On Sun, 16 Feb 2014 12:15:23 +0100, adS wrote > Dear lute-netters, > > has anybody out there read this article?
Only after you posted this link - thanks for doing so. > http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1112&context=ppr > > I wonder what others think about it. Hmm - in what context was this published? I'd hate to be to critical with some poor student's homework. There are quite a lot of rather problematic statements in this article and the kind of "colloquial writing style" introduces quite some imprecision. I.E. "Although not as commonly studied by scholars today as are fingerings in [...] violin music ...". Really? Somehow I seem to have missed the abundance of studies on 17th century violin fingerings. After reading twice through the article the final conclusion it's still not obvious to me. That early baroque articulation is short? Isn't that pretty much well-established from keyboard fingerings already? Looking at the author's example I cannot but wonder whether she plays lute herself. Using the same finger for two consecutive notes does produce a (slight) separation on keyboard instruments, but on lutes this might be rendered as a "glide" which can produce a rather smooth connection between the two notes. A lot of the examples assume that such glides are "breaks". N.B.: I'm not claiming that theses places where played legato, I just think that there is no technical reason/evidence for it. Would any lute player agree that the half-tone downward glide in example Seven, mss. 21-22 create a noticeable separation between c and b? Playing through the example even that change from mss. 25-26 (third finger on forth fret, fifth string , than forth finger on third fret, second string) that looks so much like a "break" on paper sound extremely smooth - the right hand thumb just passes through from the fifth to the _open_ fourth string while the _open_ first string rings on. I think it would be actually rather technically demanding to play an audible break at that place (and it would involve _right_ hand articulation). Example Eight raises another important question: to use fingering as an indication for a conscious choice of articulation the author would need to show that Vallet did choose the most fitting fingering from a selection of possible fingerings. But how else would you finger the last chord of mss. 25? As for the cadencial ornament in mss. 26 - I'd probably start that trill on the f, using the 4. finger already on that note, so there would be plenty of time to bring the 2. finger up on the e. (BTW: the fact that the author writes about a trill on e-flat seems to be another strong indication that the study was not created in close proximity to a lute-like instrument :-) Example Ten: again - the claimed "break" in the bass voice would happen on a keyboard, but on a lute those rising fourths will sound perfectly legato (unless the performer _chooses_ to not play them legato!) and the vertical lines in the tablature even require a rather legato playing. Actually, any other fingering would create a rather annoying ringing forth in the bass. The "conclusion" (read: the last short paragraph of the article): "Vallet's system of interpretive fingerings is remarkably simple, while being clear and precise" If there is such a system, the author has taken great care to hide it from us - which is too bad since we can't verify that it is simple, clear and precise. The examples provide look more like a "catch-of-the-day" collection. I would have expected alternative fingerings for all these examples that would haven shown that Vallet actually selected the one that fit best into his system. Some things I think should have been mentioned but haven't: I find example Four rather interesting: I'd expect a break after the dotted c' in mss. 51, i.e. short c' with 4, than bflat with 4, than a with 2 finger (read: I'd expect the dotted note to be played short while Vallet's choice of fingering makes it possible to play the dotted note full length. The shift the author marks can actually be played rather smooth. Example Five: what about the first chord in this example? How would you play the ornament on the high b flat? And doesn't the tablature require the barre to be held until the end of the bar? Given the ornament on a flat mss. 30, first beat (pull from above, b flat with 4th finger) that "break" can actually be played rather smooth. N.B: to be said again - I'm a big fan of "short" notes, I really think that a lot of lute music is played way to legato, ignoring pretty much all the historic evidence (but that's nothing new to the lute world, isn't it? :-) I just think that the methodological approach of this article is false. It starts with the premise that Vallet choose a bondage-and-discipline approach: i.e. "I'll use this fingering so you _have_ to articulate short" [1]. But that's an approach only needed when players would play legato otherwise. If we assume that articulation was more or less the same for all (instrumental) music of that time then there would be no need for such a "forced articulation" - players would have played short because the liked it. Thus, a more fitting study would search for places where Vallet could pick a technically simpler fingering because there was no need for legato fingering. Oh weh, way to long post ... Cheers, Ralf Mattes [1] after all, there is no problem using short articulation with "legato" fingerings. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
