Dear Guilherme,
it's interesting what Philippe writes about Il Fronimo, it would be nice
to talk with him about all this stuff. I met him some weeks ago, and
he's the only guy I know who isn't lutenist at all and can read all kind
of tablature fluently - quite crazy!
To respond to your question I can only offer a view on my personal
experience as well as some thoughts about it: From my practical
experience I had to ask myself exactly these questions when Martina and
me were recording our CD with diminutions. She played them on traverso -
so I could just play the madrigals without the canto, which worked quite
well - but also with violone, and for this I had to play all the voices.
Since at this time I had only a fairly big lute (10 courses, 67cm), I
decided to step away from perfectly playing all voicing with a perfect
voiceleading, and instead making an arrangement which kept the madrigals
recognizable, but at the same time quitting some tones of the inner
voices and making the intabulations/arrangements more idiomatic for the
lute, because above all I though it was more important to get a good
phrasing and to make good music instead of hurting my hand. If you're
interested in the choices I made, you can find some of the pieces we
recorded on youtube.
Regarding the amount of instructions about making owns intabulations,
Philippe's argument seems not at all unlikely for me. But at the same
time I'm asking myself about the differences in taste then and now
(maybe for them it was most important to render the madrigal exactly? At
the end, they lived in a sphere where only polyphonic music existed, so
maybe they would have heard the mistakes made by making the
intabulations more suitable for the lute?), and also about which role
the size of the lute plays. Did you try to play the "unplayable" parts
on a smaller lute? You could just use an capo in your second or third
fret, just to try how it feels with a small instrument.
All the best,
Yuval
Am 28.04.2020 15:12 schrieb Guilherme Barroso:
Dear Lute collective,
For some time i've been thinking about some aspects about the
intabulation of vocal pieces and i would like to know your ideas.
When we look to the gigantic repertoire of vocal intabulations to
the
lute we encounter several pieces that are incredibly difficult to
play.
Intabulations done by Molinaro, Terzi, Barbetta, for example, some
times present passages that are not only very demanding technically
but also with impossible chord positions. Canguilhem, in his book
about Galilei's Fronimo treatise, says that the main goal of
Galilei's
intabulations was to study the counterpoint and composition, not to
be
played. He even compares Galilei's intabulation of Vestiva i Colli
for
solo lute (where the madrigal is complete with all the voices) and
another version for lute and bass solo (where the lute part is
extremely simplified with supression of voices). The lute and voice
version for sure was intended to be performed while the other might
be
intended to be studied. The act of intabulating would be the same
as
making a score for study purposes.
There are a lot of intabulations in the repertoire that are more
concerned in maintaining all the voices of the original work then
making some concessions to adapt it better to the instrument.
Of course, we are dealing with a huge repertoire from several
composers
and several places with specific differences. Le Roy, for example,
is
more willing to make changes to adapt to the instrument, he says
that
the "playability and beauty should come first".
But even very complex intabulations were clearly meant to be played,
like the Terzi intabulations of vocal pieces that present a
"Contrapunto" from another lute. Terzi intabulations clearly prefer
to
maintain the original vocal piece in the intabulation in spite of
the
diffculty to play.
What do you think about this?
When you play this repertoire, do you try to keep all notes? Do you
omit certain notes to make it more playful? Do you make decision
based
on the musical flow?
I am very curious to hear your ideas.
All the best,
--
Guilherme Barroso
[1]www.guilherme-barroso.com
--
References
1. http://www.guilherme-barroso.com/
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