Dear Anthony, Please don't be put off by my remarks. They're harmless, believe me. Behind the flippant tone really was a serious question and your replies, and those of the others who have commented on the current state of lute playing, have been very enlightening.
I came to the lute in 1979, and by that time some of the revivalist spirit had begun to wane. Bream was still out there, as were all the other revival figures. To me in those days, the "pioneers" were Robert Spencer, Diana Poulton, Walter Gerwig, Suzanne Bloch, Dolmetsch, Bream etc., although Bream had always been a bit of a maverick who tended to "fall through the cracks" any time anyone tried to fit him into the lute or guitar world of that time. I too have lots of old "snapshots" i.e. LP records, which I listen to from time to time. I stayed with the lute until the mid-80's, then dropped out for about 10 years; but the point is that when I came back to it again in the mid 90's it seemed to me that nothing had changed at all! It all felt the same! Everyone was still talking about the same stuff, playing the same stuff, attending the same kinds of seminar workshop- weeks etc. Perhaps that was the time when the "post-revivalists" were just beginning to gain wide recognition. I still think that quietness in music is a function of the temperament of the person playing it. From what I have understood from this current thread, if there has been some kind of sea-change in lute playing, it's that lutenists are less introspective than in the old days when everyone was so concerned with "re-inventing the wheel." There still seem to be the two schools of thought: one that advocates modernistic versions of lutes and lute playing, to render the lute compatible with today's requirements for music-making; and the other that advocates going back into history to find out from the "old ones" how to do it better. Regards, David R [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
