> Composers generally > want their compositions "etched in stone," but that doesn't mean that > everybody does the same thing with them when it comes to playing them.
Yes. But this thread is or was not about how to perform lute music in general. What I respond to is the question if a distinct group of notes in measure 2 of the Tombeau de Mesangeau in the version of the 1669 print should be slurred. > Ditto Denis Gaultier, or anyone else for that matter. Agreed. You can play a slur _although_ it isn't written. Or you can find a concordance of the Tombeau that _has_ a slur in measure 2 (for the sake of a pure conscience). Or you can make up your own 21st century version of the Tombeau, which I'd be keen to listen to. Seriously. > One fingering fits all players, all the time, no deviating from the > "authorised" version. There has always been a difference between what is written and was is done. But if you want to derive what you will do, from what is written, you will have to take into account carefully what is written. In other words, everybody may base their interpretation of 17th century French baroque lute playing entirely on 20th century US-American jazz musicianship. Find your own fingering, take your own time, make up your own version, do your own thing. Or they can base their interpretation of 17th century French baroque lute on 17th century sources and evidence to the best of their ability. This is not a black-or-white thing, though. Yet I for one will rather put the weight on 17th century sources and try to fill those many gaps that I'm aware of, with 20th / 21st century means of interpretation. > Or, the "New Common-Sense Version": how about we study the whole big topic > of period performance practice and how it relates to all music from the 17th and > 18th centuries, and get our insights from that? Sounds sensible to me. Mathias To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
