In my previous message; I tried to point out the contradictory
situation in which players find themselves today.
Lute "juggling" (swapping lute and music types) can be very
entertaining, but this can not lead to the level of
performance skills that early historic lutists acquired. Staying with
one lute type, possibly with varying string lengths,
is bound to allow much greater skill to develop.
In respect to this, I think Chris and Wayne are just pointing out the
two different and opposing realities that a modern performer has to
contend with.
Wayne is pointing out the "ideal" context in which a player can hope
to reach anything like the competence and skills of an early historic
performer,
"I would think that in the old times, a lutenist would mostly play
music from his or her time. They obviously would not play
anything from their future, but I am sure they were mostly
not too interested in music of the past, except perhaps for
a few master works. I doubt that lutenists were into "early music"
the way we are. Which means that if we are really trying to
recreate the sprit of those times we to should probably select
one time period and stick with it." Wayne
while Chris is giving us some home truths about the conditions in
which modern players have to perform before modern non-specialist
audiences.
...How can you program a whole concert that
features, for example, "Italian Music, 1538-42" or
"German Music, 1712-20" and have it interest anyone
but diehard specialists? I personally love music from
both of these periods, but I have to confess that a
whole concert of either puts even a fan like me in the
mood to snooze after about 20 minutes. Chris
The fact that there is a contradiction here, does not alter the
reality of either; it just means that each player has to find their
own way around that contradiction.
Fortunately, the solution will not be identical for each player, and
the different results will hopefully be more interesting.
While not restricting himself to one Renaissance period, Jacob
Heringman has limited his playing area to a much greater extent than
Hoppy, of POD.
In order to add interest to his performance, at least on record, he
swaps between instrument sizes and shapes, giving a great variety of
tone quality.
Nevertheless, when he came to Caen, he played the Siena music on one
single Rutherford lute. I really enjoyed following the twist and
turns of the
polyphony, which is no doubt as abstract to modern ears as any
contemporary "abstract" music; but even though he was playing before
a specialist audience
one of the professional musicians complained to me that he hadn't
even put in one of the dance pieces from the manuscript.
Personally, that was no problem for me. I would not have liked any
thing that broke the intricate web he was weaving.
I like this rigorous, almost monastic uncompromising approach, of
Jakob, but there is room for other approaches. We just must not lie
to ourselves when we make compromises.
There is nothing wrong with a well thought out compromise, so long as
it is well thought out.
We may come back to the very ancient question, of whether musicians
are just here to entertain, or whether they should also educate their
audience. No doubt again there is room for both,
and possibly an infinite variety in between. However, perhaps the
concerts i prefer are those that build up concentration in the
audience, and then release it with musical humour during the encore.
Regards
Anthony
Le 30 nov. 07 à 04:59, David Rastall a écrit :
On Nov 29, 2007, at 5:16 PM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
...How can you program a whole concert that
features, for example, "Italian Music, 1538-42" or
"German Music, 1712-20" and have it interest anyone
but diehard specialists? I personally love music from
both of these periods, but I have to confess that a
whole concert of either puts even a fan like me in the
mood to snooze after about 20 minutes.
I take your point, Chris, but I can't help thinking that lots of
people will happily sit through an entire evening of Andrew Lloyd
Webber, or a Wagner opera, or a ballet by Stravinsky. I can sit
through entire CD's of Corelli, Handel etc., doing absolutely nothing
but sitting listening to the music. I've sat through many concert
performances of the big sacred blockbuster requiems, and loved every
minute! (Although I'm not sure I could sit through all the
Brandenburgs...)
...Too much artificially academic specialization has
lead to the absolute downfall of contemporary music in
its entirety as a legitimate cultural force.
Contemporary classical music is still present at the
university level were it is supported by grants and
endowments as if it were some kind of research rather
than art. But no one really pays it much attention or
respect. (I've played on contemporary music festivals
where the paid professional performers literally just
barely restrained themselves from laughing during the
performance. On this list, I can't repeat some of the
words used in rehearsals, but the phrase "this piece
makes me want to puke" shows very regularly.)
Once again, point taken. But it's not all that way. Consider
Piazzolla: he's a cultural force. Listening to L'Histoire du Tango
is for me like strolling through a gallery of modern art. It's a bit
like a modern-day version of Pictures At An Exhibition.
...Why draw a line in the
sand about something as trivial as whether having an
extra two strings on your instrument is an offence
against the lute gods or whether you may allow your
eyes to stray forward or back ten or twenty years
along the time line?
No reason that I can see.
David R
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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