I was there. 3 Bach suites and 1 Weiss (c minor with the famous prelude/fugue fantasia stuck on at the beginning). Solid performance, although I would have preferred less Bach and more Weiss (or other composers who actually wrote for the instrument). Maybe it's just years of familiarity, but it's hard for me to get excited about yet another violin partita or cello suite transcribed for a plucked instrument when there is so much music out there that is only played on the lute. He anounced that he was playing the Bach more as a true dance suite in the French style, but while there were some unique ornamental flourishes, I am hard pressed to say that the interpretation was significantly different from other performances/recordings I have heard.
I thought he had great tone and solid technique, although it was a unique experience to be at an O'Dette concert where a few notes were actually flubbed! There was also a very strict Basel like damping of every bass note to the millisecond of the notation, while I prefer a bit more freedom there, but I think it's a matter of personal taste. One encore that I am embarresed to say I can't place exactly but sounded like a transcription of a Bach slow movement. Played on a Rutherford 13 course lute (Bass rider variety). Nice tone and projection, although lines of site in the church were really terrible and both the sound and visual esthetic would have been improved by having him on an elevated platform. Probably 30% of the audience could see no more than his beard and shoulder strap during the playing. Still, quite a milestone in the annals of lute performance and I certainly thought it was worth flying 1000 miles to see! >Paul O'Dette played Bach and Weiss (sic!) today in NYC. I couldn't be >there. >Were any lutenetters attending? >RT >______________ >Roman M. Turovsky >http://polyhymnion.org/swv > > > > >To get on or off this list see list information at >http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
