I want to thank all of you because your very interesting comments in this thread. My only purpose was to tell about I'm a bit astonished in my very short experience as baroque lutenist -less than 2 months- by the fact that playing Bach "lute" works in a baroque lute is not as simple as I could hope. Sometimes this question seems to me a little jungle... but, of course, a wonderful jungle and a personal challenge. I'm also thinking about the apparent paradox established, e.g., by a music score edition like this: J.S. BACH The complete lute works (Arranged for baroque lute by XX) Just a few kidding, but never scoffing about that. Bach is Bach and it's worthwhile to play his music. (Always!) Best wishes,
Juan Fco. 2006/5/6, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > Dear Juan, > > thanks for your post. It's interesting to see what tunings Yepes used to > try to make the > works more idiomatic in playing. I noticed that not all of his tunings are > on the fancy > side, 995, 999 and 1000 are in the usual tuning and for 996 he has just > tuned the > whole lute one tone up. This is the same as playing the Suite transposed > to D minor in > the usual tuning, which works very well but needs some adjustments in the > Prelude > and the Gigue. Andre Burguete has argued for this solution back in the > nineties, > however I'm not really convinced because the tessitura is quite low in > this case. > His tunings for 998 and 1006a are transposed versions of a D major tuning > with the > first and fourth course tuned to f sharp (and for the Prelude of 1006a the > fourth course > would be tuned to g). Although this isn't quite what we would expect a > lute to be tuned > in the 18th century, the point of playing this pieces in D major (with the > normal tuning) > is valid in my eyes. Interestingly the Prelude and the Allegro of 998 > works better in D > major, while the Fugue works better in E flat major. > Yepes tuning for 997 is of course absurd from a HIP point of view (C Eb G > C Eb G for > courses 6 to 1), but it really seems to be the most problematic of the > lute works. I still > don't know how to play it. Burguete made the point of tuning the first > five courses down > half a tone, out of some pitch relation reasons. This results in a a third > between the > sixth and fifth course and descending basses down to the 14th course, > which is a > tuning he likes to see most of the lute works to be written for. Without > this pitch > guesswork I would think that maybe there was a fashion in Leipzig to tune > 14c > instruments this way, with one diatonic bass more and the usual low A or > Ab on the > 14th course. > Like you, as a guitarist I looked forward to play the lute or "lute" works > on the Baroque > lute for many years, but, I beg to differ, only to find them as > problematic as on the > guitar. On the guitar we are very much concerned with the limited bass > capabilities, > but play all kinds of difficult stuff up the neck (at least in modern > times). The Baroque > lute on the other hand requires keys with as many open strings as possible > to sound > well and give an idiomatic feel. Having a low, thin tessitura is surely > not enough to > qualify a piece as lute music, there are severall keyboard works by Bach > which look > the same when transposed down to suit a Lautenwerk. And the other way > round: > would anyone recognize a work originally composed for lute when transposed > up a > fourth or fifth and included in a keyboard collection? > > Regards, > > Stephan > > Am 5 May 2006 um 9:34 hat Juan Fco. Prieto geschrieben: > > > Dear lutenists: > > I'm posting these two images containing the tuning used by Narciso > > Yepes to play Bach lute works. > > > > http://personales.ya.com/jfppal/Afinaciones_Bach_Yepes_01.jpg > > http://personales.ya.com/jfppal/Afinaciones_Bach_Yepes_02.jpg > > > > This is hard to find and comes from the vinyl version booklet, maybe > > the second complete recording after Podolsky, if I'm not wrong. (Do > > you know if Michel Podolsky recorded all the Bach works?) This > > recording was released some years ago in two CD but omitting this > > interesting information. For curiousity only, the baroque lute was > > played with nails (as Julian Bream or Konrad Ragossnig did. This was > > the "guitarists-playing-lute" time) and it seems he played a pair of > > instruments, one of these with 14 courses. More info about this point > > will be welcome. A good try and approaching in any case, but detested > > by purists, obviously. All my life as guitarist dreaming: "The day > > shall arrive I'll play these beautiful works in original tones and > > instrument" and I'm now realising, ironically, that maybe these works > > are more idiomatic for guitar than for baroque lute, according to the > > variety of complex "solutions" proposed to reach a reasonably good > > result. The second irony is that these works are with no dubt the best > > composed for this instrument. Greetings, -- Juan Fco. > > > > -- > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > > > > > > > -- Juan Fco. --
