Well, you know the holy Dowland - as the holy Bach ... ;-)
Arto
On 15/11/12 23:12, WALSH STUART wrote:
Well, isn't anyone other than Dan going to reply to this? I was
expecting a huge response!
Stuart
On 13 November 2012 20:33, David Tayler <[1][email protected]>
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.
[2]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
[3]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
--
References
1. mailto:[email protected]
2. http://youtu.be/Pr7jtlXk-OU?hd=1
3. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
