On Mar 12, 2010, at 9:26 AM, Suzanne Angevine wrote: > Yesterday I got out a Francesco Fantasia I hadn't played in awhile. Its one > of the easier ones, since I'm not that advanced a player. But I thoroughly > enjoyed playing it - the counterpoint, the expressiveness of it. Later in > the day I listened to a CD of a big name player doing Francesco pieces. What > struck me most was the utter contrast between what I had enjoyed about > playing the music, and what I heard. Not just on the same Fantasia, but > almost the entire CD was BRIGHT, and very PERKY sounding. In thinking about > it, I felt that this effect was due almost entirely to the fast tempos > chosen. Now this player has exceptional technique, and can play fast and > cleanly. And it is to be admitted that the CD is rather old, and may no > longer represent the player's point of view on Francesco exactly.
I you're talking about Paul O'Dette's 1986 Astree CD, what you're hearing is not just brightness and perkiness, but tempos chosen to allow the contrapuntal lines to connect -- if the music is taken too slowly, it becomes disjointed as individual notes die away before the next notes continue the line. With the basic flow established, Paul is also inclined to stop a note so that the next one is emphasized, just as it would be if a singer made an entrance after a measure's rest. You might think it sounds perky, but the result is pure clarity. I remember wrestling with Francesco and then hearing how obvious and logical he made it sound. If you have slower tempos in mind -- and most amateurs do, since their conception of the music tends to be limited by what their hands are capable of doing -- it takes some getting used to. > But it got me thinking about tempos. Someone on this list recently commented > that folks generally try to play too fast. Is there some actual > musicological evidence somewhere that says what tempos should be used? Or do > moderns just play fast because we live in a fast paced world, and playing > well fast shows off our skill? A moderate tempo on the Fantasia in question > allows some time and space for expression of the music to bloom, but a fast, > perky tempo just makes it sound like pyrotechnic display, not what would earn > a player the name of "il divino". So, any musicological evidence for proper > tempos in Francesco's music? Certainly nothing that wouldn't allow for a broad range of tempi in a Francesco fantasy. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
