No doubt you all know this, but seeing the correspondence on the subject of=20 S.L. Weiss, I was reminded that I recently bought a suite in A-minor, allege= dly=20 transcribed for the guitar and attributed to Weiss, which turns out to be an= =20 original guitar composition for Segovia by Manuel Ponce, composed in 1929.=20 Apparently it was intended to be attributed to J.S. Bach, but as his work wa= s too=20 well catalogued, they decided it ascribe it to the much lesser-known Weiss.=20 The edition I have of the piece is dated 1983 and claims to reveal this fact= =20 for the first time. What surprises me is that either Segovia or Ponce could=20= have=20 imagined that they got ever have got away with attributing the piece to Bach= ,=20 however well catalogued, as it is simply not good enough.
I pass this on for what it is worth, for reading through all the messages=20 these last few weeks, I realise that I know next to nothing about the lute a= nd=20 its music. It really has been an education, reading what you have to say, qu= ite=20 different from my serial world=E2=80=A6 Sadly my lute is being revamped by t= he=20 builder, as strings kept snapping and I gather from what I have read here, t= hat lute=20 strings ought to last longer than a few weeks, as is the case with my guitar= .=20 Is this really so? Should lute strings really last a year or two, or what is= =20 normal? I would be most grateful for any tips. I wish you all a happy Christmas and a successful new year. Thanks to those=20 who have answered my, as I now see, overly-na=C3=AFve questions. Stewart's r= eplies=20 have been especially useful, but then, as I say, it's been a real education.= I=20 am glad to see that 'Nazi' business has apparently blown over. As someone wh= o=20 lost some 20 members of his family in Auschwitz, I found the whole thing=20 distasteful in the extreme. And as I am also writing a book for a German pub= lisher=20 on the history of German thought from circa 1770-1920, in which anti-Semitis= m=20 plays a not insignificant role, felt the comments on the subject of Jews,=20 etc., were not only offensive, but also very poorly informed. I am happy, in= deed=20 grateful, to read what you have to say on the subject of lutes and lute musi= c,=20 their history and the rest of it, to admire your expertise, which I can only= =20 dream of. If I want nastiness on the subject of Jews, then I have my own wor= k=20 to resort to, not to mention what is going on in the wider world, from which= =20 this lute list is such a haven and pleasant escape. Cheers Tom Beck =20 --
