I have a recurring go at making sense of the music from Besard's Novus partus, as it has a tendency to crop up in concert programmes with my duet partner. This is what I wrote for the LGS and LSA newsletters some time ago: Bizarre DuetsA Some years ago my duet partner and I were asked to play music by Besard in a concert. We put together a suite for two lutes a fourth apart, played through our individual parts and thought they were straightforward and unproblematic, save for a few obvious corrections. In our first rehearsal we were in for a surprise: clashing harmonies, false relations, unprepared a and equally unresolved a dissonances, bi-tonal cadences, parallel seconds ... The duets had all of this and more; was this music really intended to be played as duets? I had a frantic night of tidying up the parts and we got through our concert more or less unscathed. Ever since this experience, Besard is known to us as Bizarre. But of all the pieces we played in that concert, the Besard duets received the most praise from the audience; they positively liked his music! Last year we included a few of the duets in a concert programme again. Armed with the earlier experience, I set myself the task of correcting the original tablatures.A Jean-Baptiste Besard (ca 1567-after 1617) published several books of lute music, one of which, Novus partus, sive Concertationes musicae (Augsburg, 1617) contains compositions for two and three unequal lutes. To say the two parts of the duets don't match up is an understatement, and to me it is inconceivable these pieces were ever played as written. Did Besard have an extremely sloppy copyist or were the parts simply never tried out by two lute players? I suspect the latter, as each individual part does sort of make sense in itself. It's when played together that the problems arise. Restoring the parts into playable duets is a disheartening task; where to begin? And equally: when to stop? One correction inevitably leads to another and before you know it you'll have restored the music beyond recognition. I'll talk you through my process of reconstructing[i] the Branles de Village. This is a process of continual doubt and endless revisions of revisions. My version presented here cannot be more than a temporary version, waiting for yet another change of mind.A On page 28 of Besard's publication we find a set of Branles de Village of which the part for the lower lute bears a strong resemblance to the Branles de Village in Robert Ballard's DeuxiA(c)me Livre (Paris, 1614). I made a score of what I think is printed in Besard. This is the first caveat; the original tablature can be a bit hard to read, so I might have made some mistakes. When in doubt, do check the original. I have unified bar lines and numbered half measures. The First Branle The first nine measures are fine. Measure 6 has two passing dissonances that add some spice. Alternatively, we could regard them as a foreboding of things to come. The next 9 measures contain a bi-tonal cadence in measure 14: the testudo minor goes to D-major while the bass lute plods on in G-major. But if we don't listen to this ostinato bass part as having a harmonic function we can enjoy the harmonies in the top part. It's where implied harmonies of C-major and e-minor in the testudo minor are not supported by the ostinato bass that I lose my harmonic bearings. This happens especially in the cadences that end phrases. In one of my more severe revisions I did acorrect' these spots, but this time I have decided to leave them unchanged.A The Second Branle The testudo minor has a strong cadence in D-major again in measures 23 and 27 with the bass part still relentlessly staying in G-major. These places are grating on my ears more than measure 14, because of the note e in the bass part on the first beat (actually creating parallel seconds with the melody of the top part). Not to mention the parallel seconds from measure 26 to 27. It's interesting to see, by the way, that in the corresponding place in the first phrase (measure 5) the testudo minor does end in G-major, together with the testudo maior. The last note of measure 30 is c# in the testudo minor against c-natural in the bass part. I've changed the latter to c#. In the testudo minor, measure 30, I've also changed the second note e to d, but left all other oddities as they are. Measures 33 and 34 have an interesting case of imitation. Both parts play the same theme simultaneously, in measure 33 with one lute starting on the note d and the other on the note e, reversing their roles in measure 34. Perhaps it was a joke by Besard, but if it was it didn't resonate with me, so I changed all themes to start on the note e.A The Third Branle In measures 41 and 46 the cadences in the testudo minor are for once in concordance with the bass part. It almost feels odd.A So far things went rather smoothly. There are many clashing dissonances, but the ostinato bass covers all discrepancies between the parts with a blanket of unifying wholesomeness; it's acceptable, of sorts, as long as we don't listen to the bass as a harmonic bass. Much like in some pop or jazz music where the bass has a rhythmic function that's unrelated to the harmonic progressions in the song. And listening to Besard's branles like this is spot on: it's popular music with a strong rhythm section provided by the bass lute, a simple harmonic progression in the middle and one or two freely improvised solos on top. Clashing dissonances are all part of the game and