About those Wilson pieces. The LSA has just gotten a review copy of the new Paul O'Dette & Ellen Hargis CD "The Power of Love" - see the ad for this in the last LSA Quarterly. This CD is a combination of songs and instrumentals, some by WIlson and other by his contemporaries. It contains Wilson Fantasies Nos. 21, 26, 1, 30,10, 25. Paul plays a 14-course theorbo, a 14-course archlute and an 8 course lute on the CD. It's not marked which instrument he plays on which music.
Nancy Carlin >It needs to be in a monospaced font at both ends. It's not coming >through that way. If you typed it in a monospaced font, your first try >(before you started "correcting" it) will work at the receiving end if >it's copied into a word processor and put into a monospaced font. I >didn't try this myself, because I have the Ms and in any event already >understood your point. Except for a handful of exceptional passages, >the Wilson pieces look like theorbo pieces. You're right in saying >that the example I gave is contrapuntally explicable in theorbo tuning, >but I find it odd musically that a dramatically rising phrase would >just peter out. Maybe it's just me. > >Whether the example that so frustrated you is evidence one way or >another depends on whether you think it's an example of voice leading >or just a chord chart. I should point out here for the benefit of the >list that there are no explanations in the solo lute/theorbo part of >this manuscript. Also no titles of the pieces. Indeed, no words at >all. I might also point out a bit belatedly to the list, since it may >not be obvious to everyone, that we're talking about whether the first >course is at regular lute pitch or down an octave. > >Most of the 24 Wilson pieces can be played on either instrument because >the first course isn't used at all. I've often wondered why this is so >typical, not only in Wilson's solo pieces, but in English tablature >accompaniments from about 1630 on. Surely having the first course down >an octave is not a reason to avoid it completely. One explanation that >makes sense to me, though I'm aware of no evidence for it, is that >renaissance tuning remained common in both lute stringing and theorbo, >and simply omitting it from the tablature allowed it to played in >either. The player could decide how to use the first course. The >theory is not without holes, but I will leave it other to point them >out, and get back to work. > > > >To get on or off this list see list information at >http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html Nancy Carlin Associates P.O. Box 6499 Concord, CA 94524 USA phone 925/686-5800 fax 925/680-2582 web site - www.nancycarlinassociates.com Administrator THE LUTE SOCIETY OF AMERICA web site - http://LuteSocietyofAmerica.org --
