The Barley pieces are thin and range from simple tunes to the Dowland Go from my Window. But I am not sure that the thin is an especailly orpharion-esque aspect. On my Rose orpharion full 5 and 6 course G and C chords sound great. To fine tune this idea a bit, you might notice more on the wire strings if the bass note in a chord has to end because of left hand fingering, than you would on a lute.
About the temperment - isn't this more of a question about the intonation problems that the instrument is known for, at least in the last 50 years. My experience in playing only orparhion and not lute is that you have to be a lot more precise in your left fingers placement and in some cases practice music to learn how to play certain notes in tune. For instance, several years ago, every time I came across F chords that included f frets, I would switch them and play another F chord with more open strings. The same went for E flat chords - a lute tple placement of the finger playing the bass note usually resulted in intonation problems. More recently I have been able to play those chords in tune. But like David says this is hard to quantify. About the 7th course - I've always thought that just because we have 3 extant orpharions doesn't mean that they were all like those. I assume there would have been 7 and 8 course instruments as well as the 6 and 9. The English arpeggio division that have interested me in terms of sounding great on orpharion include Arthur's Dump (Marsh Ms), Thomas Robinson's Spanish Pavan and the Old Spanish Pavan from Wickhambrook, among others. Nancy >No question the Barley pieces are thin, which favors the orpharion, >but one would have to look much further into it. >For example, are other exemplars, not related to Barley, thin in the >same way, yet only for lute. >And the temperament issue alone is a big job. The thinness, the >"griffenschaft" is hard to quantify. > >But my point has to do wish primary/secondary dismissive rationale. >Thje primary source says the music is for orpharion, and it is >dismissed in favor of a vague generalization not based on the primary sources. >To say music for lute, orpharion & viol means that the lute and the >orpharion are the same is ridiculous, it is like saying Turini's >music means that the harpsichord and the lute are the same, >or Cabezon's book means the harp and the harpsichord are the same, and so on, >not to mention that it is completely insulting to viol players: >sorry, the viol can't play lute songs? >Tell that to Tobias! > >The seventh course distiction is a bit intriguing, but I don't think >we have information to evaluate the statement. It could be a >localized pitch issue, and it certainly can't be that there were no >seven course lutes, because of course there were. >It makes very little sense as a marketing ploy, it's like saying to >the lute players, who were presumably the majority, don't bother with >all the nice music in the middle it has seven courses and you may not >be ready for it. >An interesting mystery. Sometimes you see this in later music when >the book was sold with the instruments, so that you say, here's your >lute & orpharion, and a nice book with music for each. >My best guess is that Barley (NB) represents a localized practice, >either a school of playing, a luthier, a publisher// partial >subscription/patron (s) or a lower pitch in which case the lowest >course of the Orpharion had an advantage. > >I've always thought that style luthee (aka brisee) really referred to >the style of playing, as in unmeasured preludes, since arpeggios go >back to the middle ages. >Any theory relative to the English repertory would have to >rationalize centuries of compulsive Continental doodlings. >Incidentally, Couperin unmeasured preludes sound great on the archlute. >dt > > > > >At 11:21 PM 3/22/2008, you wrote: > >I have played through the Barley orpharion pieces several times and > >have not come up with specific traits that make those pieces > >orparhion pieces rather than lute pieces. That said, I have put a > >bit of thought into what makes a good orparhion piece and how it's > >different from something written for lute. > > > >I've spent the last 4 years playing only orpharion and my opinions of > >what is harder to pull off on orparhion than lute have changed a bit > >over the years. I still would want to avoid a lot of chords that > >require barring across all 6 courses. There are too many places where > >the finger placement or pressure is not quite right, so that all the > >notes don't ring clearly. Several years ago I would have said that > >scale passages that went down to the 5th and 6th courses were hard to > >pull off because the wound strings sounded a bit different, but more > >recently (with more practice) I don't think those runs are really a problem. > > > >One clear place where the orpharion excels is in playing on high > >frets. l,m, n, etc are on the neck and not the belly of the > >instrument. Another idea I have thought about a bit is music where > >chords are broken or arpeggiated as a style of division. Cathy > >Liddell pointed out to me that some of these places were English > >precursors to style brise, rather than straight arpeggios, so I am > >not sure that has anything to do with music meant for orpharion. > > > >I hope some other people with come up with some ideas of what to look > >for. This is a really interesting topic. > >Nancy Carlin > > > > > > >Perhaps I am imagining this, since it has been at least 25 years > > >since I read through the Holborne dissertation, but aren't there a > > >few orpharion pieces? > > >Also, the extremely broad generalization that there is nothing to > > >distinguish the lute repertory from the orpharion repertory certainly > > >is highly suspect, > > >since Barley himself states that they are different. One would have > > >to really go through every piece to look for other differences, such > > >as the avoidance of certain chords or textures. > > >The Barley pieces do look a bit lighter on the monster chord side of > > >things, but only a detailed analysis would show whether there is a > > >meaningful difference, and this would include ornament signs, > > >temperament, chords, > > >crossover points, ficta, fingering, bass-tenor groupings, etc., etc. > > >This would to a degree depend on the different versions of Orpharia. > > > > > >The conflation of of lute hardware in scholarship is one of the big > > >challenges: The past represents diversity; the analyses uniformity. > > >dt > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >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 > > > >-- Nancy Carlin Associates P.O. Box 6499 Concord, CA 94524 USA phone 925/686-5800 fax 925/680-2582 web site - www.nancycarlinassociates.com Representing: FROM WALES - Robin Huw Bowen, Crasdant, Neil & Meg Browning's Never Mind the Bocs & Carreg Lafar, FROM ENGLAND - The City Waites, Jez Lowe, & Jez Lowe & The Bad Pennies, FROM FRANCE - Gabriel Yacoub, FROM SPAIN - La Musga=F1a and now representing EARLY MUSIC - The Venere Lute Quartet and Paul Beier Administrator THE LUTE SOCIETY OF AMERICA web site - http://LuteSocietyofAmerica.org --
