[LUTE] Re: Eijsertt
Just for the record, I was the one who talked John Ward into restructuring his Dowland Miscellany so it included all those appendices (of which, as it happens, ran the alphabet A to Z). As originally submitted, some of John’s footnotes ran to several pages of typescript. In a journal accustomed to footnotes actually being at the bottom of the page, this created numerous editorial and layout challenges. Over lunch one day when he was visiting the west coast, I managed to talk him into the logic of separating his main text, complete with its detailed “Index of the Works” from the supporting material. I’m glad he listened to his editor. Even then, John would call me every few days excited about fresh, new tidbits in information he had discovered. Peter Danner, Editor of JLSA from 1975 — 1982 To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Cherbury lute book
Arthur’s comment on the answer Bob Spencer got from the FWM librarian about the Cherbury manuscript reminds me of my own experience at the Fitzwilliam when my wife, daughter and I visited Cambridge in 1978. I had casually popped into the Fitzwilliam (around the corner from our hotel) one afternoon while the family was elsewhere. I may have gone in there simply to get out of the rain. I found the Cherbury to be on display as part of a special exhibit the museum was holding, and the director must have noticed me eying it keenly when he happened to pass through the room. He asked why it so drew my interest, and I must have given the right answers, because he drew a set of keys from his pocket and withdrew it for me to examine more closely at a nearby table. I was only asked to put on gloves. I probably did nothing more than look for variations in the handwriting. It was only a quick look, but a thrill none the same. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Falckenhagen chorale variations
Great performance of a remarkable Falckenhagen chorale setting! Having worked with John Schneiderman on a number of Falckenhagen projects, I feel as if I've become almost personally acquainted with this interesting composer and his equally fascinating patrons. It's nice to see another side of his personally on such fine display. Makes me glad I contributed to this highly worthwhile production. Peter Danner To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] de Visee
Before leaving this de Visee thread, which has treated at times of wander OT, I would like to offer one brief reminiscence. One of my previous posts referred to Hoppy Smith's 1979 album of de Visee theorbo music. The previous year, 1978, I had found myself at the LSA seminar held at Dominican College in San Rafael, CA, in my capacity as president of the Lute Society of America and editor of its Journal. Hoppy was at this seminar, and I had the good fortune to draw him for a roommate. At that time, de Visee was very much in his active repertoire. The night before his major concert of the week, as I was turning in after a long day, he said he hoped I wouldn't mind if he stayed up to practice his theorbo. I tell you there is nothing quit so serene as being lulled to sleep by the strains of Sylvains de Couperin as performed live by a fine player in the same room. I have never forgotten the magic of that moment. Louis XIV himself couldn't have had it better, Such are the privileges of office. Peter Danner To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: De Visee
Monica is quite right in pointing out that de Visee was never Louis XIV's official guitar teacher, which brings up another question. It has been years since I looked into the matter, but I find this in my notes. Perhaps someone can remind me of the Benoit citation. It identifies de la Salle as Spanish: From 1650 Bernard Jourdan de la Salle, a native of Saint-Luc, was the King's teacher of the guitar. He was replaced by his son Louis Anne in 1695. 1681. Juillet. Naturalité pour Bernard Jourdan dit la Salle, natif de St. Luc en Espagne, faisant profession de la Religion catholique, apostolique et romanine. Benoit, p.79. Just who was this Bernard Jourdan de la Salle, and where was Saint-Luc? Why is there no surviving music by him? Peter Danner To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: De Visee
Thank you for this, Jean-Marie. Precisely the information I was looking for. I remember examining the Marcelle Beboit volumes in the Stanford library years ago. Louis XIV did indeed have some ability on the guitar from contemporary accounts, and Voltaire is later said to have stated that the only things Louis XIV learned to do well were to dance and play the guitar. On French-Spanish relationships, it might be worth pointing out that Louis' mother, Anne of Austria, in spite of her name, was a Spanish Habsburg, the daughter of King Philip III. Furthermore, Louis married the Infanta, Maria Teresa, daughter of Philip IV of Spain. In his biography of Louis XIV, Olivier Bernier mentions that she arrived in France not knowing a word of French and throughout her life always spoke it with a heavy Spanish accent (p. 68). She probably brought Spanish musicians in her retinue. Peter Danner On Mar 2, 2014, at 9:13 AM, Jean-Marie Poirier jmpoiri...