Well the whole passage actually reads
If anyone wishes to play with skill and sweetness, and to use campanelas,
which is now the modern way of composing, bourdons do not sound as well as
do only thin strings on both the fourths and fifths, of which method I have
had much experience. This is the reason - when making trills, slurs and
other ornaments with the left hand, the bourdon interferes with them
because it is a thick string and the other is thin, and therefore the hand
cannot stop them evenly, and hold down the thick string as easily as two
thin strings.
I think the point is that Sanz does not say that the re-entrant tuning is
best because it eliminates octave doubling. He is describing the kind of
music, which will include campanellas which he thinks sounds better without
bordons.
The idea that you can solve the problem by either omitting the bordon or
with some sort of other technique is beside the point because the problem is
caused by having strings of unequal thickness. One way or another the
bordon gets in the way and prevents you from playing with skill and
sweetness.
Monica
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Kooiman" <pe...@crispu.com>
To: "Vihuelalist" <vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 1:05 PM
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Where to end?
>Yet again - re-entrant tunings have nothing to do with campanelas.
What
>Sanz says is
>This is the reason - when making trills, slurs and other ornaments
with the
>left hand, the bourdon interferes with them because it is a thick
string
>and the other is thin, and therefore the hand cannot stop them evenly,
and
>hold down the thick string as easily as two thin strings.
I have often wondered about that, because right before that, Sanz says:
pero si alguno quiera puntear con primor, y dulAS:ura, -> y usar de las
campanelas <-, que es el modo moderno con que aora se compone, no salen
bien los bordones
Followed by "this is the reason..." as above, but it is not obvious (to
me at least) what ornaments have to do with campanelas..so is it not at
least a possibility that he is referring to campanelas and re-entrant
tuning?
Peter
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