Thanks, Mark. Yes, I went back and re-read the article. Kenny's mention of Dowland songs was to reinforce her premise that a projected voice with extrovert ornamentation was used in early 17th century English performance. Of course, it was - in public music for the theatre. Likewise, I think she was promoting the use of the countertenor voice, which was under a bit of criticism at the time (2008) as an inauthentic 20th century construct (and she is known as an accompanist for Robin Blaze). Both Andrew Parrott and David Hill have written on how we have misconstrued evidence as to what was a countertenor voice and just how it may have been used. David Hill, who calls himself a 'reformed countertenor' with tongue-in-cheek, thinks Alfred Deller's popularity at the time of the early music revival may have had quite a bit to do with acceptance of an inauthentic singing approach. Nevertheless, Kenny mentioned the Dowland setting of Lachrimae from an ms source with only treble and bass as an example of how such a song would have been used in public performance as a vehicle for improvised accompaniment and ornamentation, which takes it out of the introspective realm. In my experience, people can and do use factual historical evidence to support whatever idea they may be promoting at the time. For instance, I can show you pictorial evidence that Swedish organists were pigs and Italian lutenists were monkeys. I'm a little to lazy to do it at the moment, but I'm sure I could write a full length article to advance these ideas. Again, thankfully, we have a multitude of approaches to interpreting old music and a case could be made for all of them. Certainly, Panatgruel's success speaks for itself and we love what we've seen in your videos. We enjoy a certain amount of success with our approach as well and I'm sure we both have got it right judging by audience reactions. Isn't it grand? Best, RA > Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2012 18:55:33 +0100 > To: [email protected] > CC: [email protected] > From: [email protected] > Subject: [LUTE] Re: Saturday quotes > > Liz kenny talks about Flow my tears and other Dowland songs that would certainly fall under the introspective category. I would certainly not describe the article as ponderous or overtly speculative as it quotes a great deal of evidence from the period. > > I would also recommend an excellent book by Christopher Marsh "Music and Society in Early Modern England" (Cambridge university Press 2010). > Probably one of the first books to discuss the actual role that music played in the lives of people in Renaissance England. > > All the best > Mark > > On Mar 11, 2012, at 5:18 PM, Ron Andrico wrote: > > > Thanks for your comments, Mark. I read Liz Kenny's article a few years ago and decided to politely reserve judgement. I have to say, so many ponderous academic articles purportedly describing possible motives and speculative modes of historical musical performance wind up making me very sleepy. I think I recall, she was deliberately focusing on non-domestic repertory. But, as you certainly know, the proof is in the pudding and an effective performance is just that, no matter what the approach. > > > > Thankfully, there are many vastly different approaches to performing old music. We choose an approach that suits our personalities, and our motivation is the more introspective 'chamber' music corner of the repertory. I've done more than my share of theatrical music (from different eras both real and imaginary), and that is certainly a valid and effective approach as well. But the long and short of it is, I look terrible in panty hose. > > > > As we took pains to point out, we don't pass judgement on those who focus on the more extrovert repertory and use visuals to enhance performance art. But it's just amazing what can be done without props. > > > > Best, > > > > RA > > > > > > > > > Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2012 14:08:36 +0100 > > > To: [email protected] > > > CC: [email protected] > > > From: [email protected] > > > Subject: [LUTE] Re: Saturday quotes > > > > > > Reading this I can't help but feel that you are pressing for an aesthetic that is more a reaction to our modern world than one that reflects a possible 16th century cultural atmosphere.... > > > > > > Check out this excellent article by Liz Kenny... > > > "The uses of lute song: texts, contexts and pretexts for `historically informed' performance" Early Music 2008/02 > > > > > > Here us a bit of the opening.. > > > > > > "Our enthusiasm for printed sources has obscured other ways of approaching these songs, and has artificially divided them from the songs of the next generation. What looks like a perfect balance on paper may or may not have remained so when the songs were performed, and the seductive solitude evoked by a book to be kept and treasured at home may not have always represented composer `intentions', if indeed we can separate these from performer intentions. The `miniaturist aesthetic' of privacy, secrecy and the `esoteric' often define this repertory. `Iconographical representations of the lute in performance of instrumental or vocal music ... consist- ently depict a theatre of privacy and solitude ... apart (or distanced) from public, courtly culture.' This may have been true of one group of performers--the most iconogenic--but it ignores what others were doing in other contexts, very definitely in public." > > > > > > The end (with lots of interesting stuff in-between....) > > > > > > "Early 17th-century musicians faced a challenge which their modern descendents have no trouble recognizing: that of adjusting their personal creative ambitions to different sorts of audience or consumer demand. This is not compatible with a philosophy of one `right' or even one generally preferable style of modern performance based on a careful sifting of his- torical evidence, if the sift eliminates evidence incom- patible with any single interpretative thesis. Modern ideas of `public' and `private' are not always helpful: traces of 17th- century public practice are to be found in privately circulated manuscripts, while widely available printed books facilitated solitary music- reading. To illuminate this repertory from scholarly angles we need not a normative musicology but a more cheerfully disruptive one: we might then use its tools to sharpen a new set of interpretive skills. As Robert Spencer said `I see nothing upsetting in that' " > > > > > > All the best > > > Mark > > > > > > www.pantagruel.de > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Mar 10, 2012, at 5:43 PM, Ron Andrico wrote: > > > > > > > We have posted our Saturday quotes on performing lute songs with no > > > > gimmicks: > > > > [1]http://wp.me/p15OyV-lv > > > > Ron & Donna > > > > > > > > -- > > > > > > > > References > > > > > > > > 1. http://wp.me/p15OyV-lv > > > > > > > > > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > > > > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > > > > > > > > > > > > --
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