Anthony,
When we think about authenticity we have to ask ourselves what is the reason
we want to be authentic. I can not say for anybody else, but for me the
reason is quite simple. If one day I decide to study piano after hearing
fantastic performance on this instrument I will probably trust my professor
that the technique and the instrument complement each other and are at the
stadium of development that originated from the generations of pianists and
piano makers. I won't question why my piano has such a strings. Obviously I
could if I don't like piano tone quality, but the instrument as some kind of
keyboard. Then theoretically why not to experiment....But most of us know
what the real piano is, so we either love it or hate it. The problem with
the lute is that we are not quite sure what it really was in past. Then we
are left with two possibilities: 1/ either we want to be authentic because
we love old things, love history, touching old things awakes our
imagination, it excites us to do exactly the same thing that people were
doing in past centuries, or 2/ we believe that lute players from baroque
(for example) were brainy folks and probably they invented the best
instrument they could at that given moment. However "the piano case" (I can
see and hear it and this is why I love it) is not our case. We choose
something that we really don't know.
Now, each one of us love the lute for different reasons, but at some stage
there had to be the case of hearing the convincing performance (this is how
most people start studying instruments). If we were convinced by somebody
playing all nylon strung lute than probably our taste would be formed by
this experience. Most of us started from classical guitar playing so we have
synthetics under the skin. But after having the pleasure of playing our
first awful, heavy, full synthetic lute we enter this time (and money!!!)
consuming path of experimenting with various types of strings, playing
various lutes, discussing, sharing information, gathering historical data
etc. These of us that are quite advanced in this journey won't use all
synthetic strings unless pressed by concert conditions.
I have to say, some of the vague historical evidence doesn't convince me if
I can't hear it works in reality. Are you convinced by Bach recordings made
on plain gut only? I am not. Nor I am convinced by Bach played on loaded
gut. Loaded strings sound for me out of tune. And it doesn't matter how long
I listen to it - can't get used to it because it doesn't draw me in. I am
used to gut because I play renaissance music on the 7c lute strung all in
gut, but for me it is convincing - THE MUSIC CALLS FOR GUT. In case of Bach
I have a different feeling. Bach calls for much stronger bass (yes, we are
talking about bas only, treble and mid has to be some kind of gut). MP
writes that for lutes are only two possibilities in 18th century:
> 2. close wound
> 3. open wound (called demifilé by the French).
Now, look at his comment on this:
> Type 2. would seem to be the right one for the 13 course lute:
> but we would rather opt for type 3. upon an important
> consideration: from
> what we know about the metallurgic technology of the time it seems
> that it
> was not possible, at least in the common practice, to produce wires
> thinner
> than about .12 mm
Sorry for citing it again but, have you noticed that he says - type 2 would
seem to be the right one for the 13 course lute ?
I can't say for Mimmo but what it could mean is that the lutes were under
rapid development at this moment and both luthiers and lute players were
trying to fulfill requirements made by new music itself. We know that this
battle was lost and the instrument became obsolete. But anyway they tried to
be at pace with other instruments.
I am convinced by Nigel North playing Bach on copper close wound (the bass
is in perfect balance with treble gut and the copper wire doesn't give too
long sustain if played properly), but obviously MP's newly produced demifile
strings could be the answer for being both musically satisfied and
historically correct at the same time.
Regards
Jaroslaw
First authenticity, in relation to the instrument, does not
of course guarantee authenticity in performance; it is only one
factor that may assist the performer attain that goal, if indeed that
is their goal. There are many other contradictory tensions that may
draw some performers in other directions, such as a desire to satisfy
the tastes of a modern audience, who may not stand a performer
retuning every ten minutes, and might prefer a good tune to any
complex polyphony that you the performer would like to give them.
Obviously, every one resolves this contradiction in their own way,
and there is no one answer for all performers and all playing contexts.
Now if we limit ourselves to the subject of authenticity, this must
always be a question of degree, and even of taste. It is impossible
to reconstruct all the playing conditions of times gone by. We can't
forget that we have heard Dowland played by Julian Bream. We can't
forget that we know the sound of the modern guitar, and all types of
modern and exotic musics that the historic performer/composer could
not possibly know. On the other hand, from a very early age, they
could have been steeped in a knowledge of lutes and strings, and the
sounds of their time, that we can never hope to regain; all this must
surely make up part of the aesthetics of the period that we can never
hope to attain. Indeed one aspect of reconstruction is often much
ridiculed, I think partly because it brings out how hopeless our
attempts at reconstruction may be, that of wearing period clothes.
Such performances always seem so dated just a few years later; but
that should warn us that even in the reconstruction of musical
instruments, there are bound to be fashions, and the reconstructed
instrument of today will most probably be recognizably different from
that same reconstructed instrument in fifty years time (shudders, as
we think of the Pleyel harpsichord).
