d&d&h
I can see this approach easily enough. What I couldn't see was playing
through large liturgical works and getting the whole picture. I'm sure
he could play enough to let his mind fill in the rest.
Sean
On Feb 24, 2010, at 5:29 PM, David Tayler wrote:
I think Howard is right on as far as the process goes. I don't think
we can rule out the lute in any way based on this quote a far as
being part of the compositional process. It may have been used for
thematic material, for harmony, or any number of things, but it
looks like a direct reference.
The lute would not have had to play the full polyphonic web to be
used as a compositional etch-a-sketch.
dt
At 05:09 PM 2/24/2010, you wrote:
\On Feb 24, 2010, at 4:13 PM, John Griffiths wrote:
> the evidence about Palestrina and the lute suggests not that he
> composed on the lute, but that he intabulated his new
compositions and
> tested them on the lute before releasing them.
I'm not sure what "tested" or "released" would mean in this
context, but at least in English translation, the letter from
Annibale Capello to Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga of Mantua of 18 October
1578 seems to say Palestrina was using the lute to compose:
"Having passed recently through a serious illness and being thus
unable to command either his wits or his eyesight in the
furtherance of his great desire to serve Your Highness in whatever
way he can, M. Giovanni da Palestrina has begun to set the Kyrie
and Gloria of the first mass on the lute, and when he let me hear
them, I found them in truth full of great sweetness and elegance.
[…] And as soon as his infirmity permits he will work out what he
has done on the lute with all possible care.
This seems to say that Palestrina had composed on the lute, and
would expand it into the vocal parts as soon as he got well. The
Duke apparently thought that Capello meant to say that Palestrina
was writing lute music, as two drafts of a letter from a ducal
official to Capello that Jeppeson found in Gonzaga show, or at
least thats how Jessie Ann Owens reads them. The first one says:
"His Highness [the Duke] commands that Your Lordship [Capello] tell
Messer Giovanni di Palestrina that he should take care to get well
and not hurry to set to the lute the Kyrie and the Gloria with
other compositions, because having at hand many other talented men
[i.e. in Mantua, I think] there is no need for compositions for
lute, but instead for compositions made with great care."
The second draft says Capello should tell Palestrina that he "not
hurry to set the Masses to the lute, since [the Duke] desires that
they employ imitation throughout and be written on the chant"
This is all at pages 292-293 of "Composers at work" which I pulled
up on Google books by searching "jessie ann owens" palestrina lute.
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