----- Original Message ----- From: Arthur Ness <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Saturday, August 13, 2005 10:46 am Subject: Re: OT: Mozart for guitar
> It is just that some guitarists wish unnecessarily to > enhance their instrument by repeating myths that have no basis in > fact. This seems central to the whole of this debate and all your discussion of Beethoven, Diabelli, et al. to follow. That some would artificially enhance guitar via myth is as silly as belittling the instrument. Most who perpetuate these myths hoewever do so more from ignorance and enthusiasm than promoting agenda. Such behavior is to be expected in association with an instrument so popular as the guitar and so likely to attract amateurs. I suggest enjoying it all for what it is and making no pretenses about it in either direction. > I think Brian Jefferey has published some of these arrangements. > Edited by the late Bob Spencer. Many of you probably know the edition. It's a nice facsimile edition. > As for profound use of mandolin by Mozart, nothing could be more > profound than Giovanni's serenade "Deh vieni all finestra." After > that (thanks to Mozart's seductive music) Giovanni could take any > woman in the theater to bed on the spot. It even has his favorite > harmonic progression for seduction. I certainly would never > consider it a "trifle." OK, I'll give you that one, but I think any profundity you perceive is more a matter of context than the mandolin part itself. Don't get me wrong, I love mandolin and its music. My initial comments were in reaction to the notion that Mozart would have written profoundly satisfying music if he'd written for guitar. Pointless speculation, but I still doubt he would have. I know of at least one depiction of Mozart in the presence of guitar, perhaps soon to play along with a guitarist (Pierre Jelyotte--about whom I know no more than his depiction in a painting--in the painting by Michel Barthelemy Ollivier), and Mozart still wasn't inspired to write for the instrument. ...And I actually like guitar. Eugene To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
