From: "Christopher Wilke" <[email protected]>
Roman,
--- On Fri, 12/2/11, Roman Turovsky <[email protected]> wrote:
The idea of instant transposition on
an instrument PRECLUDES meantone
temperaments, for starters.
The affective quality of a piece was in part dependent on the key. Each
key had its own "flavor" imparted by the fact
that the semi-tones were all differently sized in meantone. In unequal
temperaments, it was thought that D major and E-flat major > imparted two
quite different emotional characteristics. (Mattheson, among others,
talks about this.)
I am not 100% convinced. Different keys sound different enough because
different fingerboard topography produces different timbres. And nonET
creates irritating ludicrously exxagerated harmonic articulation. There is a
chromatic piece by Merula on a meantone organ somewhere on Youtube that can
make anyone throwup. Totally unlistenable.
Changing the key then
theoretically alters an important aesthetic quality of the music. The
lutenist transposing on one instrument will need to take the
time to change fret positions and the open string tuning if the affective
character of the key is to be retained. If one uses differently > pitched
lutes to transpose, this is not a danger, which is probably one reason
they exist in so many sizes.
Having taken vocal lessons, and being asked to sing the same song in 3-4
different keys, I also had to do some transposing
for myself.
Altough I only do ET - I found transposition harder than to write another
idiomatic accompaniment, even for my meager and primitive style.
However, there is lots evidence that fretted instrument players used
something close to equal temperament (Gorzanis, Galilei, etc.) in the
renaissance and baroque. There is even a comment by Count Bardi noting
that musicians either didn't hear or simply pretended not to notice how
out of tune the ensemble was when viols and lutes played with keyboard
instruments.
Technical feasibility is another issue. Most songs by, say, Campion,
would be fairly easy to transpose. I would hate to transpose "In darkness
let me dwell," however. In addition to the difficulties involved, the
lute accompaniment is so idiomatically written that a large part of the
artistic effectiveness of the piece would be in danger of getting lost
without reproducing the tab as written on the page.
Exactly my sentiments.
RT
Chris
Christopher Wilke, D.M.A.
Lutenist, Guitarist and Composer
www.christopherwilke.com
To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
