There is no reason why Campion should have been embarrassed at being a
guitar player as well as a theorbo player. Foscarini, Bartolotti,
Grenerin, De Visee and Medard were all guitarists and theorboists and
indeed most professional players may have played both instruments as
and when required in a manner appropriated to the occasion.
Please don't knock the guitar!!!
Monica
----- Original Message -----
From: [1]Shaun Ng
To: [2]Monica Hall
Cc: [3]R. Mattes ; [4]Lutelist
Sent: Thursday, February 27, 2014 8:28 AM
Subject: Re: [LUTE] Re: Bartolotti's continuo treatise
Campion actually says that he reccommends his pupils to take a few
lessons on the guitar before starting with the lute.
What I have found interesting is how Campion--who doesn't seem to be
embarrassed to call himself both a theorbo and guitar master--seems to
suggest that the way to play (or more precisely 'touch') the theorbo is
really similar to the guitar. I wonder what this says about French
eighteenth century performance style.
Campion (my translations):
There is an art to touching [the notes of] the chords. The thumb,
after having touched the essential note, must then do
a batterie with the other fingers, restruming [the strings] and
alternately multiplying the chord, unless the strings are separated
[....] This is why I always give a dozen guitar lessons to those who
intend to accompany on the theorbo.
The harpegement of chords on theorbo makes up superbly
when abbreviating the bass [in quick] movements. It is for this
reason that I usually give, as I said, a dozen lessons on the
guitar to those who intend to accompany on the theorbo. Its facility
brings about in a short time [an understanding of] the touch [of the
instrument].
Shaun Ng
On 27 Feb 2014, at 9:46 am, Monica Hall <[5][email protected]>
wrote:
I have read all the messages in order but there are rather a lot of
them and
no reason why I should reply to all of them in detail. To repeat
again what you
actually said...
"First, as I've said before: a guitar accompaniment is not a vaild
source
for continuo realizations! Guitar players where actually known for
there
inability to play sophisticated music (and that's why everyone and
their
grandmother sneered at them)."
There were a lot of amateur guitarists but many of them were
perfectly
capable of playing sophisticated music. In the passage which
Jean-Marie has
quoted Gramont says
The King's taste for Corbetta's compositions had made this
instrument so
fashionable that everyone played it, well or ill.
The Duke
of York could play it fairly well, and the count of Arran as well as
Francisco himself.
Clearly many of these people could play sophisticated music as well
as a professional player..
The memoires are a witty and entertaining account of life at the
Restoration Court but you don't have to take everything in them at
face value.
Some people may have sneered at the guitar but this is very often
just a matter of cultural snobbism which was alive and well in
the 17th century as it is today.
There is no reason why a guitar accompaniment should not be a vaild
source
of information about realizing a continuo. Many guitarists were
quite able to do this within the limitations which the instrument
imposes and they may have had a better grasp of the way chords can
be used than some lutenists. Campion actually says that he
reccommends his pupils to take a few lessons on the guitar before
starting with the lute.
That will have to do for tonight.
Monica
----- Original Message ----- From: "R. Mattes"
<[6][email protected]>
To: "Monica Hall" <[7][email protected]>
Cc: "Lutelist" <[8][email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2014 9:18 PM
Subject: Re: [LUTE] Re: Bartolotti's continuo treatise
On Wed, 26 Feb 2014 20:10:03 -0000, Monica Hall wrote
Monica - are you still reading up? It's really hard to answer
without
knowing which of my posts you have read so far.
> First, as I've said before: a guitar accompaniment is not a vaild
> source
> for continuo realizations! Guitar players where actually known for
> there
> inability to play sophisticated music (and that's why everyone and
> their
> grandmother sneered at them).
This is an outrageous remark. Certainly there were some people in
the 17th century who disliked the guitar and had their own agenda to
pursue. There are apparently some in the 21st century too.
Please, no conspiracy theories. Even the very text Jean-Marie posted
and
you had so much fun translating hints at the guitar's problems (as
do
many other 17th century sources).
But there is a substantial repertoire of fine music for the guitar -
by Bartolotti in particular, as well as Corbetta, De Visee and many
others.
As I have said before - I'm not critisising baroque guitar music.
There's indeed some very fine ideomatic music written for that
instrument.
Several of the guitar books include literate example on how to
accompany a bass line. These do sometimes indicate that compromise
was
necessary because the instrument has a limited compass.
Yes, and the more refined these treaties get, the more the guitar
gets
treated like a "mini-lute".
There are for
examples in Granatas 1659 book where although the bass line
indicates
a 4-3 suspension over a standard perfect cadence with the bass line
falling a 5th he has rearranged the parts so that the 4-3 suspension
is in the lowest sounding part. There is no earthly reason why this
should not be acceptable.
Sorry, but that doesn't make any sense. You can't have a 4-3
suspension
in the lowest voice. You can have a forth between the lowest two
voices,
but than the higher on would need to resolve downwards to a third.
What
you describe sounds like a 4-3 voice played an octave to low (or
rather,
the bass voice being displaced an octave too high), but that would
result in a 5th resolving to a 6th [1] ... I'm absolutely convinced
that
this would make any 17th century musician cringe. This is something
that
just does never happen outside the guitar world. It's not as if we
had
no information about how musicians (including amateurs) learned and
perceived music.
And no reason why lutenists should not have done the same if this
was
inconvenient.
For me the issue pretty much is: should I (as a lute player) take
as
a model an instrument which is severly limited (as a _basso_
continuo
instrument) as already noticed by contemporary writers or should I
just
follow contemporary BC instructions (literally hundreds of them!).
When
switching from the organ or harpsichord to a lute or theorbo, why
should
I all of a sudden ignore what I've learned about proper voice
leading?
With all the stylistic differences between the different continuo
styles
the common agreement seems to be that continuo should follow the
"rules"
of music (BC quasi beeing a "contapunto al mente") [2]
There really seems to be a great divide between the so-called guitar
world and the rest of the baroque crowd. To the later it seems
pretty
clear that BC was first and foremost a shorthand notation for
colla-parte playing. It's rather unfortunate that modern time picked
"basso continuo" and not Fundamentbass or "sopra la parte" or
"partimento" (the last literally meaning "little score" or
"short-hand
score").
Cheers, Ralf Mattes
[1] unless someone else provides a lower bass voice.
[2] im very reluctant to use the word "rules" here. This sounds like
something imposed from the outside. Maybe "grammar" would be the
more
fitting term.
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