They used a variety of terms, in keeping with the
principle of historical diversity vs modern
uniformity. So brise, separe, Harpege, etc, all
in the dictionaries, and quite a few in music dictionaries.
Style Luthe can only mean something that the lute
can do that other instruments cannot, including
the harp. Since arpeggios exist in keyboard music
going back to the renaissance, as well as paired
articulation (baroque keyboard players used two
fingered scales) the most likely interpretation
for the term is unmeasured preludes or a type of
harmonic structure that is not possible to play
on the keyboard but can be adapted that has to do
with the "break" points of the two hands. A wider
context would simply be the overall style of
certain French composers. Certainly not
arpeggios. However, what we call brise would have
been Harpege, and there are clearly written out
examples say for example in Brossard.
As far as articles having a shelf life, it is sad
but true, I was even taught not to cite older
ones as primary reference sources. It doesn't
mean they aren't good, it just means that research is ongoing.
dt
At 07:51 AM 11/30/2009, you wrote:
I am not talking about the technique itself, but
the name asociated with technique. i.e. Perrine
described how to brake chords, but never used
the term style brise. And in general we were
discussing wheteher one can call the term "style
brise" modern or not. I am not saying we can't
use the name, however it is quite important to
find some evidence before one can claim the term was used in Baroque.
JL
----- Original Message ----- From: ""Mathias
Rösel"" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 2:02 PM
Subject: [LUTE] Re: Terminology: brise
"Jaroslaw Lipski" <[email protected]> schrieb:
Obviously we can use this term providing we know its meaning and origin. The
problem is that for a very long time people were using it thinking that this
is how the style of some French baroque lute players was described in past.
Harpsichord players wanted to imitate lute playing, but in general these are
not the terms that lute players used in Baroque (at least we know nothing
about it). Besides I really don't know why we so desperately need a name for
the style. Giving the name doesn't add anything to it.
It did add something, viz. arpegiated _chords_ over and over again in
many recordings. When I for the first time listened to French baroque
lute music in the mid-80ies, I thought, wow, there was jazz as early as
in the 17th century! Yet I simply couldn't understand what this music
was all about. Arpeggiated chords, that's all? Telling from available
recordings, I would never have guessed that it's all about melody.
One of the reasons why players used to play this music in shapes of
broken chords all over IMHO is that there was a name coined style brisé
which was understood as broken chords.
Mathias
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