[CITTERN] Re: Moravian Choralbuch [rights]
Thank you for this and especially for reminding me of the Moravian church (in particular the missions to North America in the 18thC). This spurred me to search more about it and I see that it was indeed originally located in Bohemia and Moravia but that after counter reformation persecution a branch was established in Herrnhut (Saxony) in 1722 which, as you say, seems to have become the missionary hub. Since the mandora/gallichon was only developed in the very late 17thC, then you're quite right to suggest that by this time there'd probably have been few direct links with the original Bohemian/Moravian locations and mandora use in that part of the world. Nevertheless the mandora did spread pretty rapidly throughout German speaking (that is through the educated classes) lands and by 1750 would have been known in Saxony. What I meant by the tablature looking like mandora music, was that melody and bass are often seperated by one ot more courses which is, of course, a feature only really possible if plucked with fingers. And here I show my ignorance of the cittern: are there any mid 18thC sources unequivocally for the cittern that require such finger plucking? - I had supposed it was all plectrum. Contrarywise, your point about the use of the cittern in the Moravian church in North America is equally telling - how do we know about this? I looked on the modern church's website but couldn't find a link. Martyn )--- On Tue, 18/8/09, Andrew Rutherford lutewo...@gmail.com wrote: From: Andrew Rutherford lutewo...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [CITTERN] Re: Moravian Choralbuch [rights] To: Martyn Hodgson hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk Date: Tuesday, 18 August, 2009, 2:09 AM Dear folks, Could be for mandora, the MS doesn't specify the instrument, but the Moravian church has a tradition of using the cittern in worship. There are references to people playing citterns in various other settings, such as funerals or sickrooms. And there are paintings of what appear to be lute-backed citterns (the strings are attached at the base and run over a floating bridge, so probably not gut-strung) in the hands of Moravian girls. (look at Lanie Graf's page on the ning site- she's a real Moravian!) By Moravian we're talking about the Protestant religious sect, not necessarily the country. The modern Moravian Church developed in Herrnhut, (in eastern Germany) in the 1720s and sent missionaries all over the world. The Pennsylvania bunch was well established by the 1750s, and there are mentions of people using citterns (Zitter, I think they called it) for various purposes; the cittern and harp were particularly important. The MS does specify the pitches of the six courses, on the first page, I think. And, there's the lute-backed instrument in the Moravian museum in Nazareth PA, which could be set up with six courses (it has 12 pegs). It could be tuned to this pitch, with a 50cm stringlength. andy r On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 3:11 AM, Martyn Hodgson [1]hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk wrote: Dear Andrew and Stuart, Having just now looked at the tablature, I wonder if the the instrument intended was in fact the mandora rather than the cittern. Altho' most mid-18thC mandora tunings are similar to the 'spanish' guitar intervals (except mostly for only a tone between 5th and 6th courses) there are a number of sources which require odd tunings - this may be one such. And, of course, Moravia and Bohemia was the birthplace and heartland of the mandora/gallichon - as also witnessed by the quantity of surviving mandora tablatures in monasteries there. Certainly the tablature looks exactly as other contemporary mandora tablatures but I'm not particularly knowledgable about the cittern of the same date in Moravia/central Europe: was it a common instrument? - more so than the popular mandora? Martyn --- On Sun, 16/8/09, Andrew Hartig [2]cittern2...@theaterofmusic.com wrote: From: Andrew Hartig [3]cittern2...@theaterofmusic.com Subject: [CITTERN] Re: Moravian Choralbuch [rights] To: [4]citt...@cs.dartmouth.edu Date: Sunday, 16 August, 2009, 7:51 PM I will need to check with Lanie Graf about the rights for performance. I think it may be a semantic issue of what qualifies as music. I believe the permission should be sought only for the reproduction of the tablature (music) of physical manuscript (e.g. you would need to seek permission if you were to create an edition or include a photograph as part of a book). Let me find out, and sorry for the confusion. Thanks also to all of those who have taken an interest in this
[CITTERN] Re: Moravian Choralbuch- missing pages?
