My real question was about the highest professional standards, and
specifically whether lutenists can ever hope to match the standards of
top pianists or violinists, for example, while they persist in
spreading their efforts over so many different instruments. Diversity
is fun, but can a lutenist ever hope to attain the mastery of Murray
Perahia or Alfred Brendel (and this is not just about virtuosity) when
he is torn in so many directions? Excellence requires some hard
choices to be made.
P
On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 5:57 PM, William Brohinsky
<[1]tiorbin...@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm suspecting that the real question Peter raised is being skirted by
the respondents' reaction to the supposition of a charge
of dilettantism. Now that I've caught up a little, I see that he isn't
necessarily saying that lutenists tending to dilettantism is bad, just
that other musicians' (and possibly the public's) opinion of lutenists
may be suffering due to the lack of single-focus pros.
That makes this a PR question, rather than a historical or technique
question.
For my part, I guess I've never felt that it was a problem. When I
find a piece of music which includes lute, my music-making associates
are more than happy to play it with me. None of them consider my lack
of professional credentials. The people I know who have taken up lute
never have given a second thought to whether the lutenist they heard
who got them 'on the path' was professionally rated above the
currently-esteemed violin meister.
Quite the contrary, the lute seems to make its own following, and the
archlute and theorbo and all the other variants have no problem
drawing the unsuspecting guitarist in...
ray
To get on or off this list see list information at
[2]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
--
Peter Martin
Belle Serre
La Caulie
81100 Castres
France
tel: 0033 5 63 35 68 46
e: [3]peter.l...@gmail.com
web: [4]www.silvius.co.uk
[5]http://absolute81.blogspot.com/
[6]www.myspace.com/sambuca999
[7]www.myspace.com/chuckerbutty
--
References
1. mailto:tiorbin...@gmail.com
2. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/%7Ewbc/lute-admin/index.html
3. mailto:peter.l...@gmail.com
4. http://www.silvius.co.uk/
5. http://absolute81.blogspot.com/
6. http://www.myspace.com/sambuca999
7. http://www.myspace.com/chuckerbutty
