Thank you very much for that Martyn.
I don't know how many people have actually read these liner notes. Three
whole pages are taken up with this "biography" - it is not until you turn to
p.4 that you discover - Oh by the way - none of this is true. Some of the
information is factually accurate. Some of it is not - which I think is
inexcusable - Satoh is apparently unaware that Louis XIV died in 1715 and
that when De Visee was appointed guitar teacher to the King it was to the 9
year old Louis XV. Some of it is obviously bollocks.
When I first read these I queried on this list whether there was any
evidence that De Visee was born in Portugal - not after all impossible - but
did not get a satisfactory answer. I did my best to trace the source of
this information - which had found its way into Wikipedia - perhaps that is
where Satoh got the idea from. It seems that somebody some time ago
suggested that De Visee's name implied that his family (rather than he
himself) was Portuguese in origin. And so it goes. Endless pointless
speculation masquerading as musicology,
I can understand why David and and others who know Satoh personally and
admire his playing might want to try and defend him. But I think that it
needs to be said that people in his position - after all he taught at one of
the most prestigious music colleges in the world until recently - shouldn't
indulge in idle fantasy which may mislead the unwary. At the end of the day
he has said nothing about the music or the manuscript from which it is taken
which would have been much more interesting.
As ever
Monica
----- Original Message -----
From: "Martyn Hodgson" <[email protected]>
To: "Lute Dmth" <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2014 8:24 AM
Subject: [LUTE] Re: Bartolotti's continuo treatise
Perhaps you missed what Monica Hall wrote after quoting Satoh: “This is
all my imagination and conjecture"? She added Satoh's more misleading
comment "....based on the few documents concerning De Visee's life"
In short, Satoh misleads by suggesting that his spurious conjectures,
especially on birth place, are somehow based on historical sources.
MH
________________________________
From: howard posner <[email protected]>
To: Lutelist <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, 28 February 2014, 23:32
Subject: [LUTE] Re: Bartolotti's continuo treatise
On Feb 28, 2014, at 2:17 PM, Monica Hall <[email protected]>
wrote:
I think you are being disingenious. What Satoh actually says is
"This is all my imagination and conjecture, based on the few
documents concerning De Visee's life".
How is the reader supposed to know what is based on these few
documents
and what is idle fantasy?
I think “This is all my imagination and conjecture” pretty much gives it
away.
--
To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
