The fact that it has not yet been traced back
does not make it a modern term. Articles which
say that it cannot be traced do not even have a
footnote saying where they looked, they should
have just said they could not find it and listed
the sources. I doubt that all the sources have
been searched for it. In addition, the term
brisee means, among other things, plucked in the
17th century, so it must have been used to
describe instruments like the harp and the lute.
Dictionaries give plucked as a definition as
early as ca1600. There may be even parallel
compounds like "accents brisees" that people have
not even looked for. Some of these may be related
terms, such as cadence brisee which is quite
early. I suspect there is a more than even chance
an earlier useage of the term will surface, and
then we can debate if luthe and brise are the same :)
As far as the term luthe, it would be better if
we can find out what the lute players called it
as the harpsichordists may have used a different term.
dt
At 06:24 AM 11/29/2009, you wrote:
Yes, good point, "style brise" is a modern term.
It's better to use "style luthe" instead if we
really have to use anything at all.
JL
----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Probert" <probe...@gmail.com>
To: <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 10:34 AM
Subject: [LUTE] Terminology: brise
The recent thread on Saint Luc brought up the term "brisé" (final
e-accute) that I had not read before. So I went to Groves and found
that "Style brisé" refers to a broken appeggiation style, which, in
reference to early French Baroque lute music, I am familiar with.
Interestingly, that term, "Style brisé", can't be traced back further
than 1928 and one La Laurencie's "Les luthistes" (Paris, 1928).
Apparently, back in the day, Couperin referred to the technique as
'luthé'. Thing is, he was referring to harpsichordists using the lute
style, not a lutenist using that style.
So now we are describing a lute technique using a keyboard style name
that was originally used to describe a lute style. Excellent!
. mark
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