Andrew
Page 140, tells about a play on words relating to "luc" another word
for "lute". "Luc" gave a popular anagram which is "cul" and which can
be sometimes, according to CZ just vulgar, as in "gros cappitaines en
pllein champ de bataille ;.. se doddeliner, jouer du luc, sonner du
cul" Rabelais
"Big captains in the battle camp... sway to and fro, play the lute,
sound from the arse"
"To this the author of of the Poitiers lute and guitar treatise, who
may have been the poet Jacques Pelletier du Man, invokes the same
wordplay but adds a sexual innuendo: "Nos peres bon compagnons, qui
disent, que mademoiselle s=E7ait fort bien iouer du LUC renverse (but
here the word LUC, is actually put upside down on the page, implying
CUL). renverse may be read either as inverted referring to the luc/
cul anagram, or as "upended", referring to the young ladies'
posterior." I quote CZ, here. "Jouer dud cul", in this context in
French, means sexual activity.
This sets the scene for a series of paintings. They are not
themselves obscene; but CZ suggests that this series of paintings
play on "the visual lute as as modest and the aural lute as
lascivious ..."
So depending how you mean obscene, I would interpret CZ's words as
going in that direction.
Anthony
Le 11 avr. 08 =E0 13:35, Andrew Gibbs a ecrit :
> Thanks Anthony - I believe this mentions the lute being perceived
> as a microcosm of the human body, often female - but not so far as
> having obscene connotations - but in the grand tradition of the
> List, I don't have the book with me...
>
> Andrew
>
>
> On 11 Apr 2008, at 12:15, Anthony Hind wrote:
>> I believe there is some discussion of this in Carla Zecher
>> "Sounding Objects: Musical Instruments, Poetry, and Art in
>> Renaissance" France, University of Toronto Press 2007.
>> Anthony
>>
>> Le 11 avr. 08 =E0 12:23, Andrew Gibbs a ecrit :
>>
>>> Lutenists might be familiar with a woodcut that appeared in the
>>> first
>>> collection of keyboard music printed in staff notation (Andrea
>>> Antico, Rome 1517). It's a fairly insulting image - to lutenists
>>> anyway. The illustration shows a woman (probably meant to represent
>>> Music) making a dismissive gesture to a nasty-looking monkey who is
>>> holding a lute. With her other hand she is dropping some vocal part-
>>> books. At the same time, she's moving towards a handsome gentleman
>>> who is at the keyboard of a harpsichord.
>>>
>>> Generally, this image is understood as being an aggressive claim
>>> that
>>> keyboard music has become the pre-eminent form of music (a bit rich
>>> considering that the music in the collection is dead simple) - while
>>> lute music and part songs are old hat.
>>>
>>> Anyway, I've just come across a different interpretation of the
>>> image
>>> on the OTTAVIANO PETRVCCI web site:
>>>
>>> http://home.planet.nl/~teuli049/petrintroduction.html#Harpsichord
>>>
>>> The interpretation here is that Antico and Petrucci had some dispute
>>> over licenses, and Antico has portrayed Petrucci as a monkey and
>>> himself as the handsome keyboard player.
>>>
>>> Then it says this:
>>> ''Of course both the monkey and the lute had obscene connotations, a
>>> good reason for the civilised lady to contempt both.''
>>>
>>> I'm quite interested in this idea that the lute had obscene
>>> connotations on the 16th c - something to do with its curvy shape?
>>> Does anyone know more? Any pointers to essays, links, etc would be
>>> much appreciated...
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>>
>>> Andrew
>>> --
>
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