Dear Anthony and All,
Just a couple of things to add:
One of my examples from Cutting (not in the message you quote, I think)
is the Pavan "Sans per" and its galliard, which makes extensive use of a
7th at D but only makes sense with an octave on the 4th course. This
suggests he had good enough strings to be able to do complicated stuff
with the 7th course but still used an octave on the 4th (out of
tradition? habit? because he simply liked it that way?).
Dowland also makes extensive use of the 7th at D and I think he must
have had a decent string to do it with, also in the 1590s (it seems that
most of Dowland's solo music was written before 1600). My favourite
example from Dowland (which was in the message you quoted) is "K.Darcy's
galliard", written before 1591, but usually known to us as "Queen
Elizabeth's Galliard" because it acquired that name later and is styled
thus in VLL.
Sometimes notes do resolve at the "wrong" octave, so one can't be too
categorical about assuming a particular tuning on the basis of a
particular piece of tablature. I do find it highly suggestive, though.
Best wishes,
Martin
Anthony Hind wrote:
Dear Rob, John and Martin
Martin Shepherd says "The music often suggests octaves when a
cadence is resolved at the "wrong" octave, or a scale passage jumps
octave for no apparent reason,
or a note which is needed for correct voice leading or point of
imitation is apparently missing but supplied by the upper octave of a
lower course. "
The examples Martin give seem to be for 6 course lutes, but they
include Cutting, Dowland, and Holborne where "Octaves on courses 4
and 5 solve the problem."
http://www.mail-archive.com/lute@cs.dartmouth.edu/msg19978.html
(Incidentally, I don't have the 6th in unison, as Martin had
understood, but I do have the 5th.)
Of course, it might be that the phenomenon mentioned by Martin is
only to be observed on 6 Course lutes.In which case perhaps there was
a strong conservative tradition for all 6 course lutes to be tuned in
this way, but not for
7 course lutes (Although, absence of such examples, if in fact none
can be found, are not proof in themselves of a change in stringing to
unisons).
However, Martin's examples do at at least seem to suggest that
octaves on the 4th were most probably used in English Renaissance
music (at least on 6c lutes); and if you want to keep the 4th with
Octave for the period from earlier Italian to Elizabethan, why not.
See also, http://www.luteshop.co.uk/stringsoctaves.htm
It might however, be the case (but I am just musing here), that this
type of octave stringing went together with conservative TI; and the
change to TO could also have been strongly associated with the change
to Unison which itself could have had something to do with better
bass strings (encouraging the change to unison on the 4th and the
5th). Together, better basses, TO, and Unisons could have allowed
better exploration of the bass register. Martin's words, here, could
suggest something like that,
"Sorry, the bit about English lutenists being backward was just my
little
joke - but they were far from the centres of string production, and
Dowland complains about the inferior quality of some of the strings
available in England. If the English found it more difficult to get
really good strings, this may have slowed the adoption of unison
stringing in England."
In which case, perhaps my unisons on the 5th course do not go so well
with my use of TI; but on the other hand, TO, might not go so well
with the use of Octaves on the 4th.
Indeed, this article by John Edwards, suggests that Dowland's change
from TI to TO could have had something to do with a search for
increased treble-bass polarity.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3128435
A change to bass unisons could be part of the same tendency, but this
could surely only have been permitted by improved string technology.
Perhaps, also the real cut off point might have been the change to 9
and 10 course lutes; but I am not sure to what extent Dowland's music
does show the increased polarity, that JE mentions. POD seems to
suggest that such a musical change can be observed more clearly in
the tablature of Bacheler (influenced by French practises).
POD implies this in his notes to his Bacheler recording, "At any rate
, Bacheler switched from the standard 8 course Elizabethan lute to
the French 10 course instrument (..)
and his works frequently explore the rich sonorities of the low
basses of the new lute".
However, this does not necessarily mean, that a change was not
already beginning in the 7c music of Dowland. Indeed, it does seem
possible that loaded strings might have been introduced around the
same period as the 7c lute, judging by the dark red bass on this
famous painting,
http://tinyurl.com/3xcmt9
but were very good loaded strings available in England, at the time
of Dowland's 7c lute creations? Martin's words above seem to imply,
perhaps, they were not.
Sorry, I didn't have time to make this shorter. I have to rush.
Regards
Anthony
Le 24 mai 08 à 00:55, John Lenti a écrit :
Hi Rob. Thanks! I'm not actually playing anything from the Pesaro
ms--I make most of my living on continuo lutes and so I have for the
time being only one rather beat-up 7-course that I use for all
renaissance music. I'm preparing a concert including a bunch of
mid-16th century French and Italian solo music, so I've got the 4th-
course octave right now. The thing about Pesaro, compiled sometime
in the 1480-90s, is that it has several lute pieces written on 7-
line tablature, using all 7 lines, that is to say, all 7 courses. I
too am a fan of the octave on the 4th--also of adding the odd 7th-
course note to earlier music, since who's to say Francesco never saw
one, given that they'd attached 7th courses to lutes by the late
15th century.
Best,
John
________________________________
Date: Thu, 22 May 2008 19:49:13 +0100
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [LUTE] Re: 4th course octave on 7c?
CC: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
Hi John,
You should post more often. That was an interesting comment. John
Dowland complaining...imagine that! Seriously though, it is
interesting you are playing the Pesaro ms on a 7c - or, on re-
reading your comment, you are considering it. I like the octave on
the fourth and lament its abscence from almost all 7c lutes I've
heard.
Rob
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