On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 4:04 PM, Peter Martin <peter.l...@gmail.com> wrote: > My real question was about the highest professional standards, and > specifically whether lutenists can ever hope to match the standards of > top pianists or violinists, for example, while they persist in > spreading their efforts over so many different instruments.
I have to say that I think the answer is, yes. First off, though, I have to disclaim that I don't do well at "who is better, Perlmann or Brendel?" kinds of questions. There are differences between instruments which necessitate differences in what makes for mastery. I doubt that Brendel ever concerns himself with intonation, while playing: for a pianist, it is all tone and control. Can you really compare a pianist with a violinist, then? The violin, on the other hand, rarely has to deal with more than one voice at a time, and never ever has to deal with voices singing four octaves apart. It is an entirely different ball of wax to integrate six voices in a Bach fugue into ten fingers on a keyboard from anything a violin soloist has to deal with. So, then, is Paul O'dette so much less a master of lute _and_ theorbo or chitarrone than Perlmann or Midori on violin, Brendel or Ashkenazi or Perahiah on piano, Harrell or Ma on 'cello... etc, etc, etc. We have a number of very accomplished virtuosi playing lutes, theorbos, archlutes, chitarroni... O'dette, North, Smith... they're all different, but they all take lute music, and within fairly historical boundaries produce music that rises above the marks on the paper to move hearts. Is it necessary that we question their mastery? (As a counter, we could complain all day about POD's breathing, the odd whistling noises that a better microphone placement or adhesive snore-stopper might have eliminated. But is the a mark on his virtuosoisity? If so, what then of Malcolm Frager, an acknowledged virtuoso, famous and well-paid, whom I saw in the 70's, whose pedal foot's restless motion under the bench and back to the pedals even when no action was required from it distracted me completely from his performance? Does that disable him as a virtuoso? Or Perlmann's mugging?) So I'd have to say that I haven't seen any sign that the lute pros are being held back by playing more than one variety of lute, or, for that matter, that lute virtuosi in our time are significantly or noticeably less virtuosoistic (yes, I did pick that term up from Peter Schickele. Sorry!) than other instruments' luminaries. ray To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
