Well - I spent a lot of time looking at this some time age - the British
Library have a
copy. In spite of not knowing much German or being able to read Gothic
script I did manage to make some headway with the section about England
which described the London of Charles II very accurately. I also copied
out the whole of the passage about Corbetta.
I also tried to find out a bit about Ebert - who seems to be a rather
mysterious figure. Clare Fontijn did suggest to me that they were
actaully Corbetta's own memoirs which Ebert stole. That seems to me to be
quite plausible. Ebert's book wasn't published
until many years after Corbetta's death and it is not very clear how Ebert
came to make all these journeys - in particular what he was doing in
England.
I haven't got time to look at the on-line version tonight but maybe I'll
find time this weekend.
Monica
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lex Eisenhardt" <eisenha...@planet.nl>
To: "'Vihuelalist'" <vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2013 8:33 PM
Subject: [VIHUELA] Adam Ebert
This is a link to Adam Ebert's (Aulus Apronius) 'Reise-Beschreibung'.
http://vd18.de/de-slub-vd18/content/pageview/39885297
On p 251 I found the story about a cancelled performance of Corbetta,
because of a broken nail.
In Pinnell's 1976 dissertation there is an English translation, presumably
made by John Roberts. It appears that Pinnell had not consulted the
original text himself, and in Roberts' article 'Francisco Corbetta', in
'Guitar, the magazine for all guitarists' 1973 vol. 11 (which I don't
have), there (probably) are 2 passages that I tried to find in Ebert's
on-line text:
'Corbetta complained bitterly, that he had come from England with great
difficulty, and inasmuch as he had let people come from Italy on account
of the consort on his guarantee, he had to pay them afterwards out of his
own pocket.'
'Ebert had heard that Corbetta had written memoirs of the Courts in which
he had been. He therefore scraped acquaintance with Corbetta's daughter
[!], who had accompanied him; and once as Corbetta lay bedridden he
managed to borrow the Memoirs for a time in consideration of a cash
payment, presumably to Corbetta's daughter. As a result , his own book
draw no small advantage.'
As Pinnell (and presumably also Roberts) give no reference to the pages
(Ebert's book has 550 pages, and he uses Gothic script...), it is not so
easy to find the original texts on which this is based.
Actually, the part about Corbetta's bitter complaints could be a
(complete) misunderstanding of the last sentences on p. 251.
But the information about the Memoirs?
Anyone fluent in Gothic?
Lex
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