On Feb 1, 2008, at 8:43 PM, Sean Smith wrote: > The movie itself didn't sync up because the actors didn't play the > instruments we heard. I confess I watched most of the movie with my > eyes closed.
True, the on-camera playing would have looked more realistic had they used the Muppets, who do that sort of thing really well. But you may have missed the point, Sean. Let me take this opportunity to remind the lute community of Steve Hendricks' web site for the air lute http://thehendricks.net/air_lute.htm , an invaluable scholarly resource. He places Tous les Matins in proper perspective: > In the movie "Tous les matins du monde," the actor playing Ste. > Colombe has pioneered a new area of musical endeavor. He > essentially plays Air Viol, although he does so while actually > holding a viol and bow! His mastery of Air Viol technique is > apparent when his fingers and bow do not move with the music and > fretting occurs with truly virtuosic randomness. There could be > ample opportunities to apply this new and exciting concept to Air > Lute, perhaps in a movie about John Dowland. It could really bring > out the "lack" in Lachrimae. All that said, the answer to the original question is that the lute player is really playing a real liuto attiorbato, in sync. I don't think it's Lislevand, because he plays left-handed (unlike the theorbo player in the orchestra scenes). I'm sure one of the European correspondents remembers his name. An Italian lute is an interesting choice for this quintessentially French story. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html