Richard Yates writes:
> You assume that Kapsberger's example implies that he considered it to be
> mandatory rather than just to illustrate the sequence that would give an
> ascending chord.
He certainly didn't say his set of examples was optional, and it doesn't
"illustrate the sequence that would give an ascending chord." The third
example, which I just wrote out for the list, does not ascend.
> Also, if his example was intended to be prescriptive, why does it give no
> clue about chords of more than four notes? The Toccata Prima from Libro
> Quarto has a long series of chords with his arpeggiation symbol under them
> and that freely mixes chords of four, five and six notes. In the absence of
> instructions, these are de facto left to the performer.
Sorry for ruining your argument with mere empiricism, but I'm looking at the
facsimile of Toccata Prima as I write. Every chord with a arpeggio symbol
has exactly four notes. Four shalt thou play, and the number of the
counting shall be four. Three shall thou not play, except that thou than
proceedest to four. Five is right out...
The second toccata, the Arpeggiata that I assume we've been talking about,
consists of nothing but four-note chords with the arpeggio symbol over them.
Four shalt thou play, etc...
Leafing quickly through the book, I see no arpeggio signs over any chords
with more than four notes (or, for that matter, less than four notes). In
fact, I don't see any chords with more than four notes at all, though I may
have overlooked some.
> To imagine that he prescribed a strict pattern ignores the whole purpose of
> the Toccata in the hands of Kapsberger (and others). It is a loose structure
> that imitates, and provides opportunities for, exploration, rubato,
> improvisation, ornamentation.
Kapsberger never says what his purpose is, but it's reasonable to think that
he thought achieving that purpose involved knowing what his arpeggio sign
meant, so he told us. You are of course free to ignore it, and anything
else specifically notated, if you think it serves some higher artistic
purpose, but I think it stretches the truth to say Kapsberger left it up to
the performer.
Composers of Kapsberger's day were stingy enough with instructions; it seems
downright ungracious to refuse such a rare gift.
Re Richard's statement that "Paul O'Dette plays a simple pima-pima-pima-pima
for each chord" in his recording of the Toccata Arpeggiata on page 7 of the
Libro Primo, Richard elaborates:
> I meant that he used a fixed finger pattern of arpeggiation from the string
> closest to the ceiling to the string closest to the floor. Because of the
> reentrant tuning this means that many of the chords do not consist of
> ascending pitches, but some do.
> It is decidedly what is on the CD that I have.
My apologies again for actually counting the teeth in the horse's mouth, but
on Paul's 1990 all-Kapsberger Harmonia Mundi CD ("Il Tedesco della Tiorbo"),
which I think was re-released as a mid-price "Baroque Lute Music" CD, there
is no instance of a "pattern of arpeggiation from the string closest to the
ceiling to the string closest to the floor." In every set of four notes,
the fourth is closer to the ceiling than the second and third, as in the
first four notes:
-------------------
-------------------
-a-----------------
-------d-----------
---d---------------
-----c-------------
I suppose it's possible that Paul did it another way in some other recording
that has escaped my attention, but it would astonish me if he simply ignored
Kapsberger's instructions. Paul takes composer's instructions very
seriously and tends to regard adherence to them as a matter of ethics.
He also knows that Kapsberger would not have used his ring finger in
arpeggios, or anything else, because he rested it on the top along with the
little finger.
HP
