As a lute solo, I found La Morra challenging, but not at the top level of difficulty. There is a recording from 1994, but I can't seem to find it. Ha! Good riddance. I think it was mm 60, like everything else. Just play it without the ornaments until it is comfortable, then start to add the ornaments, or write your own. The ornaments are not by Isaac, but they are pretty good.
There are very easy, straight forward exercises to help play these pieces, but unfortunately they can't really be put into a book or video as it depends on the geometry of your hand. So they aren't out of reach, but one must proceed systematically, in steps. You can also set the metronome low, and advance a click every few days, but this only really works in conjunction with streamlining the motion of the right hand. If I am in a hurry to learn a tough piece, I memorize it first. Learning it this way takes an initial investment, but pays off big time at the end. If you haven't trained your menmory, you need to start with a smaller piece. But basically, it should not be out of reach, you may need a sherpa for a few of the steep bits. dt At 12:09 PM 9/6/2010, you wrote: > Are these pieces really only feasible for a very advanced player? > (I've got Martin Shepherd's Lute Society: Renaissance Music from > German Sources) > >Would anyone suggest an approximate speed to aim for, for any of >them? If it's the speed that Crawford Young and Karl-Ernst Schroder >adopt in their duet arrangement of La Morra then I give up now. > >(These pieces are all in Odhecaton as three-part compositions, >c1500. Is it surprising that they appear quite a bit later in Newsidler?) > > > >Stuart > > > >To get on or off this list see list information at >http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
