Of course the original sources are fine, I sort of have a question about whether they are like those half-baked loaves of bread in the store that you heat up at home--whether some of the details were left out so you could provide them at the time of playing, or whether there were, as I suspect, conventions or rules for filling in the details that people knew and did not have to write down. Otherwise it is sort of a "raw toast" scenario. When Lumsden made his editions, he basically "corrected" some of the pieces, sometimes in a very clever way, but sometimes so that they lost their character. And for me that is what I would like to avoid, so I go for versions that have their own character. dt --- On Tue, 11/13/12, Dan Winheld <dwinh...@lmi.net> wrote:
From: Dan Winheld <dwinh...@lmi.net> Subject: Re: [LUTE] Reconstructing Dowland; deconstructing Dowland To: "David Tayler" <vidan...@sbcglobal.net> Cc: "lute" <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> Date: Tuesday, November 13, 2012, 2:22 PM Thank you Professor Tayler! Excellent points, exquisite playing, and -from what I can hear on my wretched computer- a correct & satisfying tenor line. That would have been a bit slow tempo for me some years ago, but as I age it's becoming pleasant to take more time with things. And enjoy the work of others who do. In my own career as a lazy consumer of lute food, I just plays 'em as I finds 'em. If one version doesn't smell right for one reason or another, I search until I find one that does. And a few times, I have also bit the bullet and corrected inner voices- to the best of my relatively limited, less-educated ability. Many, many of the solos exist as lute songs- and of course the "Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares..." consort edition- and these sources can provide some guidance for improving the helter-skelter lute solos. And mentally slapping my own wrist as I try to monitor my impulse to dribble out some crass ornamentation at times. (Tourette's Syndrome on the lute can get ugly if not kept in check.) One of these days you should do another local luter's workshop- this time on the Dowland solos, (and maybe a couple of Danyel, Rossiter, & Holborne tunes as well). I'll supply the single malt, maybe even the premises, if that helps... Dan On 11/13/2012 12:33 PM, David Tayler wrote: > Most of Dowland's lute solos come down to use a sketch--two outside > lines, a few chords, and some "noodly appendages"--ornaments added by > lutebook owners or their copyists. > Many conclusions can be drawn, but the basic question remains, what to > do with all of these sources? Obviously, performing them "as is" is one > solution, and perfectly fine--a snapshot in time of what a lute player > of the time would have played. Absoutely OK, and there it is, in the > ms. But suppose there is more? > The other path is to add inner voices and strip out the noodly > appendages. I've given this quite a bit of thought over the last > twenty-five years, and I have a few simple guidelines. > 1. Eliminate parallel fifths and octaves. Dowland never wrote bad > counterpoint, so these have to go. Famous example is the version of > Lachrimae with the parallel fifth in the opening phrase, even though > Dowland's published version is different. > 2. Strip out "orbiting" noodly appendages. One sure sign of cookbook, > color-by-number ornaments are those that present a set of added melodic > sequences that start and end on the same note. Accomplished composers > rarely use these, they are intended mainly for students. By returning > to the same note, you mostly avoid the problem of parallel octaves and > fifths, thus, an amateur who could not read music and did not study > counterpoint could provide "correct" counterpoint in simple ornaments. > Ornamentation treatises mention this trick as a way to dive in to > ornamentation: nothing wrong with it, but it is for beginners--not > Dowland. > 3. Make sure cadences have leading tones somewhere in the bar, and end > chords with thirds in the harmony. Although you see open fifths in mid > century lute works, by 1590 you mainly see full harmony. A skilled > player would not play G Major with a third and C "Major" without the > third just to avoid fifth position, and you see this in the ms sources. > Whether these open chords were simply sketches, or intentionally left > to the play to fill in, foreshadowing later works such as Visee, these > need leading tones. > 4. Inner parts. Dowland's works at an absolute minimum always support a > tenor or alto part, or both. If they are missing, they need to be > supplied. There are a myriad of examples in the lute solos and lute > songs, and they follow simple rules of counterpoint. If you study the > chromatic fantasies, you can see complex inversions and imitation, but > ta simple, well-written line will do. After analyzing all of the works, > I can see that they were composed with inner parts in mind--that is, > there are no works that paint contrapuntal corners where inner parts > are not possible, which you see in other composers. > Following these rules, I have created a very simple example. In one > place I changed the harmony to make sure the form was "rounded," that > is, a sort of mini refrain but the rest is pretty straightforward. > [1]http://youtu.be/Pr7jtlXk-OU?hd=1 > I'm interested in new ideas going forward, before I tackle some of the > more complex works. Please feel free to make suggestions. > dt > > -- > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > [2]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > -- References 1. http://youtu.be/Pr7jtlXk-OU?hd=1 2. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html