Stephan wrote,
>Segovia (whom I admire greatly) did much to establish >the form and content
>of the guitar recital format, which included playing from >memory, but it
has
>to be said that the content of his performances was >predictable.
>There are only so many times that you want to hear the >Bach Chaconne, the
>Villa Lobos preludes and so on before your ears glaze >over
Yes, I totally agree!!!! So why is Paul Odette's next CD going to have
3 Bach suites, and one Weiss. Why did Nigel North, record the Chaconne and
a 4 CD set of all Bach, and one Weiss suite, Edwardo Egez 2 CD's of all
Bach? and no Weiss. I'll tell you why....it's marketed to guitarist's.
All this for an instrument Bach never wrote anything for in the first
place, all transcriptions, just like the guitar.
Michael Thames
www.ThamesClassicalGuitars.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Denys Stephens" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "lute net" <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 4:01 PM
Subject: Re: memorization
> Dear Michael,
>
> You wrote:
>
> "I wonder if lute concerts will ever be on the level of guitar concerts
> where lutenist's have the proper professional stage presence to not be
> staring at their music all the time. This might give them more appeal to
> the general concert going public, and more acceptance by guitarist's. I
> always felt a little jiped when a guitarist would play a concert sight
> reading the whole thing, I thought they didn't spend enough time learning
> the music."
>
> Funnily enough I don't take great exception to this, although it baffles
me
> as to why you would want to be in the company of lutenists if you think so
> little of our ability as performers!
>
> The paths of lutenists and guitarists diverged 30 years ago - there is a
> tradition of playing from tablature amongst lutenists, but I would not
> necessarily equate it with sight reading. I think you will find most lute
> players spend as much time studying the music and developing their
> interpretations as any guitarist - it's just a different way of working.
> The lute repertoire is very significantly larger than that of the
classical
> guitar.
> Segovia (whom I admire greatly) did much to establish the form and content
> of the guitar recital format, which included playing from memory, but it
has
> to be said that the content of his performances was predictable.
> There are only so many times that you want to hear the Bach Chaconne, the
> Villa Lobos preludes and so on before your ears glaze over, whether played
> from memory or not. I don't know what others on the list think, but I have
> certainly noticed a marked reduction in the number of classical guitar
> recitals since the 1980's and I think the lack of repertoire is very much
> part of that.
>
> Lutenists, by way of contrast, have a sufficient wealth of repertoire to
> play concert after concert without playing the same piece twice. I'm not
> claiming that we always do that, but there is great scope for variety.
> We don't need to hang our careers on grandiose "interpretations" of the
> same few pieces. Renaissance music is not Romantic music (in the
> context of the music history definition of the word) - the players role is
> often to detach one's ego from the performance and let the music
> speak for itself.
>
> So it's a different world to that of the classical guitar - please feel
> welcome to be part of it, but try to understand that there are reasons why
> we do things our own way.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Denys
>
>
>
>
> To get on or off this list see list information at
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>