we shouldn't let our harmony and counterpoint rules spoil the fun. But then comes the fourth branle.A The Fourth Branle In the fourth branle the ostinato bass is replaced by a harmonic bass. However, the harmony implied is not always followed by both parts. I have tried to correct the most offending places, but kept an open ear to the spicy possibilities shown in the first three branles. I decided to forego niceties as avoiding parallel octaves or fifths, but have been less lenient with parallel seconds. The appropriateness of false relations is a matter of taste, acquired taste even, so you might not always agree with my attitude towards those.A Find my arrangement in tablature. I've not changed so much in this version. I must say the version we played in our last concert was much more de-wrinkled, and I might well resort to that version again for the next public performance, but as it is I seem to have acquired a liking to the quirky dissonances of Besard, however bizarre they may seem at first hearing. ________________________________ [i] I was greatly helped by Rocky Mjos, who willingly lend me his reconstruction for inspiration. ******************************* David van Ooijen [1]davidvanooi...@gmail.com [2]www.davidvanooijen.nl ******************************* On 22 May 2014 23:37, Ron Andrico <[3]praelu...@hotmail.com> wrote: > > A A Hello Thomas: > A A I have spent a bit of time with the ensemble music in Besard's Novus > A A Partus, and the upshot is that most of it needs serious work just to > A A arrive at a passable and playable edition. A Besard, like so many others > A A suffering from attention-deficit disorder, had a difficult time > A A sticking with the plan when he invented his new tuning. A Then, once one > A A sorts out the errors resulting from the tuning issues, the divisions > A A wind up sounding less than interesting. A You might want to do as I have > A A done - and others who have attempted to make sense of this music have > A A done - and just use Besard's lute ensemble music as a general outline > A A for creating better quality ensemble music. A Meanwhile, you might check > A A out Julia Sutton's work on Besard's Novus Partus. > A A "The Music of J. B. Besard's "Novus Partus", 1617 Journal of the > A A American Musicological Society, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Summer, 1966), > A A pp.182-204 > A A RA > A A > Date: Wed, 21 May 2014 16:40:25 -0500 > A A > To: [4]jmpoiri...@wanadoo.fr; [5]mar...@luteshop.co.uk; > A A [6]lute@cs.dartmouth.edu > A A > From: [7]twlute...@hotmail.com > A A > Subject: [LUTE] Re: Besard's Novus Partus > A A > > A A > Thanks kindly, everyone! It's what I suspected, but the comparative > A A > rarity of an "ordinary" lute in reentrant tuning sent my looking for > A A > some verification. > A A > Cheers, > A A > tom > A A > > Date: Wed, 21 May 2014 20:17:25 +0200 > A A > > To: [8]mar...@luteshop.co.uk; [9]lute@cs.dartmouth.edu > A A > > From: [10]jmpoiri...@wanadoo.fr > A A > > Subject: [LUTE] Re: Besard's Novus Partus > A A > > > A A > > " Nous appelons celui-ci "Nouveau Luth" non parce qu'il aurait une > A A > forme (construction) nouvelle, mais seulement `a cause du nouvel > A A > accord, qui n'est pas ingrat selon l'opinion de maintes (personnes). > A A > C'est nous qui l'avons invente un jour. S'il differe peu en accord du > A A > theorbe (comme on l'appelle), pourtant bien avant de connaitre cet > A A > instrument j'accordais souvent le luth de cette maniere, mieux apte > A A > pour la musique de n'importe quelle voix. Et ce seulement parce que > A A > (par rapport `a l'accord ordinaire) la basse frappe l'oreille de > A A fac,on > A A > plus claire, sonore et nette. Pourtant pour cet accord il est > A A > absolument necessaire de composer de morceaux speciaux." > A A > > > A A > > Voici la traduction du passage de Besard proposee par Dimitri > A A > Goldobine... > A A > > > A A > > Re-best, ;-) > A A > > > A A > > Jean-Marie > A A > > -------------- > A A > > > A A > > >I think Besard explains the Nova Testudo in his preface - can > A A > someone > A A > > >help with the text? As I remember it is top two courses down an > A A > octave, > A A > > >like the theorbo. > A A > > > > A A > > >M > A A > > >On 21/05/2014 18:10, Thomas Walker wrote: > A A > > >> Hello all-- > A A > > >> Do any of you have a view(s) on what instrument Besard wanted > A A for > A A > his > A A > > >> Nova Testudo? The other lutes seem pretty clearly to be 9 or 10 > A A > course > A A > > >> instruments a 4th apart. The top lute, to me, looks like he's > A A > assuming > A A > > >> reentrant tuning. I'm tempted to think of Castaldi's tiorbino, > A A but > A A > > >> that seems less likely outside of Italy that early in the 17th > A A c. > A A > > >> Thoughts? > A A > > >> Thanks kindly, > A A > > >> Thomas Walker, Jr. > A A > > >> > A A > > >> -- > A A > > >> > A A > > >> > A A > > >> To get on or off this list see list information at > A A > > >> [11]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > A A > > > > A A > > > > A A > > > A A > > > A A > > A A > -- > A A > > > A A -- >
-- References 1. mailto:davidvanooi...@gmail.com 2. http://www.davidvanooijen.nl/ 3. mailto:praelu...@hotmail.com 4. mailto:jmpoiri...@wanadoo.fr 5. mailto:mar...@luteshop.co.uk 6. mailto:lute@cs.dartmouth.edu 7. mailto:twlute...@hotmail.com 8. mailto:mar...@luteshop.co.uk 9. mailto:lute@cs.dartmouth.edu 10. mailto:jmpoiri...@wanadoo.fr 11. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
