Dear Arto, I've performed some of these on a few occassions: they go down reasonably well - if only for the unexpected instrumentation. Your choice of keyboard continuo player is important - they should know the style of this period in Italy and not, for example, accompany you with continuo based on later 18thC instructions (eg those of C P E Bach) by playing a much overcomplicated part. It would be fair to say that the works are not as well developed as similar sonatas being composed around this time by Corelli, Lonati et al but they're certainly reasonably competant. You must, of course, eschew a bowed bass and just use a keyboard instrument for the continuo as was expected in this period (1660s). A (chamber) organ is specified for the Sonate da Chiesa Op 1: in lieu of an actual wind blown pipe organ some of the electronic organs made for the classical market can be very acceptable. An Italian type of harpsichord with just 8 foots is much the best for the Sonata da Camera Op 2: they generally have a significantly shorter sustain and fewer sympathetic vibrations than Flemish/later French style of instruments which can tend to swamp even a large theorbo. The question of some of P's writing has been discussed before and you'll find it in the archives. In short, the use of octave strings is a chimera and, indeed, impossible on a proper sized theorbo (say stopped string length 86+cm) due to the laws of physics. In practice the occasional octave displacement is little noticed by auditors and, indeed, like the re-entrant tuning on the 'baroque' guitar can add to the charm of the instrument. In some other early intabulations one can also find passages where the bass lies higher than another note (eg a 6 chord on the G# played on the 4th course of an A theorbo with a lower E on the second), but the use of the stronger thumb on the bass note effectively dominates the chord. Finally, you'll be aware that in the Biblioteca Estense Modena there's a (later?) manuscript which has a 'violino' part added to some of the Op2 sonatas. I don't think the composer of these has been established; in my view the style is not quite like P's but more work needs to be done to establish authorship. The hand is neat and could be that of a copyist - perhaps someone with better knowledge than me of the MS in this collection could establish this? MH n Arto Wikla <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Sun, 4 Dec 2005, Donatella Galletti wrote: > Pittoni! Spes Edition Yes! Ferrara 1669. Lots of Sonate da Chiesa and Sonate da Camera! The only problem is the tuning; seems to be so that in places the second string or choir should be in upper octave, in other places in lower octave! Andrea Damiani(?) has speculated in the LuteBot that perhaps a choir of two stings - high and low - could solve the problem. Does anyone in the List have any practical experience of performing Pittoni? All the best, Arto To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html --------------------------------- Yahoo! Model Search - Could you be the next catwalk superstar? Check out the competition now --
