Doc: Hear, hear!!
Brad --- doc rossi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Ok, here we go. > > I agree with Stuart that G's music really stands out > in the literature > - he was a great composer, a great marketer, too, > and someone who seems > to have taken his calling very seriously. He had a > traditional musical > education but was also a bit of a renegade and > innovator. I guess > that's another way of saying he was adaptable. > Lesser composers like > Noferi and the Merchis suffer in comparison because > they just didn't > have the compositional chops. Some of Merchi's > publications for cittern > are the same as those for the guitar, transposed to > suitable keys. For > me, music like theirs is only superficially > "guittar" or "cittern" > music - I don't think they knew the instrument any > better than G did, > and being the musician he was, he may have only > needed a few hours of > study to understand it as a composer and adapt his > violin technique to > suit. I think it would be a useful exercise to do a > systematic > comparison between his violin and cittern tutors. > I've only given the > former a cursory look. > > This is not to say that Noferi or Merchi or other > "lesser" composers > didn't take their work seriously. It's difficult to > make a conclusion > without passing judgement, but their music just > isn't as creative or > imaginative. It's "simple" where one might see G's > as "complex", and > along with him I would put Demarzi, Straube and > maybe Marella. However, > the simplicity in Noferi's and Merchi's music, for > example, is not the > same as the simplicity as, say, Oswald's music. I > would put his music > on the level of G's even though stylistically they > are worlds apart, > and I guess this is where I disagree with Stuart, > and where I start to > get a bit ranty about citterns and Grove and all the > "academic > orthodoxy". I'm an academic myself, so please > understand that I'm not > taking gratuitous potshots at anyone. So, the idea > that G's cittern > music has less value than his other works, I would > say that they > haven't considered it properly. And consider also > that many of the > pieces Straube published for cittern turn up in his > baroque lute > manuscripts - do they have less compositional value > because they have > been arranged for a different instrument and make > excellent use of that > instrument's resources? > > There has been a tendency in orthodox scholarship to > put some > instruments above others because they have greater > range of notes, > dynamics, colors and other criteria. I find this > view limited and > limiting. Instead, I find it more useful to > discover an instrument's > idiom, or distinguishing characteristics, if you > like, and go from > there. Does this put me in the glass-half-full > rather than > glass-half-empty category, make me an optimist > rather than a pessimist? > Maybe so, but I think it does take me out of the > Darwinistic way of > looking at things in that I see change and variation > rather than > development or decadence. I can see that I'm about > to go off on a long > rant, so I'll put on the brakes, but before I do, > I'll just make a > small suggestion. The next time you find yourself > wondering whether an > "English guittar" or Portuguese guitar or some other > instrument is a > cittern or a guitar or just what the **** it is, > think about all the > instruments out there that are known as guitars - > scholars, for some > reason, have no difficulty categorizing this > infinite variety as > guitars and constructing a history that includes > them all, but when it > comes to citterns, they drop into talking about > "true" citterns and > such as if there were only one type that was the > summit of development > and everything since as some sort of bastardization. > If one can think > openly and inclusively about guitars, why not about > citterns? > > Thanks, > > Doc > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
