Dear Martyn, In fact I was annoyed by a lot af criticisms following Hopkinson Smith's recording of Dowland. People sort of looked down at it saying he played too close to the rose, which was not historically correct and that sort of things... Incidentally I have always had a great respect for Hoppy's work and having also worked with him occasionally, I know how committed he is to his musical and thechnical choices and how honest and intellectually deep his approach to music is.
So I just wanted to use iconography to get a more precise idea of what the pictures revealed about hand position and that is how I first set these pages up. It is quite clear, through this choice (very limited I admit, but I could have selected hundreds of other pictures as well pointing in the same directions), that in the 16th century lute players tended to play closer to the rose than afterwards. Of course there could be some exceptions then as now and it does not mean the people who played closer to the bridge were wrong or bad, then as now. I agree with Jerzy in one of his posts when he comes to the conclusion that what matters most is the musical value of what players try to express. The rest is a essentially a matter of controversy and speculation, as Anthony pointed out, and, even though it may be intellectually satisfying, this is not absolutely indispensable for musical achievement, or is it ? To be HIP or nor to be, is that really the question ? ;-) Best wishes, Jean-Marie ======= 09-02-2009 13:02:36 ======= >Whilst not disagreeing with the general thrust: that hand position generally >moved back towards the bridge by the early 17thC (which also may, or may not, >tell us omething about string tensions), could I ask you if the pictures were >selected to make the point or did you choose them randomly? I think we need to >be careful of self-selection. For example, a couple of depictions in Kinsky's >ground breaking 'History of music in pictures' 1929 shows the hand quite low >down towards the bridge and certainly not over the rose: > >'The Lute player' engraving Brosamer 1537 (Kinsky p. 81); and, even earlier, > >'Madonna enthroned' painting Montagna 1499 (Kinsky p.111) > >MH > >--- On Mon, 9/2/09, Jean-Marie Poirier <[email protected]> wrote: > >From: Jean-Marie Poirier <[email protected]> >Subject: [LUTE] Re: RH position, was: Dilettantism >To: "lute" <[email protected]> >Date: Monday, 9 February, 2009, 10:56 AM > >May I remind all of you interested in that thread on hand position, that I had >put up a couple of web pages with iconographical evidence about that very same >point. You will find it there : > >for the renaissance : http://le.luth.free.fr/renaissance/index.html >for the 17th century : http://le.luth.free.fr/baroque/index.html >for the 18th century : http://le.luth.free.fr/baroque2/index.html > >I will let you choose your conclusion ;-)) > >Best, > >Jean-Marie > >======= 09-02-2009 11:45:05 ======= > >>If all the pictures show us that the RH was at >>the bridge, then many of the pictures have gone missing. >> >>dt >> >>At 12:33 PM 2/8/2009, you wrote: >>>From: ""Mathias R?sel"" ><[email protected]> >>>>>"All instruction from the period tell us and the pictures >>>>>show us that the right hand was at the bridge. How >>>>>seriously should we take this?" Barto >>>> >>>>Perhaps like with a traffic sign when driving a car? I mean, not >>>>religiously, of course >B) >>>>Mathias >>>An unexpectedly Gallic opinion! >>>RT >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>To get on or off this list see list information at >>>http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html >> >> >>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>Orange vous informe que cet e-mail a ete controle par l'anti-virus >mail. >>Aucun virus connu a ce jour par nos services n'a ete detecte. > >= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = > >[email protected] >http://poirierjm.free.fr >09-02-2009 >N---?+¦?-+v+-¦?++?b²?+=+b+v++?i??0??j-f+?ay?©?-?v?^i?+÷?+u?a-i > > > >--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Orange vous informe que cet e-mail a ete controle par l'anti-virus mail. >Aucun virus connu a ce jour par nos services n'a ete detecte. > > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [email protected] http://poirierjm.free.fr 09-02-2009 N ¶è®ß¶¬+-±ç¥Ëbú+«b¢vÛiÿü0ÁË j»f¢ëayÛ¿Á·?ë^iÙ¢ø§uìa¶i
