I've always liked Richard Crocker's term "ruffled homophony" I can't see in looking at 17th century baroque music that there is a "characteristic texture", there are so many different textures, the ruffled homophony, to be sure, but there are many pieces that are treble dominated based on dance structures, and there are many other textures as well, including the ground bass, the musette, broderie and so on. I think the interesting thing about lute music from this period is that it has such a diversity of styles. There are many pieces, perhaps even a majority of pieces, that are based on simple dance forms. It is interesting to read that this "texture" is formed by the successive playing of notes. I can't see a source for that, but if there is a source that describes that, and can be distinguished from unmeasured preludes, I would like to see it. Otherwise we are still back at the basic question, what did the lute do that other instrumnets did not? The slight breaking of the notes in keyboard music is an extension of the staggering space between the plucking point of the two or more sets of strings, not arpeggiation, and successive playing is clearly and unambiguously defined by Brossard--certainly in the absolute middle of it all, as Harpege. The importance of Brossard's writing is further supported by the fact that he used diagrams for key concepts, such as mode, and therefore the term Harpege has primary, contemporaneous significance. Terms like Brisure, brise, etc, do not even have an entry in his dictionary, although they are in lexicons, and thus must be of secondary importance. Without a real connection to the repertory and the sources, the terms has become a catch-all phrase. dt
At 04:18 PM 11/30/2009, you wrote: >Not everyone has a library within reach, and I happen to have the book >from Ledbetter that seemed to have started this discussion, so here >are a few lines by him to help people know what it's all about. > >From >Harpsichord and lute music in 17th-century France >by >David Ledbetter >(Macmillan Press 1987) > >p. xi >brisure >A style of playing in which notes of two or more parts are sounded >successively rather than simultaneously (noun from bris=E9) > >p. 33 >The characteristic texture of 17th-century French lute music is >commonly called the style bris=E9 (broken style). On a purely technical >level this denotes the process of playing the notes of music in two or >more parts successively rather than simultaneously. But in the context >of the repertoire as a whole it has much broader and deeper >implications. It is in fact a principle which governs the very nature >of the music. The style is based on subtle, attenuated allusion to >common harmonic and contrapuntal formulae, on fluidly build-up melodic >lines, and on intentionally vague harmonic direction; it is an aspect >of an aesthetic which flavoured asymmetry and unpredictability above >all else. [...] the style bris=E9 has its roots in the technique of >Renaissance lutenists [...]. > >Rhythmic displacement of the notes of the contrapuntal lines results >in a constant rhythmic flow which is the essence of the bris=E9 >technique. > >The chapter continues by tracing the development of style bris=E9, >starting with De Rippe (deemed too regular to be called proper style >bris=E9, but showing its roots), through Francisque's Le Tresor d'Orph=E9e >(1600), Besard (1603), Hainhofer MS (1603-04), Ballard (1611, 1614), >Herbert of Cherbury MS to Ren=E9 Mesangeau, who is [I quote:] 'generally >credited with being its inventor'. > >Btw >Ledbetter gives the earliest found use of the word 'lut=E9' for French >keyboard music in a 'Courante lut=E9' by Gaspard le Roux (1705). This >reference is in the same footnote that gives 1928 as the earliest >source he found for the term style bris=E9, although in that source (L. >de La Laurencie 'Les Luthistes', p. 109) the term is used in a way >that implies it is in common use for some (?) time already. > >David - loves the music > >--=20 >******************************* >David van Ooijen >[email protected] >www.davidvanooijen.nl >******************************* > > > >To get on or off this list see list information at >http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
