[VIHUELA] Re: Bartolotti Videos performed by Lex Eisenhardt
On 24 August 2010 21:52, Alexander Batov [1]alexander.ba...@vihuelademano.com wrote: OK, I'm glad we agree on this. Alexander On 24/08/2010 21:44, Monica Hall wrote: It's not my rationale! I prefer the msuic without the bourdon on the 5th course. I've just been listening to the same suite on the CD which Lex made in 1994 - with the French tuning. Much better in every way. Monica I'd be fascinated to hear both versions! The campanellas on these videos sound great with the low bourdons - or rather, with skilful avoidance of them (when necessary, as in campanellas). And their presence is very subtle. Alexander didn't even hear the low fifth. I know Monica and Lex have disputed these matters at length. This is obviously very sophisticated music. If (if) there is not sufficient evidence for either approach, and if it comes down to preference, then I think I'd rather go for bourdons. But it would be really interesting to hear one piece side by side with and without a bourdon on the fifth. Stuart To get on or off this list see list information at [2]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. mailto:alexander.ba...@vihuelademano.com 2. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: Bartolotti Videos performed by Lex Eisenhardt
I'd like to chime in (no pun intended) as a cured classical guitarist. (And let me add, nothing is worse than a cured drunk.) Hello, I'm Chris, and I'm a classical guitarist. Today I've been bordon - free for six months (applause). Actually, I struggled with this issue when I first got my instrument, and received some stinging replies -- the internet works that way. The point has been taken, and I'm happier for it. Indeed, the idiosyncrasies of the instrument are a very big deal. Not only do they affect the sound you hear. They affect the logic of your interpretation. I'm currently being extreme, and using the Sanz, no-bordon stringing. That means I have to ground myself with a G as the lowest note. Classical guitarists are used to grounding themselves in the lowest note of a voicing, and building their interpretation of voice leading (is that what you call it???) and melodic development on that. Well, we're also used to finding it THREE whole strings below the G. Grounding on the G in a 5-course instrument requires changes in physical logic, muscle logic, reading logic, melodic logic, and voicing logic. Probably the most difficult thing is to take a piece you learned and loved from a Narciso Yepes transcription of Sanz, and then play it on the Baroque guitar. Talk about cambio del chip, as they say in Spain... Or as the Firesign Theater once said, Everything You Know is Wrong. This is a GOOD thing. Embrace it. cud __ From: Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk To: WALSH STUART s.wa...@ntlworld.com Cc: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Wed, August 25, 2010 7:09:10 AM Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Bartolotti Videos performed by Lex Eisenhardt - Original Message - From: WALSH STUART [1]s.wa...@ntlworld.com To: Alexander Batov [2]alexander.ba...@vihuelademano.com Cc: Vihuelalist [3]vihu...@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2010 9:42 AM Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Bartolotti Videos performed by Lex Eisenhardt On 24 August 2010 21:52, Alexander Batov [1][4]alexander.ba...@vihuelademano.com wrote: OK, I'm glad we agree on this. Alexander On 24/08/2010 21:44, Monica Hall wrote: It's not my rationale! I prefer the msuic without the bourdon on the 5th course. I've just been listening to the same suite on the CD which Lex made in 1994 - with the French tuning. Much better in every way. Monica I'd be fascinated to hear both versions! The campanellas on these videos sound great with the low bourdons - or rather, with skilful avoidance of them (when necessary, as in campanellas). And their presence is very subtle. Alexander didn't even hear the low fifth. I know Monica and Lex have disputed these matters at length. This is obviously very sophisticated music. If (if) there is not sufficient evidence for either approach, and if it comes down to preference, then I think I'd rather go for bourdons. But it would be really interesting to hear one piece side by side with and without a bourdon on the fifth. Stuart Well - that's what I was able to do as I have the CD. I think the quality of the recording of the CD is better than in the video - which is of a live performance and presumably unedited. But the point is that in the video he is trying to leave out the bourdons most of the time and to my ears this results in the campanellas sounding tentative and uneven - they don't ring out and overlap creating a bell-like effect. The idea that the skips of a 7th etc must be eliminated so that all you have is a rather feeble scale passage which would sound better played in a conventional way is misguided. That's not what happens with