On Jan 13, 2009, at 12:02 AM, sterling price wrote: > ...For me, after playing a 13 course for many years, I wouldn't > dream of playing an instrument that didn't have an octave of open > bass strings.
In some music I've been playing recently (Losy, Lauffensteiner) which was written for 11-c, I'm very glad to have that open B-flat available on my 13-c. It does make life a lot easier. The voice of dissent on that point, however, seems to be that some players prefer to play the French-styled repertoire on the lighter-sounding 11-c instrument. > ...it certainly doesn't deserve the reputation it has. That's for sure. There seems to be some kind of mystique that surrounds the Baroque lute, created in part I think by renaissance players who find themselves swimming in very different waters when they play Baroque music. The music itself, the technique, the tuning and the instrument itself are a different world than that of renaissance lute. Actually, the only lutenists I've ever heard complaining about, or shying away from, that "decadent, late-period" Baroque lute came from the ranks of renaissance players. From the players I've met who have played only Baroque lute (not many, admittedly), I've never heard a complaint, no matter how hard the music was. > I think the 13 course lute is a remarkable achievment the result > of many centuries of progression. To continue to label it as it had > been in the 18th century til now as something -so- difficult is > really 'bad for business'. I think 18th-century music in general is a difficult proposition. It seems to me to have been misunderstood for a long time, first by the Romantics, then by academia. In our post-post-post-ultrapost-modern perception today, perhaps we are making some progress towards a more syncretic understanding of Baroque music. Davidr dlu...@verizon.net -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
