Dear Lute collective, For some time i've been thinking about some aspects about the intabulation of vocal pieces and i would like to know your ideas. When we look to the gigantic repertoire of vocal intabulations to the lute we encounter several pieces that are incredibly difficult to play. Intabulations done by Molinaro, Terzi, Barbetta, for example, some times present passages that are not only very demanding technically but also with impossible chord positions. Canguilhem, in his book about Galilei's Fronimo treatise, says that the main goal of Galilei's intabulations was to study the counterpoint and composition, not to be played. He even compares Galilei's intabulation of Vestiva i Colli for solo lute (where the madrigal is complete with all the voices) and another version for lute and bass solo (where the lute part is extremely simplified with supression of voices). The lute and voice version for sure was intended to be performed while the other might be intended to be studied. The act of intabulating would be the same as making a score for study purposes. There are a lot of intabulations in the repertoire that are more concerned in maintaining all the voices of the original work then making some concessions to adapt it better to the instrument. Of course, we are dealing with a huge repertoire from several composers and several places with specific differences. Le Roy, for example, is more willing to make changes to adapt to the instrument, he says that the "playability and beauty should come first". But even very complex intabulations were clearly meant to be played, like the Terzi intabulations of vocal pieces that present a "Contrapunto" from another lute. Terzi intabulations clearly prefer to maintain the original vocal piece in the intabulation in spite of the diffculty to play. What do you think about this? When you play this repertoire, do you try to keep all notes? Do you omit certain notes to make it more playful? Do you make decision based on the musical flow? I am very curious to hear your ideas. All the best, -- Guilherme Barroso [1]www.guilherme-barroso.com
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