I think Howard is right on as far as the process
goes. I don't think we can rule out the lute in
any way based on this quote a far as being part
of the compositional process. It may have been
used for thematic material, for harmony, or any
number of things, but it looks like a direct reference.
The lute would not have had to play the full
polyphonic web to be used as a compositional etch-a-sketch.
dt
At 05:09 PM 2/24/2010, you wrote:
\On Feb 24, 2010, at 4:13 PM, John Griffiths wrote:
> the evidence about Palestrina and the lute suggests not that he
> composed on the lute, but that he intabulated his new compositions and
> tested them on the lute before releasing them.
I'm not sure what "tested" or "released" would
mean in this context, but at least in English
translation, the letter from Annibale Capello to
Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga of Mantua of 18 October
1578 seems to say Palestrina was using the lute to compose:
"Having passed recently through a serious
illness and being thus unable to command either
his wits or his eyesight in the furtherance of
his great desire to serve Your Highness in
whatever way he can, M. Giovanni da Palestrina
has begun to set the Kyrie and Gloria of the
first mass on the lute, and when he let me hear
them, I found them in truth full of great
sweetness and elegance. [
] And as soon as his
infirmity permits he will work out what he has
done on the lute with all possible care.
This seems to say that Palestrina had composed
on the lute, and would expand it into the vocal
parts as soon as he got well. The Duke
apparently thought that Capello meant to say
that Palestrina was writing lute music, as two
drafts of a letter from a ducal official to
Capello that Jeppeson found in Gonzaga show, or
at least thats how Jessie Ann Owens reads them. The first one says:
"His Highness [the Duke] commands that Your
Lordship [Capello] tell Messer Giovanni di
Palestrina that he should take care to get well
and not hurry to set to the lute the Kyrie and
the Gloria with other compositions, because
having at hand many other talented men [i.e. in
Mantua, I think] there is no need for
compositions for lute, but instead for compositions made with great care."
The second draft says Capello should tell
Palestrina that he "not hurry to set the Masses
to the lute, since [the Duke] desires that they
employ imitation throughout and be written on the chant"
This is all at pages 292-293 of "Composers at
work" which I pulled up on Google books by
searching "jessie ann owens" palestrina lute.
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