All,
There is period evidence for the employment of bass damping
technique. A staccato symbol (a dash above the notes) is found in later
ornament tables, specifically the "Falckenhagen" Nuremberg table and
the very similar Manieren chart from Johann Christian Beyer's
collection of "Herrn Professor Gellerts Lieder..."
In the Falckenhagen example, only fretted notes on the fingerboard
are shown, but Beyer includes an open bass. An example of its use is in
Straube's G Major Sonata at the end of opening gesture, were the
staccato symbol is used with a 12th course bass and again with an 8th
course bass. Very short articulation is further underscored by the
symbol being followed by a rest. Sometimes, the actual word "staccato"
is written in, as in the Polaca movement of the anonymous D-minor
sonata in the Rosani lute book. There, a series of fairly quick chords
with both stepwise and leaping open basses is marked "stacc." The
passage is repeated at different pitch levels with other open basses.
The physical distance between the basses and treble courses makes it
impossible to damp the low courses with anything other than the right
hand (for example, there's not enough time to place the left hand
across all 13 courses and get back in position to fret the next
chord). Not stopping these low notes would result in a muddy campanella
mess beneath crisply articulated sonorities in the treble: hardly
likely, even with "self-articulating" gut.
While this does not prove how regularly bass damping was employed,
it does demonstrate that right hand damping was within the conception
of players and that some technique for it existed. In the tables, there
is no explanation of how to actually execute this damping, which
implies that players would be expected to know how to do it because it
was already part of the standard technique.
Chris
Dr. Christopher Wilke D.M.A.
Lutenist, Guitarist and Composer
www.christopherwilke.com
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