I think the most important idea that Chris has brought up here is that
we need to consider the other sounds that musicians would have had in
their heads from the other instruments and music that was part of their
world.
Nancy
My dissatisfaction with gut rests primarily on fact that I find
it very difficult to replicate the style of phrasing that I hear
from baroque wind instruments, bowed string players (with baroque
bows) and, above all, vocalists. Period treatises for these
musicians place a great emphasis on dynamic shading, such as the
messa di voce and this is very difficult to emulate on a lute strung
in modern gut. (It is difficult on synthetics, but, due the greater
sustain, less so.) On the renaissance lute, things are not as
crucial since the often profuse ornamentation has a sort of
"flattening" effect. On the baroque lute, however, I have great
difficulties reconciling the sonic characteristics of modern gut
with important stylistic traits of the music.
In the baroque lute literature, this is especially important as
the structure of the music is often made up of fairly large gestures
(for example, an arpeggiated figure on a single harmony over several
bars) which must be grouped accordingly. With the faster decay time
of modern gut on a plucked instrument, the implication would be to
just play faster, but I've found this unconvincing often enough to
make me suspicious of the material's sonic properties as a valid
indicator for performance. At least, I don't hear the above
mentioned non-lute instruments playing similar items in the manner
that a lute strung in modern gut seems to demand.
Another context is the long appoggiatura. This is the
expressive backbone of baroque music and the lute literature is no
exception. With modern gut these often seem rather inexpressive to
me and that is a real problem. The other instruments/voices go to
extra effort to emphasize the drama of the moment by doing a
crescendo/messa di voce on the dissonant note and relaxing on the
resolution. On a gut-strung lute, however, the notes of the
underlying harmony will often have died away before the consonant
note is even sounded. To me, this robs the whole complex of its
expressive purpose. I suppose one could argue that this is part of
the special charm on the lute: a listener, who is familiar with the
vocabulary of baroque style, will recognize when the performer has
set up an appoggiatura and, taking care to remember the harmonically
contextualizing notes even though they're gone, will "fill in the
blanks" in the mind's ear to achieve a sort of
mental pleasure from the simulacrum of expressivity in contrast to
the sensuous pleasure gained from the real thing. At least, that's
what I find myself doing. Personally, I don't want to make my
listeners work that hard. And again, based on what I hear other
non-lute HIP musicians doing, I don't buy it as a historical
probability.
Anyways, that's my 415 cents.
Chris
Christopher Wilke
Lutenist, Guitarist and Composer
[1]www.christopherwilke.com
--- On Tue, 8/30/11, David van Ooijen <davidvanooi...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> From: David van Ooijen <davidvanooi...@gmail.com>
> Subject: [LUTE] Re: long strings?
> To: "andy butler" <akbut...@tiscali.co.uk>
> Cc: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
> Date: Tuesday, August 30, 2011, 4:38 AM
> On 30 August 2011 10:27, andy butler
> <akbut...@tiscali.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
> > Beginner's questions.
> >
> > Is the superiority of gut down to the shorter sustain
> time
> > that someone mentioned earlier?
> >
> > Is string damping really unpopular? (unnecessary?)
>
> No such thing as a beginner's question.
>
> Superiority is not a word I would use for gut, as gut
> strings are
> imprefect in many ways. Another level, their imperfectiong
> makes me
> like the sound better, they're more insteresting than bland
> and boring
> synthetics (and there's the whole argument of why bother to
> play an
> 'early' instrument when using 'modern' strings to produce
> the sound,
> but I'll happily leave that to another discussion).
>
> Shorter sustain in extended basses is a happy side effect
> of gut,
> making damping of said basses unneccecary. I feel we can
> get an idea
> of the expected sustain from the music, and to my feeling a
> shorter
> sustain than metal-wound basses is called for in especially
> Baroque
> lute music. A 'gut' feeling, if you like. ;-)
>
> David
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> *******************************
> David van Ooijen
> davidvanooi...@gmail.com
> [2]www.davidvanooijen.nl
> *******************************
>
>
>
> To get on or off this list see list information at
> [3]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
>
Nancy Carlin Associates
P.O. Box 6499
Concord, CA 94524 USA
phone 925/686-5800 fax 925/680-2582
web sites - [4]www.nancycarlinassociates.com
[5]www.groundsanddivisions.info
Representing:
FROM WALES - Crasdant & Carreg Lafar, FROM ENGLAND - Jez Lowe & Jez
Lowe & The Bad Pennies, and now representing EARLY MUSIC - The Venere
Lute Quartet, The Good Pennyworths & Morrongiello & Young
Administrator THE LUTE SOCIETY OF AMERICA
web site - [6]http://LuteSocietyofAmerica.org
--
References
1. http://www.christopherwilke.com/
2. http://www.davidvanooijen.nl/
3. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
4. http://www.nancycarlinassociates.com/
5. http://www.groundsanddivisions.info/
6. http://lutesocietyofamerica.org/
