The entire book is hand copied by a fine professional calligrapher. The Roman
letters are quite beautiful, and entirely legible. At least I have no trouble
reading the words. It's a kind of modified Fraktur resmbling our Cloister
Black Roman type face. With practice, Ou tannst ef puk lefen. ("Du kannst es
gut lesen.")
(Chilesotti had similar trouble deciphering the titles in his Codice
Lauten-Buch. No. 3 "O Pastrorella" should read "Deh Pastorella." Some of his
misread titles are amusing.)
Perhaps this will be helpful, although the calligraphy in Giesbert's book is
not as confusing:
http://www.beerstein.net/articles/alpha.htm
When you have a confusing letter, it is wise to write in out, so then you come
to recognize it. I became so good at Elizabethan secretary's hand, that I
wrote my class notes in it. Now I can't read all those choice comments Piston
made. He had a droll sense of humor. Ohj yes. A classicone. He copied on
the board a fugue subject, and told his class they were to write a fugue
ontyhat subject for the next class. A student objected, saying that he couldn't
possibly write a fugue ina week. Piston padded tothe blcak board and corssed
out "Andante" and replaced it with ":Allegro." And asked the student, "does
that help?"
The tablature "font" in Giesbert is especially well thought out, and Cs and Es
can be clearly differentiated, and the Ds have the traditional forward slant
and clearly cannot be mistaken for As. They are also designed so that they
don't bump against one another on the tablature staff. They might well be
emulated in one of our tablature-writing programs. (Incidentally they are NOT
"Art Deco.")
The tutor demonstrates Giesbert's wide-ranging knowledge of the repertory. The
_Schule_ is really a loving monument to the art of 18th-century lute music.
That it is still in print is a testament to Giesbert and its excellence (and
his calligrapher's).
ajn
----- Original Message -----
From: Greg M. Silverman
To: [email protected]
Sent: Friday, October 07, 2005 12:06 PM
Subject: [BAROQUE-LUTE] Re: Giesbert revisited
Stuart Walsh wrote:
>
> I vividly remember - this is from the old Lute Society summer schools,
> a long time ago - talking to two German lutenists. They were
> committed socialists and they, as Germanswere surprisingly hostile to
> the Giesbert book. They really did think it had something to do with
> a nationalism they wanted to distance themselves from.
>
> Maybe their reaction reflected some thing of German politics of those
> times and maybe things have moved on. . I remember them asking; where
> are all the French pieces in the tutor? (i.e. none, or hardly any).
> You could well argue that there's no French repertoire for the
> 13-course lute but Giesbert does include a lot of 11 course pieces and
> the omission of the French repertoire is a bit odd?
>
> I remember being quite disturbed by all this: I like the book and the
> first little suite (11 course ) in D minor was the first thing I learned.
To be fair to Giesbert, there are several English pieces, specifically
IIRC, by Thomas Arne in the tutor. (FWIW I go to the Stephan Lundgren
book for the French 11 course stuff)
Regards,
Greg--
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