Many years ago, I was playing for the public (al fresco, in the main
plaza in Siena, Italy). I ran through my Francesco, some Gorzanis, and
other stuff. When I finished a set, one of the locals who was listening
intently asked, "Very nice, but don't you know any ITALIAN music?"
Maybe random audiences are more sophisticated now, but really; a
restaurant gig is not a concert. "When the moon hits your eye like a big
pizza pie that's amore!", "Volare", might be more likely to say "Italian
Music" to most non-cognoscenti, in Italy just as much as New Jersey.
If you really are playing in an establishment where the tomatoes &
eggplant start flying in your direction the instant Philip van Wilder or
Adrian le Roy slip into your set, I want to know WHAT that place is! The
cooking ought to be fantastic & unaffordable too.
Dan
On 6/20/2014 10:03 PM, Edward C. Yong wrote:
Hi fellow lutenetters!
So I've been asked to do an Italian restaurant gig in July, two sets of thirty
minutes each.
Should I bother selecting Italian music appropriate for a specific time period
- e.g. dances from Negri and Caroso? Or should I just play through '58 Very
Easy Pieces for Renaissance Lute'?
Does anyone else get into these struggles for 'authenticity'? I doubt anyone
would even notice if I played an all-English repertoire of Greensleeves,
Packington's Pound, and Fortune my Foe on repeat, but I'd like to be a bit
better than that.
Edward Chrysogonus Yong
[email protected]
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