Satoh is a veteran performer. He has made many contributions to our
field both as a player and a scholar who has published in professional
journals. As such, he speaks with some authority and many will assume
that even his "conjectures" have a basis in fact. I understand the
temptation as an artist to slip into poetic fantasy, but Satoh should
certainly also realize that we in early music walk in both the
aesthetic and scholarly paths of music.
Those who only have an ancillary relationship with musicological
concerns could be confused by his notes. I could easily imagine (and
this is just my imagination!) a non-musician historian writing an
offhand aside like "The Sun King's retinue of entertainers included an
assortment of notable individuals culled from all over the world, such
as the Italian Lully and the Portuguese de Visee."
Even worse, this is exactly the sort of thing that is very likely to
slip through into a classical guitar dissertation someday, because the
musicology faculty will not being willing to admit that they have no
interest or knowledge in guitar history and the guitar faculty could
care less about the history of their own instrument. That student's
dissertation then ends up being referenced and repeated by others so
that before you know it, it's a "known fact" that de Visee was from
Portugual.
Chris[1]
Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPad
__________________________________________________________________
From: Monica Hall <[email protected]>;
To: Martyn Hodgson <[email protected]>;
Cc: Lutelist <[email protected]>;
Subject: [LUTE] De Visee
Sent: Sat, Mar 1, 2014 11:39:05 AM
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" <[2][email protected]>
To: "Lute Dmth" <[3][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 <[4][email protected]>
>>> To: Lutelist <[5][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 <[6][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
>>> [7]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
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