Dear Andrew, Further to this, I see two pages with music are missing: 1. That containing Chorales 32 - 35 (fol 8v?) 2. Containing polonaises 9 - 10 (fol 17?) I see they're mentioned in the MS description which you also kindly copied. Martyn --- On Tue, 18/8/09, Andrew Rutherford lutewo...@gmail.com wrote: From: Andrew Rutherford lutewo...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [CITTERN] Re: Moravian Choralbuch [rights] To: Martyn Hodgson hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk Date: Tuesday, 18 August, 2009, 2:09 AM Dear folks, Could be for mandora, the MS doesn't specify the instrument, but the Moravian church has a tradition of using the cittern in worship. There are references to people playing citterns in various other settings, such as funerals or sickrooms. And there are paintings of what appear to be lute-backed citterns (the strings are attached at the base and run over a floating bridge, so probably not gut-strung) in the hands of Moravian girls. (look at Lanie Graf's page on the ning site- she's a real Moravian!) By Moravian we're talking about the Protestant religious sect, not necessarily the country. The modern Moravian Church developed in Herrnhut, (in eastern Germany) in the 1720s and sent missionaries all over the world. The Pennsylvania bunch was well established by the 1750s, and there are mentions of people using citterns (Zitter, I think they called it) for various purposes; the cittern and harp were particularly important. The MS does specify the pitches of the six courses, on the first page, I think. And, there's the lute-backed instrument in the Moravian museum in Nazareth PA, which could be set up with six courses (it has 12 pegs). It could be tuned to this pitch, with a 50cm stringlength. andy r On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 3:11 AM, Martyn Hodgson [1]hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk wrote: Dear Andrew and Stuart, Having just now looked at the tablature, I wonder if the the instrument intended was in fact the mandora rather than the cittern. Altho' most mid-18thC mandora tunings are similar to the 'spanish' guitar intervals (except mostly for only a tone between 5th and 6th courses) there are a number of sources which require odd tunings - this may be one such. And, of course, Moravia and Bohemia was the birthplace and heartland of the mandora/gallichon - as also witnessed by the quantity of surviving mandora tablatures in monasteries there. Certainly the tablature looks exactly as other contemporary mandora tablatures but I'm not particularly knowledgable about the cittern of the same date in Moravia/central Europe: was it a common instrument? - more so than the popular mandora? Martyn --- On Sun, 16/8/09, Andrew Hartig [2]cittern2...@theaterofmusic.com wrote: From: Andrew Hartig [3]cittern2...@theaterofmusic.com Subject: [CITTERN] Re: Moravian Choralbuch [rights] To: [4]citt...@cs.dartmouth.edu Date: Sunday, 16 August, 2009, 7:51 PM I will need to check with Lanie Graf about the rights for performance. I think it may be a semantic issue of what qualifies as music. I believe the permission should be sought only for the reproduction of the tablature (music) of physical manuscript (e.g. you would need to seek permission if you were to create an edition or include a photograph as part of a book). Let me find out, and sorry for the confusion. Thanks also to all of those who have taken an interest in this music! Andrew At 01:57 AM 8/16/2009, you wrote: Hello Stuart, That is strange nobody can play a music which is almost 300 years old. In France, at this age, music is public with no more rights. I am probably wrong, but I don't see well the problem. Damien - Original Message - From: Stuart Walsh [1][5]s.wa...@ntlworld.com To: Andrew Hartig [2][6]cittern2...@theaterofmusic.com Cc: [3][7]citt...@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Saturday, August 15, 2009 11:42 PM Subject: [CITTERN] Re: Moravian Choralbuch Stuart Walsh wrote: Andrew Hartig wrote: Dear all, Some time back Andy Rutherford had told us about a manuscript book (BMB4) in the Moravian Archives of Bethlehem, PA (USA) for 6-course cittern, tuned GCEgbe. Andy managed to get over there to take some photos, and after quite a few emails with the folks at the Moravian Archives, I am pleased to announce that Andy's photographs of the book are now available for public download from my web site. I have compiled all of his
[CITTERN] Re: Moravian Choralbuch [some music]
I'm assuming that the sentence in the intro to Moravian Choralbuch, here: http://www.cittern.theaterofmusic.com/musicfiles/index.html The manuscript and its music may not be reproduced or published without the consent of the Moravian Archives refers to the music notation, not attempts - puny amateur attempts - to play a few of these pieces. It doesn't really look to me that the pieces are arranged in order of difficulty. I've tried playing through them, not unfortunately on a cittern, but on a very basic guitar (in fact a Russian guitar with the usual very close string spacings). Perhaps, as has been suggested, these chorales are entirely functional - for accompanying singing - and not ever for purely instrumental performance. The fermata sign is used extensively but when I played the pieces, pausing a bit more (perhaps I'm misunderstanding this?), the music sounded wrong. With a singer - or singers - long