bell ringing. Also the bourdon on the fifth course creates an imbalence between 2 and 3 part counterpoint and the strummed 5-part chords which are too prominent - especially if they are 6-4s. There is no clear continuous bass line anyway and even in the gigue where there are imitative entries you hear these in the upper octave rather than the lower because it is impossible to leave the high octave string out. The re-entrant effect is a constant. I don't know what kind of strings he is using but in places the bourdon on the 5th course sound twangy. Overwound perhaps which Bartolotti would never have used. I would say that if you are going to use bourdons you should use plain gut ones and use them - not leave them out 90% of the time. I just find this idea that somehow all the idiocyncracies must be eliminated and the music made to sound as if it were rather inferior classical guitar music is incredibly pedantic. It is the idiocyncracies that make the
[VIHUELA] Re: Bartolotti Videos performed by Lex Eisenhardt
You have actually summed up all the thoughts that have been running through my mind this afternoon. The problem is that classical guitarists all the time think of the fourth and fifth courses as sounding in the lower octave and they don't really listen to what they are actually playing. With bourdons or without them, the high octave strings are ever present and they alter both the melodic line and the internal counterpoint.This problem is exacerbated by the common practice of transcribing baroque guitar music into staff notation with the notes on the fourth and fifth course shown only in the lower octave. Added to which some classical guitarists don't seem to have a very good grasp of the rules of musical theory anyway and don't analyse the harmony and counterpoint correctly in the first place. It's a hopeless case really! I don't actually mind if people just play the music the way they like it. What irritates me is when they try to argue that what they are doing is historically accurate - and that everyone who does it differently is wrong. So - re-entrant tuners of the world unite. You have nothing to use but your bourdons. Monica - Original Message - From: [1]Chris Despopoulos To: [2]Monica Hall ; [3]WALSH STUART Cc: [4]Vihuelalist Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2010 12:56 PM Subject: Re: [VIHUELA] Re: Bartolotti Videos performed by Lex Eisenhardt I'd like to chime in (no pun intended) as a cured classical guitarist. (And let me add, nothing is worse than a cured drunk.) Hello, I'm Chris, and I'm a classical guitarist. Today I've been bordon - free for six months (applause). Actually, I struggled with this issue when I first got my instrument, and received some stinging replies -- the internet works that way. The point has been taken, and I'm happier for it. Indeed, the idiosyncrasies of the instrument are a very big deal. Not only do they affect the sound you hear. They affect the logic of your interpretation. I'm currently being extreme, and using the Sanz, no-bordon stringing. That means I have to ground myself with a G as the lowest note. Classical guitarists are used to grounding themselves in the lowest note of a voicing, and building their interpretation of voice leading (is that what you call it???) and melodic development on that. Well, we're also used to finding it THREE whole strings below the G. Grounding on the G in a 5-course instrument requires changes in physical logic, muscle logic, reading logic, melodic logic, and voicing logic. Probably the most difficult thing is to take a piece you learned and loved from a Narciso Yepes transcription of Sanz, and then play it on the Baroque guitar. Talk about cambio del chip, as they say in Spain... Or as the Firesign Theater once said, Everything You Know is Wrong. This is a GOOD thing. Embrace it. cud __ From: Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk To: WALSH STUART s.wa...@ntlworld.com Cc: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Wed, August 25, 2010 7:09:10 AM Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Bartolotti Videos performed by Lex Eisenhardt - Original Message - From: WALSH STUART [5]s.wa...@ntlworld.com To: Alexander Batov [6]alexander.ba...@vihuelademano.com Cc: Vihuelalist [7]vihu...@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2010 9:42 AM Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Bartolotti Videos performed by Lex Eisenhardt On 24 August 2010 21:52, Alexander Batov [1][8]alexander.ba...@vihuelademano.com wrote: OK, I'm glad we agree on this. Alexander On 24/08/2010 21:44, Monica Hall wrote: It's not my rationale! I prefer the msuic without the bourdon on the 5th course. I've just been listening to the same suite on the CD which Lex made in 1994 - with the French tuning. Much better in every way. Monica I'd be fascinated to hear both versions! The campanellas on these videos sound great with the low bourdons - or rather, with skilful avoidance of them (when necessary, as in campanellas). And their presence is very subtle. Alexander didn't even hear the low fifth. I know Monica and Lex have disputed these matters at length. This is obviously very sophisticated music. If (if) there is not sufficient evidence for either approach, and if it comes down to preference, then I think I'd rather go for bourdons. But it would be really interesting to hear one piece side by side with and without a bourdon on the fifth. Stuart Well - that's what I was able to do as I have the CD. I think the quality of the recording of the CD is better than in the video - which is of a live performance and
