On Jul 21, 2013, at 8:52 AM, Martyn Hodgson <[email protected]> wrote:
> Well, I suppose it all depends on whether we try to identify and employ > the instrument the composer is most likely to have expected to be > heard. The question is not "whether" we try to identify the instrument the composer expected, but HOW we go about identifying it and what evidence we use. You assert that Bach must have intended the d minor lute because he wrote "lute" (of course, we don't know WHAT he wrote in the St. Mark passion, since none of the music survives, but we're all assuming he wrote "lute" because that's the term he used in other passions and the Trauerode), and, as you put it, "a few other contemporary composers (noteably Telemann) wrote church cantatas with a designated gallichon part." From the evidence of those few composers you could conclude, I suppose, that no composer would use "lute" generically, or at least that Bach wouldn't, but you're ignoring relevant evidence. If there was a long tradition of gallichon-playing in the Leipzig church music Bach supervised, you can't rule out gallichon, and you can't state that there's no evidence for it. Which is where I came in, and where I'll exit. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
