On Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 8:17 PM, David Tayler <[email protected]> wrote: > Yes, I know of just a few in Europe who are doing this. I'm not sure > I would say "quite a few", it is still rare, especially here in the US.
There are quite a lot of occasions where I play with all-gut on the bowed strings around me. For me, all-gut on my lutes, this is a very nice experience. Apart from the obvious things like matching tone colour and volume and better blending, more practical matters like (de)tuning are also better in balance. > Put it all together, the bow, the bridge, the strings, the bass bar, > and on and on, and you get a sound that is radically different, much > more vocal, and, most importantly, does not drown out the lute! Indeed. And the internal balance in the string section is also different. We play our monthly Bach cantatas without double bass these days, just the basse de violon (grand cello). One voice per part, although we have the experience this doesn't work so well for the music of every composer. We also have an organ of which the bellows are operated by hand. And our reed players make their reeds differently from modern baroque oboe players and our trumpets have no holes, unlike the usual 20th century baroque trumpets. Many small details that in themselves don't change the sound or balance much, but taken together they do make a huge difference. For me it is much easier to play in an ensemble like this. There is so much 20th century baroque performance practice (I call it the esperanto early music style) around that is not hip whatsoever. >>list, and, as expected, got a response from Oliver Webber, which Yes, he does play with us sometimes. :-) David - in the middle of passion-season, hip and un-hip -- ******************************* 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