[VIHUELA] Re: Bartolotti Videos performed by Lex Eisenhardt
The problem is that classical guitarists all the time think of the fourth and fifth courses as sounding in the lower octave and they don't really listen to what they are actually playing. With bourdons or without them, the high octave strings are ever present and they alter both the melodic line and the internal counterpoint. Apparently there are different ways of listening to courses stringed in octaves. If there are bourdons, the sound they produce should probably not be ignored. Unless you would like to contend that both notes are meant to be of equal importance for the counterpoint (two melodies, in parallel octaves that would be), it would be needed to decide which line is supposed to predominate, at a certain point. That is the question to be answered when you 'really listen to what you are actually playing'. The same with French tuning, with only one bourdon, by the way. It's a hopeless case really! I don't actually mind if people just play the music the way they like it. What irritates me is when they try to argue that what they are doing is historically accurate - and that everyone who does it differently is wrong. Did anyone do that? Those ยก#%...@!* classical guitarists... Lex To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA]
Ay ...strung in octaves. L -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] comments
[I tried to send this message 6 times. If you received them all, sorry] Hello. I re-subscribed to this list, to react on some remarks about my Youtube clips. Indeed they are unedited, and that should explain why one or two twangy bass notes, so aptly noted by Monica, are there. I thought they could be forgiven, considering the playing noises we normally hear on live recordings on the baroque guitar. On my last three CD's with the baroque guitar (Marin songs, the Corbetta suites and the 'Canta Venetia' disk) I used Gut bourdons (Larson). For practical reasons I now use nylguts, which I think work quite well. It seems right to be grounded on the g of the third course for (al least part of) the works of Sanz. But I happen to believe that for a number of Italian composers, including Bartolotti, we better have bourdons. In the wonderful polyphony of the courante or the gigue it would be almost impossible to leave the high strings of the fourth and fifth courses out. Perhaps I'll try next time :~). As a result of individual listening habits some people seem to perceive the bass notes in the high octave, while for other listeners the lower notes of the bourdons clearly have the 'upper hand'. This is one of the many idiosyncasies of the repertoire. My approach has nothing to do with having a background in Classical Guitar, and it seems trivial to make an accusation like that. Perhaps I should bring in mind my work on the vihuela, as I have never heard anyone complain about a guitaristic approach, when performing that repertoire. If (if?) there were bourdons then we should probably better learn how to use them properly, and get used to the idea that in certain works the five course guitar was used in another way than we often hear it today. The whole preconceived idea that the baroque guitar should be 'totally different' from any other instrument (be it the lute or the classical guitar) seems to prevent proper judgement. Of course we should respect the idiosyncrasies of the instrument, but who can tell exactly how they were handled in the 17th century? There are no 'skips of 7th's etc.' in the campanela sections, and therefore nothing was eliminated. They do audibly ring on and overlap, as seems to be the whole idea (). Playing campanelas including little sound from the bourdons is merely a matter of how you imagine these melodic lines. The technique follows the musical concept, so to speak. To me they should fit into the musical discourse in the first place, even if some virtousity is implied. It is not so much editing out anything, but being a bit orderly in the outline of one's performance. Excessive ornamentation, super-intricate (folk-rock) strumming and the display of lightspeed in campanelas are hallmarks of a fashionable modern image of the baroque guitar, for which at least there seems to be little historic evidence. Lex -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