pauses would work fine - as I think happens in hymns. And the singer or singers would know the melody and the words... over a lifetime. But it's a shame to have a MS of music and not actually try and play some of it. The pieces are quite short - presumably they have many verses? Now hymn settings with chords on every beat are fine on a keyboard, but not so easy on a fretboard and, I think, chorale settings like this aren't common on plucked instruments. In that respect they are quite hard to play and sound a bit clunky. But that could be just me! I've got four melodies. Firstly I've played them with the tuning GCEgbe. But this is on a guitar with a string length of 65cms. In cittern terms, that would be a big instrument? And it makes some of stretches quite challenging. The close position, low position A minor chords sound impressive. Andy mentioned a possible string length of 50cms so I put on a capo at the third fret giving a string length of about 54cms. So here are four of the chorales, first at modern GCEgbe pitch http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/No8.mp3 http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/No13.mp3 http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/No40.mp3 http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/No43.mp3 and here, at the higher pitch http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/No8a.mp3 http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/No13a.mp3 http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/No40a.mp3 http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/No43a.mp3 and finally a Minuet from the end of the book: http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/Men3a.mp3 with authentic 18th century plane in the background. Some of these chorales sound sort of familiar and I think there is a long tradition in Germany of sturdy chorale type tunes. I may well be misinterpreting the music and I don't mind having this pointed out! If any offence is taken, I'll remove the files. Stuart To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[CITTERN] Re: Moravian Choralbuch [rights]
Re the cittern and the Moravians, Lanie Graf published something in a recent Moravian Archives journal all about citterns, Moravians and Frederick Hintz, the furniture maker turned guittar maker. You can find the relevent (sp?) info on her ning page. By the way, Hintz claimed to have invented the English guitar. I think he may have invented the major-chord tuning for the cittern when he moved to England... andy r On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 4:03 AM, Martyn Hodgson [1]hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk wrote: Thank you for this and especially for reminding me of the Moravian church (in particular the missions to North America in the 18thC). This spurred me to search more about it and I see that it was indeed originally located in Bohemia and Moravia but that after counter reformation persecution a branch was established in Herrnhut (Saxony) in 1722 which, as you say, seems to have become the missionary hub. Since the mandora/gallichon was only developed in the very late 17thC, then you're quite right to suggest that by this time there'd probably have been few direct links with the original Bohemian/Moravian locations and mandora use in that part of the world. Nevertheless the mandora did spread pretty rapidly throughout German speaking (that is through the educated classes) lands and by 1750 would have been known in Saxony. What I meant by the tablature looking like mandora music, was that melody and bass are often seperated by one ot more courses which is, of course, a feature only really possible if plucked with fingers. And here I show my ignorance of the cittern: are there any mid 18thC sources unequivocally for the cittern that require such finger plucking? - I had supposed it was all plectrum. Contrarywise, your point about the use of the cittern in the Moravian church in North America is equally telling - how do we know about this? I looked on the modern church's website but couldn't find a link. Martyn )--- On Tue, 18/8/09, Andrew Rutherford [2]lutewo...@gmail.com wrote: From: Andrew Rutherford [3]lutewo...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [CITTERN] Re: Moravian Choralbuch [rights] To: Martyn Hodgson [4]hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk Date: Tuesday, 18 August, 2009, 2:09 AM Dear folks, Could be for mandora, the MS doesn't specify the instrument, but the Moravian church has a tradition of using the cittern in worship. There are references to people playing citterns in various other settings, such as funerals or sickrooms. And there are paintings of what appear to be lute-backed citterns (the strings are attached at the base and run over a floating bridge, so probably not gut-strung) in the hands of Moravian girls. (look at Lanie Graf's page on the ning site- she's a real Moravian!) By Moravian we're talking about the Protestant religious sect, not necessarily the country. The modern Moravian Church developed in Herrnhut, (in eastern Germany) in the 1720s and sent missionaries all over the world. The Pennsylvania bunch was well established by the 1750s, and there are mentions of people using citterns (Zitter, I think they called it) for various purposes; the cittern and harp were particularly important. The MS does specify the pitches of the six