Taking all that for granted, nevertheless, as I said to Dan, for
certain musician-composers, who were trying to extract and even go
beyond the possibilities of the instrument they were playing, it is
possible that by going back to a lute with "authentic" stringing can
actually make us feel the limits they were stretching against, or
trying to use to the maximum. Just removing the limit may actually
eliminate some of the structural tensions in the music, and simply
make it less interesting. However, the particular string types were
not just limiting to the composer, they have specific qualities and
timbre that the composer would have exploited. The texture of gut,
loaded strings, demi-filé, and full wounds is quite different, the
feel as well as the sound texture. As Ed; says it takes time to adapt
to a gut bass, but the way you have to play these basses to release
their power, has a completely different effect from the soft attack
on a wire-wound in an attempt to damp their sustain. Had the
composer created music with these in mind, he surely would have
exploited, in some way their ability to sustain. So much of the
trills and flourishes are there on the contrary to compensate for
that lack of sustain. In the hands of the good performer this then
becomes a quality rather than a limit or defect.
However, as these open wound strings, as such are not on the market,
who am I to say that they are an essential ingredient in the process
of recreating this music. "Theoretically " they may be, but the
performer has to contend both with such laudable aims, and other
necessities, which bring us all to make compromises. At present we
must choose between two non-historic options (according to MP). We
can go for an earlier technology: pure gut, Venice, or Pistoys, or a
later technology: wirewounds, or we can side step and adopt Gimped
Pistoys, which are in between gut Pistoys and open wound. In the
first case we have far more sustain than with the Demifilé, in the
case of the Pistoy far less, and perhaps with the Gimped, something a
little closer, but still marginally less. Each performer has to make
this choice, and you surely have the right to your particular solution.
> I am not talking about the synthetic strings.
> Copper wound on any natural core (silk or gut) is 100% natural too.
> The only problem could be the unwanted resonance, but this I
> believe can be
> overcome with the proper playing technique.
>
I haven't myself used demi-filé, but the lutist who spent an hour and
a half on MP's lute, with these strings, was so impressed he wants to
give up wire-wounds altogether, and use pure gut Venice twine (as he
can't have demi-filé). This is probably, just as historically
incorrect as using full wirewounds, but after playing that lute, he
feels wire-wounds are just not right, because of their full sustain,
that the open just filé didn't have.
Modern lutists can learn to damp resonances (as you say), that is
indeed part of the skills of the modern guitarist; but the early
lutist had to contend with the opposite problem: lack of sustain, not
with damping over resonant strings, and this has effected the music.
Acknowledging this, some French lutists are using woven nylon (a non
historic material) to recreate less sustain, but others complain
about their plasticky sound quality. Some use very old tarnished worn
copper full-wounds, I don't feel those have a very good sound.
I would just like to say, however, that it is not because a musician
would have liked to have had access to new technology, that this
means we can interpret their music better by making that
technological jump for them.
Might they not have written something even more to the limits of the
new technology (why would they be any more satisfied with the limits
of our present technology)? This is just a thought. I just want to
take your argument and see how far we can go with it. Just what sort
of technological jump can we make from the context of the performer/
composer before we all feel the result is unacceptable? Also what do
we learn from a perfomance on an early period instrument that we
don't from a modern counterpart. Beethoven on a modern piano is
acceptable to most of us, but period instruments do give us a
different insight.
In some cases most of us would probably agree about what isn't an
acceptable historic compromise or technological jump.The problem
becomes more delicate when we ask ourselves what IS an acceptable
technological leap. In the case of the open-wounds, the jump,
forwards, backwards, or to the side is just a question of personal
taste. We all have to jump, at least for the moment.
However, how far can this argument be taken?. A French lutist for
example argued to me that had Dowland heard synthetics, he would
undoubtedly have preferred them. Someone else suggested he would
have preferred the classical guitar over the lute. He might have
done, but he couldn't, and so he remains a composer constrained by
the tastes and the technology that was available to him at the time;
and certain musical choices would have ensued from that.
Dowland is perhaps a marginal case, however, because all his lute
music was not composed directly on the lute, and much was transposed
to other instruments. The music of certain composers does seem to
allow a much larger technological jump before all is completely lost
(Bach comes to mind). However, who is for a concert of Rameau on the
modern piano (it was not so long ago that this was commonplace); and
who could honestly listen to a concert of Charles Mouton on the guitar?
Now isn't this really the same problem, taken to a greater degree:
that of gut or demi-filé basses being replaced by wirewounds (where
should the qualitative jump be situated)? Where do we place the limit?
The acceptable limit is surely constantly shifting, as few of us
would even listen to Rameau on one of those heavy Pleyel
harpsichords, today, even less perhaps, than on a piano. We are
certainly having serious problems with heavy lutes.
My impression is that Mimmo Peruffo's research is just pushing at
those limits, and forcing us to reevaluate them. I am not suggesting
that we all take to demi-filé and loaded strings, Mimmo could not
respond, in any case.
We do all have to make compromises, and at all periods, performers
have probably played music from earlier times, on the "wrong"
instruments, often with excellent success. German Baroque musicians
playing French Baroque music for example (replacing loaded-strings
with demifilé), so why not today replace demifilés with wirewounds?
We certainly can and many of us do, and some of us very well. I
certainly wouldn't stop you.
Regards
Anthony
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