Dear Chris, pls keep trying to get in touch and tell us once you succeed. I should to ask him some questions.
> Right. We can not assume, however, that the print represents some pseudo- > Platonic ultimate version that Gaultier set down for once and for all. (From > what we know of 17th century attitudes towards musical texts, this seems highly > unlikely.) I think the opposite is true. E. g. take the Rhétorique des Dieux and the approach behind it. Denis Gaultier was so highly respected as lute player and composer that the very text of his music was set down ... well, yes, once and for all. He doesn't serve as a model for those 17th century liberties that you claim, I'm afraid. > We need to look at other sources and take into account what stylistic > features may have been expected. Yes, of course, that applies in general. But we're talking about one measure of the Tombeau de Mesangeau and the question if three notes in the bass should be linked with a slur, although no slur sign is written. My answer is, no. My reasoning is that Denis Gaultier took special care with this particular print because he wanted to present authorized versions of his music, according to his own preface. That's why the 1669 print is meticulously endowed with fingerings and marks. > Saying simply, as you did in a previous > message, that "no slur is intended since there is no slur sign," doesn't take into > account the performance practice we know was applied to scores at the time. That's a bit much to state, isn't it. We don't know very much for sure. A lot of it is guesswork (like your analogy of a modern jazz musician), and that's a good thing IMO because that's where Early Music comes into modern life. In other words, what do we know about performance practice as regards three ascending notes in the bass in French lute music of the 1660ies? Can we say more than, one possibly slurred them, the other possibly not? > As an analog in our own time, a jazz musician would be annoyed if a player > played a standard lead sheet exactly as written since the person would have > demonstrated total ineptitude with jazz style. In his talk Anthony Bailes also gave US-American jazz musicians as example. His point of comparison, though, was attitude toward life and music in general (some kind of careful carelessness and sprezzatura). I understand that 20th century US-American jazz has had such an impact on musicians all over the world that it even is taken as an explanation of 17th century French lute music. There certainly was such a thing like what Andi Schlegel has coined as Formulierungsspielraum in lute music (leeway for phrasing). We find different versions of one piece in manuscripts. But that's what Gaultier complained about in his preface, regarding his own music. He wanted to present his version, once and for all. > We might very well conjecture > that Gaultier didn't notate a slur because he knew that a contemporary > performers would do one anyway. We will never know what he knew except you finally get through to him (pls do keep trying!) Mathias To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
