In my dotage I've come back to music, and my bible is Donald Grout's book (given me by my daughter in law, her college text). I'm equally amused by Grout's sound bite that you quote, but would you ask every orchestra doing Bach to use trumpets of Bach's era, or if it were Vivaldi to ensure an earlier instrument?
Too often on this list I've used the harp as an example, but it yet applies. And I do admit that I wouldn't want to hear O'Carolan on the orchestral pedal harp. But it has it's virtues on the lever, or folk harp. And O'Carolan didn't have levers. The ability to approximate the sound is ephemeral, as we really don't know the sound. But it can be approximated, I think, with modern instruments that duplicate to their best the old instrument. It would be prohibitively expensive to have a lute of the 15th century, of the 16th century, and the 17th. The string makers learned more of their art over that time. The idea of windings for the bass strings was added, allowing the extra bass courses. The same happened with the harp, although the early harps (Celtic, not the lyre of Greece) were wire - whereas the strings of the lute were gut. I'll not go on, but there is more. I respect Grout, but I have read his works and suspect that was a throw away line for students. If one restricted all music of all time to being played on duplicates (rather than approximations) of the period instruments then one would have a rather limited ability to preserve the sense of that music. One would have to have musicians with a massive inventory of instruments (is this a 1580 lute, or an Italian 1620 lute, or a German one with extra bass courses - and what strings are we using), or a separate set of musicians for every period. I like that last, but to do that the entire population of the world would have to be musicians with the "chops" and the "soul". I remember an incident in summer camp when I was twelve. The counselors couldn't get the fire started. One said "let's use the old Indian method". We campers expected to see some ancient skills like the bow and spindle. He tossed some kerosene on the wood and struck a match. A lesson, if the Indians had had kerosene they wouldn't have struggled with tinder and flint and steel. If the instrument produces the music then it is authentic music (and I don't mean computer simulation). If the fingers have to strike the same strings, in the same way, and the tone is right, then the music is authentic. Whether the harp can be tuned to a different key with the levers, and the old boys had to actually retune the pins, doesn't change the sound of the instrument. Just makes it a bit more convenient to play different pieces. I may be wrong, but if the string alignment and spacing are the same as the Renaissance lute, and the tone is in the range of the replications, then one is playing lute music, whatever the shape of the instrument. As one who is designing a modern psaltery that is levered I have to take this position. The Renaissance harp was levered with complicated finger stops, and that was a great skill. Should we harpists eschew the invention of the lever in order to make it more difficult? Not advocating a simplistic system, but remember that the old musicians played solo, or in ensemble, without having to retune to the music of the day. Best, Jon ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ed Durbrow" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Jon Murphy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "lute list" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2003 11:06 AM Subject: Re: looking for a "lutar" - forwarded > > But that doesn't mean that we who aren't committed to a period > >shouldn't share the joy of playing ancient music on instruments that may not > >meet the exact specifications of the purist. > > When the famous musicologist Donald Grout visited my college when I > was a student, someone asked him about performing early music on > instruments that weren't 'right' or period. He said if was worth > doing, it was worth doing badly. I nearly busted a gut laughing. > -- > Ed Durbrow > Saitama, Japan > http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/ > > > >
