There was another article about Vallet's fingerings by Laudon Schuett published
in the LSA Quarterly not so long ago. He reaches essentially the same
conclusions as Sandman that Vallet chose fingerings primarily for their musical
effect.
I'm curious about the origin of this article as well. On the one hand, judging from things Ralf
mentioned, as well as the fact that the musical examples are simply photocopied from a modern
edition and marked by hand, it looks like a student paper. However, the pagination (pp.129-140) and
broad section title ("Baroque Lute Fingering") make it appear to be submission to an
edited and published scholarly collection. (It also seems fairly independent and not part of a
larger thesis or dissertation.) If it is part of a book, are there other articles on "Baroque
Lute Fingering" or other lute performance issues in it?
Chris
Dr. Christopher Wilke D.M.A.
Lutenist, Guitarist and Composer
www.christopherwilke.com
--------------------------------------------
On Sun, 2/16/14, R. Mattes <[email protected]> wrote:
Subject: [LUTE] Re: Baroque Lute Fingering (Vallet)
To: "adS" <[email protected]>, "Lute net" <[email protected]>
Date: Sunday, February 16, 2014, 9:36 AM
On Sun, 16 Feb 2014 12:15:23 +0100,
adS wrote
> Dear lute-netters,
>
> has anybody out there read this article?
Only after you posted this link - thanks for doing so.
> http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1112&context=ppr
>
> I wonder what others think about it.
Hmm - in what context was this published? I'd hate to be
to critical with some poor student's homework.
There are quite a lot of rather problematic statements in
this article
and the kind of "colloquial writing style" introduces quite
some
imprecision. I.E. "Although not as commonly studied by
scholars today
as are fingerings in [...] violin music ...". Really?
Somehow I seem
to have missed the abundance of studies on 17th century
violin
fingerings.
After reading twice through the article the final conclusion
it's
still not obvious to me. That early baroque articulation is
short?
Isn't that pretty much well-established from keyboard
fingerings already?
Looking at the author's example I cannot but wonder whether
she plays
lute herself. Using the same finger for two consecutive
notes does
produce a (slight) separation on keyboard instruments, but
on lutes
this might be rendered as a "glide" which can produce a
rather smooth
connection between the two notes. A lot of the examples
assume that
such glides are "breaks". N.B.: I'm not claiming that theses
places
where played legato, I just think that there is no
technical
reason/evidence for it. Would any lute player agree that the
half-tone
downward glide in example Seven, mss. 21-22 create a
noticeable
separation between c and b? Playing through the example even
that
change from mss. 25-26 (third finger on forth fret, fifth
string ,
than forth finger on third fret, second string) that looks
so much
like a "break" on paper sound extremely smooth - the right
hand thumb
just passes through from the fifth to the _open_ fourth
string while
the _open_ first string rings on. I think it would be
actually rather
technically demanding to play an audible break at that place
(and it
would involve _right_ hand articulation).
Example Eight raises another important question: to use
fingering as an
indication for a conscious choice of articulation the author
would need to
show that Vallet did choose the most fitting fingering from
a selection of
possible fingerings. But how else would you finger the last
chord of
mss. 25? As for the cadencial ornament in mss. 26 - I'd
probably start that
trill on the f, using the 4. finger already on that note, so
there would be
plenty of time to bring the 2. finger up on the e. (BTW: the
fact that the
author writes about a trill on e-flat seems to be another
strong indication
that the study was not created in close proximity to a
lute-like instrument :-)
Example Ten: again - the claimed "break" in the bass voice
would happen
on a keyboard, but on a lute those rising fourths will sound
perfectly legato
(unless the performer _chooses_ to not play them legato!)
and the vertical
lines in the tablature even require a rather legato playing.
Actually, any
other fingering would create a rather annoying ringing forth
in the bass.
The "conclusion" (read: the last short paragraph of the
article):
"Vallet's system of interpretive fingerings is remarkably
simple,
while being clear and precise" If there is such a system,
the author
has taken great care to hide it from us - which is too bad
since we
can't verify that it is simple, clear and precise. The
examples provide
look more like a "catch-of-the-day" collection. I would
have expected
alternative fingerings for all these examples that would
haven shown that
Vallet actually selected the one that fit best into his
system.
Some things I think should have been mentioned but haven't:
I find
example Four rather interesting: I'd expect a break after
the dotted
c' in mss. 51, i.e. short c' with 4, than bflat with 4, than
a with 2
finger (read: I'd expect the dotted note to be played short
while
Vallet's choice of fingering makes it possible to play the
dotted note
full length. The shift the author marks can actually be
played rather
smooth.
Example Five: what about the first chord in this example?
How would you
play the ornament on the high b flat? And doesn't the
tablature require
the barre to be held until the end of the bar? Given the
ornament on
a flat mss. 30, first beat (pull from above, b flat with 4th
finger) that
"break" can actually be played rather smooth.
N.B: to be said again - I'm a big fan of "short" notes, I
really think that
a lot of lute music is played way to legato, ignoring pretty
much all the
historic evidence (but that's nothing new to the lute world,
isn't it? :-)
I just think that the methodological approach of this
article is false. It
starts with the premise that Vallet choose a
bondage-and-discipline approach:
i.e. "I'll use this fingering so you _have_ to articulate
short" [1].
But that's an approach only needed when players would play
legato otherwise.
If we assume that articulation was more or less the same for
all (instrumental)
music of that time then there would be no need for such a
"forced articulation" -
players would have played short because the liked it. Thus,
a more fitting study
would search for places where Vallet could pick a
technically simpler fingering
because there was no need for legato fingering.
Oh weh, way to long post ...
Cheers, Ralf Mattes
[1] after all, there is no problem using short articulation
with "legato"
fingerings.
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