons why the usual
interpretation
of what Corbetta says in his prefaces to his 1671 book is open to
debate. To say that 'If Corbetta always used octave stringing on both
the fourth and fifth courses himself, and thought that this was the
arrangement most suitable for his music there is no reason why he
should not have said so' is not particularly helpful for the
discussion. And it is not an accurate or complete resume of my words
in
the first place.
In my article I pose the question how his instructions for basso
continuo would work on a guitar without a low A. And I have argued
that
the information on tuning from his first book (1639) implies bourdon
tuning. This would mean that at some moment Corbetta has removed the
bourdon of the fifth course. Which never completely convinced me.
I ended the paragraph on p. 26 by saying that 'questions about why
and
when he could have changed to French tuning are still awaiting
satisfactory answers. I would suggest that whatever his motive was
for
formulating his widely discussed advice on tuning, it still is
possible
that he himself always kept to Italian tuning, even if today his
advice
is accepted as justifying the claim that he strung his guitar in the
French way.' This new article does not offer any new insight.
What I said about Castillion can hardly be seen as 'misleading'.
And who can tell if Castillion was a composer or not?
As a matter of fact we don't know what tuning Carre had in mind for
his
second book (with Corbetta's music). The reference to French tuning
is
in his first, and he could well have changed his mind after that.
For the rest Monica's article contains many interesting assumptions
and
observations about the supposed influence of Italian musicians on the
guitar scene in France. But to serve as proof for how they really
tuned
it would have to be more specific.
Lex
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