Dear Sam,
I'm copying Ian into this because apart from the fact that most of the
pieces we played were from the Holmes MSS, I can't remember the details
of what the flute parts do.
Can you enlighten us, Ian?
Best wishes,
Martin
Sam Chapman wrote:
Hi Martin,
Which pieces did you play? Were they from the Morley publication, the
Holmes manuscripts, or something else? Did you use flute or recorder?
It wasn't quite clear from your Email if the flute/recorder played at
the written pitch or an octave higher (I assume it was the former if
you were demonstrating Ian's ideas). As I understood it, even with
instruments playing at high pitch, a bass flute in the low pitch is
still needed to produce all the lowest notes found in the repertoire
at their written pitch. So do you mean that Ian has another even lower
pitched bass flute? Or did you simply avoid the few pieces which go
below low G on the flute (in which case a bass flute at the same pitch
as the other instruments is sufficient). I'm slightly concerned about
the flute being more or less inaudible when a bass instrument is
played at written pitch. How was the balance in your group?
Lots of complicated questions, sorry!
All the best,
Sam
2008/10/4 Martin Shepherd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
Hi Sam,
These are interesting questions. At the recent Lute Society weekend Ian
Harwood managed to assemble a consort at the high pitch - a minor third
above modern pitch. I played my "A lute" tuned up a semitone, strung all in
gut except for the top string which was nylgut. For a gut string I think
you would need a slightly shorter string length (mine is 53.5cm). The
treble part was played on a treble violin, the size of which made holding it
quite tricky! The consort sounded good and the advantage of the high pitch
solution is that the flute/recorder parts fit in the "correct" place in the
texture. Ian does however have a bass flute which allows a low pitch
consort to achieve the same thing. In any case I think it depends which
pieces we're talking about as to whether the octave displacement of the
flute causes a problem or not. Ian's "dual-pitch" hypothesis was originally
based on the sizes of surviving viols, but he also has theories about the
bandora which seem to make a lot of sense. I can't remember how it all
relates to the sizes of surviving citterns but we used a small cittern for
the high-pitch consort and it sounded fine.
I note with interest that the designation "treble lute" and a high pitch of
about a minor third above modern fits nicely with the notion that the "mean
lute" was about a tone below modern pitch (a fourth lower than the high
pitch) - arguments for which I have made elsewhere, e.g., in the brief essay
on Dowland's lutes which can be found at www.johndowland.co.uk
Best wishes,
Martin
Sam Chapman wrote:
Dear Lute list,
I'm in the process of organizing a consort in Basel to play, among
other things, pieces from the Morley consort lessons. Having read
various articles on the subject and listened to recordings of the
music, I'm left with some difficult questions:
What pitch should the music be played at?
What kind of flute should be used and should the part be played as
written or up an octave?
Why the designation for "treble lute" when clearly a G instrument is
intended?
These questions and others have been already been tackled by Ian
Harwood in his several articles, but I would be very interested to
hear other people's thoughts and opinions (and justifications). If you
have experience performing this repertoire, how did you solve these
problems?
Many thanks,
Sam
To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
