[VIHUELA] Re: Private Musicke and Kozuna (was: Foscarini on Radio 3)
Dear Monica, I'm not sure I understood your message correctly. Do you mean that they might have hired Private Musicke without Kozena? --- En date de : Sam 28.8.10, Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk a A(c)crit : De: Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk Objet: [VIHUELA] Re: Private Musicke and Kozuna (was: Foscarini on Radio 3) A: wikla wi...@cs.helsinki.fi Cc: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu Date: Samedi 28 aoAt 2010, 11h12 Interesting indeed! I though Odi Euterpe was one of the better things she sang - but I don't know it as well as some of the other songs. I listened to the whole broadcast last night. Perhaps it is simply that balence of the recording is all wrong. She is too prominent. But I though her interpretation of many of the songs was often too operatic and emotional. They did a slightly different programme in Edinburgh I guess it's the first time early music has much attention at the Edinburgh Festival too. But they might not have hired Private Musicke without Magdalena Kozuna. Who knows. Monica - Original Message - From: wikla [1]wi...@cs.helsinki.fi To: Vihuelalist [2]vihu...@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Friday, August 27, 2010 10:03 PM Subject: [VIHUELA] Private Musicke and Kozuna (was: Foscarini on Radio 3) Interesting! I just happened to hear the Private Musicke and Kozuna just before the talks here. They happened to have the opening concert here in the Helsinki Festival: Love Madrigals of the 17th century. Great! Clearly the first time early music gets that much attention in this festival. I happened to hear the beginning of the concert's direct broadcast on my car radio: on that time she was singing the Odi Euterpe by Caccini that I know well. Something was wrong there... Then to home with better audio. The program continued. Here is the list of all: Filippo Vitali: O bei lumi Sigismondo D'India: Cruda Amarilli Claudio Monteverdi: Si dolce A il tormento Giulio Caccini: Odi Euterpe Luis de Briceno: Caravanda Ciacona Tarquino Merula: Canzonetta Spirituale sopra alla nanna Gaspar Sanz: Canarios Sigismondo D'India: Ma che? Squallido e oscuro Biaggio Marini: Con le Stelle in Ciel Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger: Felici gl'animi Giovanni de Macque: Capriccio stravagante Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger: Aurilla mia Sigismondo D'India: Torna il sereno ZA(c)firo Giovanni Paolo Foscarini: Ciaccona Barbara Strozzi: L'Eraclito amoroso Ruiz de Ribayaz: Espanioletta Tarquino Merula: Folle A ben si crede I knew most of the pieces. And have accopanied nearly all of the songs many times. I really was happy that to me so dear repertoire got so important place in the festival, and I was as much unhappy that the performance was not good - well I heard only the 3/4 of the concert and on radio broadcast... But I got the feeling that the singer did not know the meaning of the words, and so she couldn't perhaps so much express the message of the text. And she did not always sound very pure and clean... And to me the band did not make a very good impression either: If Merula's sopra alla nanna is made to sound flamenco, I do not want to hear it. Not to speak of one of the greatest pieces by Barbara Strozzi, L'Eraclito amoroso. That was the biggest flop in their performance; just singing the notes and improvising kitchen flamenco around -- no idea of the story and text, even no idea of the sober(?) passagaglia in places. Rubbish in that piece, spoiled possibilities... But when that repertoire is taken to the wide public, perhaps there will be more gigs also to a tiny theorbist with a big theorbo... ;-) All the best, Arto On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 19:53:05 +0100, Monica Hall [3]mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk wrote: I am also a fan of Private Musicke and have several of their CDs. Magdalena Kozuna is not one of their regular singers as far as I am aware. I suspect that she was co-opted for commercial considerations - in order to sell more tickets. She is well know whereas Raquel and Stephan van Dyck and Marco Beasley are not - at least over here. All them are very accomplished singers in this repertoire. So is Kozuna in the right repertoire - but the announcer did make the point that she is better know for doing other things. Monica - Original Message - From: [1]jean-michel Catherinot To: [2]Martyn Hodgson ; [3]Monica Hall Cc: [4]Vihuelalist Sent: Friday, August 27, 2010 12:39 PM Subject: Re :
[VIHUELA] Re: Bartolotti Videos performed by Lex Eisenhardt
Dear List, At this point I feel compelled to say something about parallel octaves. If parallel octaves are continuous, they cease to be parallel octaves and become orchestration (e.g., organ or harpsichord stops). The parallel octaves that get red marks in a theory or counterpoint class are between two adjacent consonances and are usually part of a 3- or 4-voice texture. Sometimes they are hidden octaves: the same thing but with an intervening note in one of the voices. Sorry for the lecture. Mike Michael Fink michael.f...@notesinc.com -Original Message- From: lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu [mailto:lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On Behalf Of Lex Eisenhardt Sent: Monday, August 30, 2010 1:15 PM To: Vihuelalist Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Bartolotti Videos performed by Lex Eisenhardt Today the vihuela is usually tuned in unison throughout but this may not have been so in the 16^th century. If the 5^th and 6^th courses were octave strung this might alter our perceptions of the music. But to what extent? Early lutes had octaves, sometimes even on the 4th course. Certain organ stops have octaves too. The whole problem seems to be how you reconstruct the polyphony in your mind. The high octaves of the five-course guitar tend to be prominent indeed (although it depends also on how you touch them, and the string tension, and even on how they relate in height to the bourdon, at the bridge) but I happen to think that it's not a matter of measuring decibels in the first place. The baroque guitar has nothing in common with the classical guitar. Some people seem to shiver at the idea... most of the time it is difficult to hear the bourdon on the fifth course because all it is doing is creating parallel octaves in which the upper part is more audible. For some listeners there are parallel octaves, for others the bass becomes brighter and stronger, as a result of the blending of the overtones of the two strings, like on the lute or the organ (the latter has of course no strings). In the Sarabande the bass line falls a 7th at the cadence following the double bar - this big chord I comes out of nowhere! I'm afraid that's what big chords do. It is guitar music after all, in this funny mixed battuto-pizzicato style. Paradoxically the bourdon on the fourth often sounds to me more prominent especially in odd places in the campanellas. Maybe it's not a paradox, since there are more notes on the 4th course involved. It seems to be generally accepted that the bourdon on the 4th course is needed with Bartolotti, so this happens when you play what the tablature says. In all 5 clips there are only 2 campanela runs, by the way, they are both in the prelude. The section high up the neck in the courante, for instance, could be misleading, it is just a 'regular' texture. But neither is there any evidence that Italians thought of the guitar as having seven strings rather than five and that used the separate strings of the fourth and fifth courses independently as a matter of course. Again, it is not so much a matter of using the separate strings independently, but using your ears (and therefore also your hands) in a more varied way. Or should we believe that the tablature obliges you to always play the two strings (the octave and the bourdon) in perfect balance? (This would then of course also apply for the 4th course bourdon) It is also unfair to suggest that other people play the music the way that they do because it is fashionable and that they havent given careful thought to what they are doing. Maybe. All the heavyly syncopated afterbeat strumming (and percussion) doesn't sound very 17th century to me. Wouldn't it be on purpose, as a 'cross-over'? Lex To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
