My wife and I heard Anthony Rooley give a recital entitled 'Orpheus Stories' at Waterperry House in Oxfordshire, UK on a gloomy wet afternoon in July (so wet, in fact, the organisers provided us with overshoes to wear into the ballroom where the event was taking place). He alternated readings on the theme of Orpheus with a variety of mostly 17th or early 18th century music, much of it unfamiliar and clearly some of it lute arrangments - (Torelli, Geminiani, Ziani, Hayme, Pepusch, Cimarosa, Henry and Daniel Purcell) - with Dalza the sole 16th century composer. Most of this was played on (if I remember correctly) an 11 course lute, though he did have a little renaissance lute with him which I guess he must have used for the Dalza (though I can't remember this).
We sat in the front row of an audience of 25 or so (at least some of whom were not lute aficionados) and everyone seemed to have an enjoyable time. We both found it a very musically satisfying experience and well worth the effort of tramping through the mud to get there! As a mere guitarist I don't like to comment on his technique, except to say it looked convincing to me. As for loudness, it was very easy to hear everything he did in that setting - though having heard both Hopkinson Smith and Jakob Lindberg at Lute Society meetings recently, I think AR's volume tends more towards the first rather than the second. Eric Crouch On 25 Sep 2007, at 02:01, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Dear all, > > We seem to be concentrating on just the softness > of playing. What about Bruno's other comment that "it > was also painful to hear or to understand what > [Rooley] was doing"? (Bruno even went so far as to > call him a "poor chap.") All the painstaking academic > research in the world doesn't matter much if the > performer is not able to make his musical ideas > understood by the audience. > > I can't really comment specifically in this case > since I've never heard Rooley live. Anyone else have > impressions? > > Chris > > > > ______________________________________________________________________ > ______________ > Check out the hottest 2008 models today at Yahoo! Autos. > http://autos.yahoo.com/new_cars.html > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
