Dear Martyn and all
There are indeed some beautiful early lute tablatures, manuscript
or engraved, that are a joy to peruse (as appears to be the case for
the Krzeszow manuscript mentioned here recently by JarosÃ
aw Lipski, in
relation to his new Weiss LP or the magnificent engraving of Reusner's
Neue Lauren Fruchte).
However, some well documented modern transcriptions can both be a help
in reading old tablatures with damaged or missing elements, if these
are reconstructed by more competent musicologists than myself, and
often, as with the CNRS editions, these are backed up by well
documented concordances allowing us to search for the relevant
manuscripts ourselves. With French pieces, I find this useful
having several versions from different manuscripts. Indeed, I believe
in recent transcriptions of French pieces by Joel Dugot or François
Pierre Goy, for example, they often present pieces derived from
several manuscripts based on their musicological réflexions, and
interestingly their transcriptions of the same pieces are not
identical, but this difference gives me pleasure, there is no reason
why two musicologists would come up with exactly the same musical
choice, yet the concordances are always given and so the musician can
decide for himself which they prefer.
Having said that, I may not be the only lutenist who is unable to
read any tablature old or modern placed on a music stand, and who is
therefore obliged to personally transcribe every piece in their own
handwriting as large as possible, because of weakening sight. As Mark
Probert says this also helps to understand the piece, particularly if
the transcription is based on several manuscripts. Unfortunately some
modern transcripts with partially sketched minuscule characters are
even more difficult to read with poor eyesight than old manuscripts
though this is fortunately not the usual case.
I thank both those who make old manuscripts and modern transcriptions
widely available on the Web or through lute societies or other outlets.
Regards
Anthony
Understanding. By going through a piece in such detail you get
a somewhat different knowledge of the piece one that, certainly for a
poor player
like me, can really help in getting to learn the piece
Certainly some modern transcriptions are even less legible than old
manuscripts with minis use characters,
There are also modern transcriptions which are almost unreadable,
because of the minuscule characters (which will perhaps not be the case
for Doug Towne's editions).
On the other hand there are sometimes parts of a manuscript that have
become damaged, and there it may be useful to see the solution to the
missing piece worked out by a scholar in the field, if there is no
concordance to help.
I frequently do refer to the CNRS editions for French Baroque music,
but I have noticed on occasions that the chosen tablature for a piece
is not always the result of recreating the piece from the various
existing manuscripts, but one of these has been preferred, perhaps for
a very good reason. Nevertheless the reader is always referred to
concordances which allows more research.
but personally my eyesight does not allow me to read either on a music
stand, so in all cases I transcribe by hand.
[1]Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
Le samedi, décembre 21, 2019, 1:40 PM, Martyn Hodgson
<hodgsonmar...@mail.cs.dartmouth.edu> a écrit :
Dear Nancy,
I generally much prefer a facsimile of the original print or MS and
sometimes wonder how the recent desire to put things into a modern
uniform tablature edition has gained ground. In particular, the use
of
hand or engraving allowed and allows a more flexible approach in
spacing etc which can better suggest interpretation and, in my view,
usually makes reading easier. .
Admittedly, with some originals the quality can be poor and difficult
to read and, in these cases, I think a modern edition (employing
tablature and spacings as close as possible to the original) is,
indeed, perhaps the answer. However, collections such as that of 1638
by Pierre Gaultier Orleanois are, in my view, perfectly readable -
my
own photocopy of a microfilm print has a few background shadings but
these could be cleaned up electronically I suspect to a condition
closer to that when the collection was first printed.
In short, players should feel encouraged to play direct from such
rather than modern printed editions which impose a uniform and
Procrustean style favoured by the modern editor.
Martyn Hodgson
On Friday, 20 December 2019, 20:14:25 GMT, Nancy Carlin
<[2]lsaq.edi...@gmail.com> wrote:
The LSA has just finished publishing all of Doug Towne's edition of
Weiss's London manuscript and we plan to publish next Pierre
Gaultier's
Les Ouvres 1638 and Francois Richard's Airs de Cour, 1637 - also in
editions made by Doug. We are looking for someone to write a short
introductions to these 2 collections of music - where they fit into
the
world of lute music, etc. We are also looking for a couple of more
people to write CD reviews. If you are interested in doing any of
this
please email me.
Nancy Carlin
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Nancy Carlin
Administrator THE LUTE SOCIETY OF AMERICA
[1][3]http://LuteSocietyofAmerica.org
PO Box 6499
Concord, CA 94524
USA
[4]925 / 686-5800
www.groundsanddivisions.info
www.nancycarlinassociates.com
To get on or off this list see list information at
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References
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2. mailto:lsaq.edi...@gmail.com
3. http://LuteSocietyofAmerica.org/
4. tel:925 / 686-5800
5. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
6. http://LuteSocietyofAmerica.org/
7. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
