> 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.
You must be looking in a different place. In Libro Quarto, 1640, Toccata
Prima begins in the middle of page 6. The second toccata begins in the
middle of page 9. Page 8, bottom line, and continuing on the top of page 9
has 12 bars of chords with four, five and six notes.
In the Libro Quarto, the intro gives*examples* of patterns for chords of
more strings.
> 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.
> 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.
As noted above I am referring to Libro Quarto.
> 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:
Oops. I was on the wrong track with this one and then wrote poorly. I think
the original poster was asking whether all the chords should be rectified so
that they all sounded
ascending pitches. I was trying to say that this is not what was done
although you are correct that this is the effect in the first bars of the
Toccata Arpeggiata.
> 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.
Certainly, that is where I should have edited what I had written for the
guitar journal. I used the pattern 'pima' to loosely refer to strings 4
through 1 which only confounded the very point at hand. Sorry.
I am not persuaded that Kapsberger's instructions were intended as mandatory
rather than just suggestions. (By the way, I am having a native translator
in Italy work on the Libro Terzo intro). Hopkinson Smith seems as 'into'
authenticity as anyone and does not follow that pattern. His CD is on the
Astrée label, E 8553.
Richard Yates
