I like the "fake book" idea, but even fake books are now a published,
uniform commodity; as opposed to the individual personal compilations of
different musicians, as varied as the individuals themselves.
Tracking down and precisely nailing down the ornaments? Only up to a
point, then one loses the whole essence of ornamentation; regardless of
era, provenance, customs, etc. - at some point you, the musician, must
show yourself! Music exists only in performance or it is dead. And late
20th Century "classical" tradition became a museum curator's type of
game, where even the live performances were a dead show 'n tell
presentation of the music, rather than a living re-creation. Even some
Jazz & Blues performers have fallen into this trap. One technically
great performer I know has done note perfect, guitar & vocals,
(including ornaments) renditions of great country blues classics. As
deadly unspontaneous, boring, but "correct" as anything I've ever heard
in the concert hall. And for what it's worth (nothing, of course!) he is
a young American musician with direct personal roots in this musical
heritage.
A final word on this ornament business comes straight from the source:
"You should have some rules for the sweet relishes and shakes if they
could be expressed here, as they are on the lute: but seeing they cannot
by speach or writing be expressed, thou wert best to imitate some
cunning player, or get them by thine own practise, onlie take heed, lest
in making too many shakes thou hinderest the perfection of the notes. In
some, if you affect biting sounds, as some men call them, which may very
well be used, yet use them not in your running, and use them not at all
but when you judge them decent."
- "Necessarie Observations belonging to lute, and lute playing, by John
Baptisto Besardo...."
Varietie of Lute-Lessons" 1610
On 11/17/2012 7:49 AM, Leonard Williams wrote:
Maybe we should think of much of the MS works for lute as Elizabethan
"fake books". As for appropriate reconstructions: how might a jazz
writer from the 30's view a 90's rendition of one of his old chestnuts?
(Just questions from an amateur--not trying to challenge anyone's educated
opinion). Of course, I prefer whatever "authenticity" we can dig up,
otherwise I'd probably just get a guitar!
As for the lack of consistency in signaling ornaments or rolled chords:
might it be a matter of who wrote the MS and for whom? A student who
copies out the tune wanting a hint for every embellishment; or an
accomplished player who knows what to do and where; or an instructor who
says "Let's see what you do with this?" Or even an amateur trying to make
a hard copy of something he just heard down at the pub?
Leonard Williams
On 11/16/12 3:56 PM, "Martin Shepherd" <[email protected]> wrote:
When I say Dowland's solo lute music is not by Dowland, all I mean is
that the sources which have come down to us are not published editions
by JD himself and may mostly be arrangements of his music by someone
else. Given his reputation as a performer, this is hardly surprising.
Very few of his pieces (as we have them) have a kind of "Urtext" feel -
which is a great disappointment, of course.
Similarly the idea that the pieces in Robert Dowland's VLL represented
Dowland's "final thoughts" on some of his great pieces (this was
apparently Diana Poulton's belief) must be questioned. I think that VLL
is essentially Robert's work, and the pieces by JD in that book are
Robert's versions, albeit heavily mangled by the printer. That still
leaves us without "proper" versions of most of JD's "solo" works. Most
of the rest are in Holmes' MSS, and he had his own fish to fry -
particularly making lute versions of ensemble pieces for his students
and even bandora versions of lute pieces for the same purpose.
I think JD was a well-educated musician who knew counterpoint and proper
voice leading as well as anyone. He was also a practical musician who
knew what the lute was good for and how to make the most of its
resources. So to the extent that he "wrote" for solo lute, he may well
have allowed the odd bare 5th chord, the odd place where an octave
string supplied the missing note, as did every other lutenist - but it
is hard to imagine him complaining about one of us "filling in" some
missing harmony or completing a point of imitation where it is possible
to do so, as long as the overall musical result is good. At the same
time is is easy to imagine him being unimpressed by one of us playing
note-for-note what some bungling amateur had written in a hastily
scribbled manuscript copy four hundred years earlier.
All the best,
Martin
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