On Dec 17, 2009, at 6:32 AM, Monica Hall wrote: > May I ask what evidence there is that Monteverdi intended a baroque > guitar to be included in the continuo group in the Vespers?!!
That would be the least interesting of the performance practice questions you could ask. You might also ask about those recorders that are so close to the microphone (I think they are actually mentioned only in the Magnificat), the use of of multiple voices on a part (including eight women singing the Sancta Maria in unison), the use of women singers, the doubling of the voices with instruments in the Dixit Dominus and Lauda Jerusalem, and doing Lauda Jerusalem at "written" pitch instead of transposed down a fourth, all of which are decisions by the editor or director. The continuo question has an easy answer: Monteverdi did not specify continuo, and would have expected that someone using his published music would perform it with a variety of continuo instruments. Would he have been shocked if the theorbo player picked up a guitar in places? He might not have given it a thought. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
