Hi all! Andrew wrote:
On the subject of lutenists accommodating (or not) singers: Is there any evidence of what temperament the lutenist and singer - I'm thinking mainly of late 16th c lute songs - would have agreed on? Would the lutenist tune to get close to the temperament the singer had trained to sing in (just intonation?) - or would the singer helpfully adjust to suit the tending-towards-ET lute accompaniment? Or does it just work with voice and lute in different temperaments? I've never been clear about this... In my opinion composers who set music to words would have been inclined to use special sonorities offered by unequal temperaments to underline the sentiment of word. A singer singing in another temperament would certainly destroy or at least alter these effects. I for one find the alteration of more and less pure intervals, when for instance a 6th comma meantone temperament is employed, highly exciting. Cheers, Lex van Sante -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