@wanadoo.fr wrote: Marcelle Benoit quotes a document of 1695 from the Archives Nationales where the surviving papers of the royal household are kept. It is from the Secrétariat de la Maison du Roi and on march 14th 1695, f° 38v in the series O.1 39 there is this allusion to Jourdan : Retenüe de joüeur de guitarre du Roy, pour le Sr de la Salle Ayant egard aux services que feu Bernard Jourdan de la Salle nous a rendu depuis l'année 1650 que nous le choisismes pour nous enseigner a joüer de la guitarre, nous avons bien voulu, en cette consideration, conserver lad. charge a Louis Jourdan de la Salle, son fils, et luy contnuer les gages ordinaires de 1200 livres tournois qui y sont attribuez... We learn that Louis XIV started to learn the guitar when he was 12 years old and that his teacher, who had come to France 10 years before the king's marriage with his Spanish cousin Marie-Thérèse d'Autriche, was dead by 1695 (feu Bernard Jourdan de la Salle). Marcelle Benoît in her Dictionnaire de la musique en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles writes that he was a native a Sanlucar de Barrameda in the province of Cadiz, as Monica justly quotes. Louis, his son who succeded him in his functions, was born in 1659 and Louis XIV was his godfather and Anne d'Autriche - the king's mother - his godmother. Bernard married a certain Elizabeth Lesueur and had a daughter Elizabeth Laurente in 1660. That's about the only facts we have about Bernard Jourdan de la Salle, who was naturalized in 1681, and the act where this is recorded says that he was natif de St Luc en Espagne (=Sanluccar) faisant profession de la Religion catholique, apostolique et romaine (O.1 25, f° 203 242) In 1684 he was paid 600 lt, like Champion, Ithier, Marais etc... and was qualified La SAlle, maître à jouer de la guitarre. Same thing in 1686. In 1688 he received 1200 lt, wheres the other musiciens of la Chambre had only 600 lt. In 1689, he had only 600 lt. In 1691, he received 1200 lt. againn more than Michel Lambert, the singer and Lully father-in-law who only got 720 lt... In 1693, he is called Sieur de la Salle and is listed for a sum of 600 lt with a comment n'a pas été payé faute de de fonds dans l'estat de distribution ( ;-) public money shortage not a new problem it seems...) Eventually, in 1695 the money (1200 lt.) is delivered to Louis Jourdand de la Salle, maistre à jouer de la guitarre du Roy, au lieu de feu Bernard Jourdan de la Salle son père. Louis XIV must have been a rather gifted sutdent as, after his death, his brother's wife Elisabeth-Charlotte de Bavière wrote in a letter : il ne connaissait aucune note de musique, mais il avait l'oreile juste et il jouait de la guitare mieux qu'un maître, arangeant sur cet instrument tout ce qu'il voulait... According to M. Benoit, Francisque Corbett (= Corbetta) seems to have been Bernard Jourdan's successor in spite of Louis Jourdan, legal heir of his father's functions. End of story. No music so far has been unearthed that could be attributed to one of the two Jourdan de la Salle... We were more lucky with another Spaniard who had settled inFrance, Luys de Briceño, but that is another story ;-) ! To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: De Visee
After the remarks made about Satoh's liner notes, I hate to cite any others, but in Philippe Beaussant's rather poignant notes to Hopkison Smith's Pieces de Theorbe (Astree 7733), claim is made that Corbetta became known to Louis when Lully had the two play together in le Ballet de la Galanterie du temps. I believe this was1656. Corbetta must have been proud of this performance, since it is mentioned in both prefaces to his book of 1671. I reason (conjecture again!) that guitar instructions from Corbetta to the King would have been earlier rather than later. Jourdan was succeeded by his son, Louis Anne, in 1695. So, why was it de Visee, not Jourdan, who was specifically called on to play the guitar to Louis while the latter was recovering from his almost-fatal illness of 1686? The guitar-loving king must have admired his playing. (Incidentally, it was while performing the Te Deum written to celebrate Louis' recovery from this illness that Lully suffered the wound that caused his death.) Peter On Mar 2, 2014, at 1:22 PM, Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk wrote: Many many thanks for all this fascinating information. Jourdan must have been quite an important person in Louis' household. I have only one comment - Corbetta died in 1681 so he can't have succeeded Jourdon in 1695 and in any case he spent most of his last 20 years in England although he visited France again on a number of occasions. Perhaps he gave Louis a few master classes when he was in Paris. Best Monica To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: New post
Speaking of the longevity of CDs, I still have one with James Bowman singing the Vivaldi Stabat Mater. It was the first CD I ever owned, given to me as a Christmas present in 1985. It still sounds fine. Perhaps some hold up better than others, but I've noticed little deterioration in any of many CDs I've accumulated over the years. Mostly classical with some third-world. Peter Danner To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: John Ward
