Monica Hall wrote: > I was tempted to point out early on in this discussion that skips > of a 7th and 9th in scale passages (known as campanellas)
Campanellas are not necessarily skips of 7ths and 9ths. That's not how they're defined. They are passages of notes that ring over other notes on other strings, usually adjacent notes in what could otherwise be written as linear scale passages. > are commonplace in baroque guitar music and whatever method of > stringing is used (short of octave stringing on all 5 courses which > is hardly practical) these can't be eliminated altogether. > > Not being a theorbo players I refrained but I am glad Martyn has > pointed this out. > > I think one should be rather cautious about assuming that something > that doesn't match our pre-conceived ideas about what 17th century > music might have sounded like would necessarily have been a problem > to 17th century players. Short of radical brain surgery, we have no choice but to approach the question with pre-conceived ideas. The more significant question is where we get those ideas. If I want to form an idea of how a composer meant passages in 17th-century guitar or theorbo music to sound, do I form those ideas from other 17th-century guitar or theorbo music, or do I spend a lot of time with the vocal music that the composer would have spent his time listening to, accompanying, composing and (probably) singing? Trying to resolve a question about solo theorbo or guitar music by referring to other theorbo or guitar music is not only circular, but it introduces a bias -- a pre-conceived idea-- from the second half of the 20th century: that solo music is what baroque guitars and theorbos were all about. The Segovia Syndrome, if you will, named after a famous guitarist who rarely played with anyone else and could go for years without getting within a mile of a singer. In the 17th century the guitarists and theorbists were part of a musical mainstream in which vocal music was dominant and it was impossible to conceive instrumental music without having vocal music in your ear. Vocal music of the 17th century does not have a lot of displaced 7ths and 9ths. Nor does keyboard keyboard music or violin music. I haven't heard them in harp music of the time, but I count myself no expert. Trying to decide how to string an instrument for Pittoni or Melli solely by referring to assumptions about Corbetta or Sanz is a fool's game. Start with Monteverdi, Rossi, and Strozzi. Then Castaldi and Kapsberger and Piccinini. At least you'll then have relevant pre- conceived ideas. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
