Roman wrote:

RT> It seems that the richness of lute overtones is NOT conducive to gratuitous 
RT> dissonance that is de rigeur in most modernist and neomodernist music. 

Agreed.  I also think that it also has something to do with temperament. 
Modern composers, on the whole, tend to ignore anything other than ET
and lutes are not creatures of ET, IMO.  They were born in a time of
keys ranging from B-flat through G, including their minors (I exaggerate,
though there is a grain of truth), and I am not sure that atonal is the
best use of them. Or multikey tonal, for that matter.  For my ear, none
of these pieces, interesting that they are, nailed this tonality issue.

In the same manner, I would not suggest using a concert harp as the lead
soloist instrument of an electric blues band.  Whilst it may be possible,
and interesting for a brief, disjoint moment, it is not quite in the
spirit of either the music or the instrument.  Now, using a blues harp
is a different matter ;)



.. mark



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