It was my pleasure and distinct honor to serve as John's editor during the publication of his Dowland Miscellany in the JLSA. When the article was first submitted, it presented a number of layout challenges I wasn't sure we would be able to overcome. For one thing, it contained a number of footnotes, each of which ran to several full pages of typescript, several containing musical examples, Yet I felt positive that such detailed bibliographical information would surely prove useful to someone down the line. He agreed to meet me to discuss the matter when he was next in California, and we spent a productive working lunch together discussing my idea of turning the extended footnotes into a series of appendices. This was my one and only personal meeting with John Ward, whom I found to be a perfect gentleman. He graciously agreed to the changes necessary to make my suggestion workable. I was able to identify 26 extended footnotes, making the appendices run perfectly from Appendix A to Appendix Z. His attention to detail was remarkable. John and I continued to correspond over the years, and he once helped me retrieve some music from the Harvard library, but that one personal encounter over lunch will forever be etched in my memory. Peter Danner To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Falckenhagen
A question for the Collected Wisdom. There appears to be some confusion over the way Falckenhagen's concerti have come to be identified. I see Haffner published three sets of these concerti, all with very similar titles: Opera terza, Opera quarta, and Opera nuova. Only the lute part of Opera terza seems to have survived. Opera nuova, on the other hand, fortunately survives intact. However, these six concerti have often been referred to as if they were actually Opus 4 and have even been recorded this way. Adding to the confusion, Grove continues to identify Opera nuova as Opus 3. This cannot be correct. Is it possible that Opera nuova is simply a later edition of Opera quarta? Does a copy of Falckenhagen's Opera quarta even exist? I would appreciate it if someone could clear up this mystery for me. I scheduled to write the note for a new recording of Opera nuova for John Schneiderman and would like to know exactly what music I'm dealing with. Peter Danner To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Losy facsimiles
On Mar 25, 2011, at 6:34 AM, Martyn Hodgson wrote: In my view these are all arrangements of Losy's lute music and probably not by the composer himself. This is the same conclusion reached by Emil Vogl, who wrote about Losy's lute music in the Journal of the Lute Society of America (see JLSA, Vol. XIV, pp. 7-11). Peter Danner -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Beating time for Lully
The symbolism can be found in Olivier Bernier's biography of Louis XIV. At the time he struck his foot, Lully was conducting a Te Deum written to celebrate Louis' recovery from a serious illness. The doctors had so botched the job on the king, which involved surgery (without anesthetic of course), that Lully wanted them no where near him. Even when gangrene set in. Peter Danner On Mar 16, 2011, at 3:07 AM, A. J. Ness wrote: I was referring to that tale told in U.S. music appreciation classes about Lully's death. But perhaps it is true. I decided to check with Nicolas Slonimsky (Baker's Biographical Dictionary): [Lully's] death resulted from a symbolic accident: while conducting, he vehemently struck his foot with a sharp-pointed cane used to pound out the beat; gangrene set in and he died of blood poisoning. What is a symbolic accident? -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Lute volume
I heard Hoppy under two very different situations back in the '70s when I was an officer with the Lute Society of America. Both were at summer seminars, which in those days were held in California. The first was at a seminar at Idyllwild in the mountains southeast of Los Angeles, where USC has a summer arts program. Hoppy played in an auditorium there that had a glass roof. It was not a large hall, but unfortunately there was a summer rain storm happening at the same time. Hoppy's playing was totally drowned out by the pitter-pat of the rain on the roof. The other occasion worth mentioning was at Dominican College in San Rafael. I was fortunate enough to draw Hoppy Smith as a roommate. The night before his big concert, he said he hoped I didn't mind if he practiced a bit as I was heading to bed. Hoppy was focused on de Visée in those days, and I still remember falling off to sleep to the delicious sounds of his theorbo and Les Sylvains. Peter Danner On Oct 18, 2010, at 1:26 AM, Thomas Schall wrote: I can follow your comment about Hoppy because he is playing at a *very* low volume. I have heard him both in a large church playing as well as in a small salon. The first has been disappointing - the second has been a nice experience. I've heard Julian Bream in a larger room - volume has not been a problem at all . -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