courses, on the first page, I think. And, there's the lute-backed instrument in the Moravian museum in Nazareth PA, which could be set up with six courses (it has 12 pegs). It could be tuned to this pitch, with a 50cm stringlength. andy r On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 3:11 AM, Martyn Hodgson [1][5]hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk wrote: Dear Andrew and Stuart, Having just now looked at the tablature, I wonder if the the instrument intended was in fact the mandora rather than the cittern. Altho' most mid-18thC mandora tunings are similar to the 'spanish' guitar intervals (except mostly for only a tone between 5th and 6th courses) there are a number of sources which require odd tunings - this may be one such. And, of course, Moravia and Bohemia was the birthplace and heartland of the mandora/gallichon - as also witnessed by the quantity of surviving mandora tablatures in monasteries there. Certainly the tablature looks exactly as other contemporary mandora tablatures but I'm not particularly knowledgable about the cittern of the same date in Moravia/central Europe: was it a common instrument? - more so than the popular mandora? Martyn --- On Sun, 16/8/09, Andrew Hartig
[CITTERN] Re: Moravian Choralbuch [some music]
Bravo! I agree about the order of difficulty business. That came from somebody's doctoral thesis that briefly mentioned this MS... andy r On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 1:55 PM, Stuart Walsh [1]s.wa...@ntlworld.com wrote: I'm assuming that the sentence in the intro to Moravian Choralbuch, here: [2]http://www.cittern.theaterofmusic.com/musicfiles/index.html The manuscript and its music may not be reproduced or published without the consent of the Moravian Archives refers to the music notation, not attempts - puny amateur attempts - to play a few of these pieces. It doesn't really look to me that the pieces are arranged in order of difficulty. I've tried playing through them, not unfortunately on a cittern, but on a very basic guitar (in fact a Russian guitar with the usual very close string spacings). Perhaps, as has been suggested, these chorales are entirely functional - for accompanying singing - and not ever for purely instrumental performance. The fermata sign is used extensively but when I played the pieces, pausing a bit more (perhaps I'm misunderstanding this?), the music sounded wrong. With a singer - or singers - long pauses would work fine - as I think happens in hymns. And the singer or singers would know the melody and the words... over a lifetime. But it's a shame to have a MS of music and not actually try and play some of it. The pieces are quite short - presumably they have many verses? Now hymn settings with chords on every beat are fine on a keyboard, but not so easy on a fretboard and, I think, chorale settings like this aren't common on plucked instruments. In that respect they are quite hard to play and sound a bit clunky. But that could be just me! I've got four melodies. Firstly I've played them with the tuning GCEgbe. But this is on a guitar with a string length of 65cms. In cittern terms, that would be a big instrument? And it makes some of stretches quite challenging. The close position, low position A minor chords sound impressive. Andy mentioned a possible string length of 50cms so I put on a capo at the third fret giving a string length of about 54cms. So here are four of the chorales, first at modern GCEgbe pitch [3]http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/No8.mp3 [4]http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/No13.mp3 [5]http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/No40.mp3 [6]http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/No43.mp3 and here, at the higher pitch [7]http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/No8a.mp3 [8]http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/No13a.mp3 [9]http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/No40a.mp3 [10]http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/No43a.mp3 and finally a Minuet from the end of the book: [11]http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/Men3a.mp3 with authentic 18th century plane in the background. Some of these chorales sound sort of familiar and I think there is a long tradition in Germany of sturdy chorale type tunes. I may well be misinterpreting the music and I don't mind having this pointed out! If any offence is taken, I'll remove the files. Stuart To get on or off this list see list information at [12]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. mailto:s.wa...@ntlworld.com 2. http://www.cittern.theaterofmusic.com/musicfiles/index.html 3. http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/No8.mp3 4. http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/No13.mp3 5. http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/No40.mp3 6. http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/No43.mp3 7. http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/No8a.mp3 8. http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/No13a.mp3 9. http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/No40a.mp3 10. http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/No43a.mp3 11. http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/Men3a.mp3 12. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/%7Ewbc/lute-admin/index.html
