[VIHUELA] Re: videos
On Jul 11, 2008, at 10:51 AM, Stuart Walsh wrote: Anyway - some amateur performances on a guitar which has absolutely nothing to give to the world - of some Foscarini pieces (possibly a bit unexpected): I clicked on the link and got a message that This is a private video, accompanied by the question Do you have permission to watch this video? Frankly, I have no idea, since we haven't discussed it. On the one hand, I'm curious about what makes this particular, er, performance private. On the other hand, I'm not sure I'm ready to find out. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: videos
On Jul 11, 2008, at 11:36 AM, Stuart Walsh wrote: Really? this: http://www.vimeo.com/1322063 The same My performance is not so good but is it really bad enough to be an obscenity? That's what inquiring minds want to know I joined vimeo following a link put up by Rob. I thought the video would end up in the area with the other old grunters playing lutes and guitars. Maybe Rob has to vet it first... When I click on the link I just get straight to an old bloke and his rather sorry guitar. Maybe it does that if you're signed up and authorized. I'm not, and I get the videos on Rob's site without any problem. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: Sanz and the High G
On Apr 25, 2008, at 7:16 AM, Martyn Hodgson wrote: cannot we assume that, like with lutes, the first course of guitars were pitched as high (or at least not too far off) as they co= uld reasonably bear. You can only assume this if you also assume the lack of a high octave on the third course. Since the presence or lack of the high G is what you're trying to establish, you have to assume your conclusion in order to assume your premise. Someone in this thread (I saw it second-hand in Monica's post) mentioned Roman pitch: Some argue that Roman pitch was around 392, others say it was nearer 460. I don't know anyone who argues that Roman pitch was ever higher than A 415. Surviving 17th-century Roman organs are slightly lower than 392. Doni wrote in 1640 that the pitch of Roman organs had been lowered a semitone in about (or since) 1600. Robert Smith wrote in 1749 that Roman organs in about 1720 were pitched around 392. In the early 18th century, Handel, Alessandro Scarlatti and Caldara wrote the oboe parts for Roman performances that are written a whole- tone below the other parts, which Bruce Haynes takes to mean the oboes were at A 435 and everyone else was at A 384. See Haynes' A History of Performing Pitch: the Story of A at pages 69-72, 167-168. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: Sanz and the High G
On Apr 24, 2008, at 3:36 PM, Stuart Walsh wrote: Monica's position is rather like mysterianism in the philosophy of mind. It's all just one big mystery: the stringing , the tuning, the performance practice of the seventeenth century guitarists- the existing evidence points anywhere and nowhere. No definitive conclusions (she philosophises) can ever be drawn. So if the seventeenth century guitarists are hidden away in their world, it's no surprise that Monica thinks that: we can only play the music in a way that makes sense to us today Now this is either a harmless truism or a trenchantly radical position. No wonder she gets into scraps with people! To be fair, I think Monica was trying to avoid one here by not reiterating her position on the high G octave string. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: Castaldi
On Sep 11, 2007, at 3:12 AM, Monica Hall wrote: I'm reviewing a CD of music by Castaldi. It has on it an extaordinary piece - a setting of a letter addressed by a Jewish women, Heleazaria, to the Emperor Tito Vespasiano during the Seige of Jerusalem which occurred in about 70 A.D. In it she says that she is about to kill and eat her own child. What I am trying to find out is whether this refers to a specific incident and where the words of the piece came from. Are they by Castaldi himself or from some earlier source. Perhaps someone with a knowledge of Classical of Jewish history might know. Or someone who has seen the original score. I made exactly the same inquiry for exactly the same reason a couple years ago. The story is related in the Wars of the Jews by Josephus, and is probably about as reliable as the story about Iraqi soldiers pulling premature infants out of incubators in Kuwait. Josephus has the woman cooking her own son, but the bit about her writing the letter to Vespasian (apparently forgetting in the process that mail delivery between the Jews and their Roman attackers was none too reliable) is the poet's invention. I never found out whether the poet was Castaldi or someone else. I note that the woman's name is changed from Mary, perhaps not to offend Catholic sensibilities. Here's Josephus, Book VI, Chapter 3, in William Whiston's 18th- century translation: But why do I describe the shameless impudence that the famine brought on men in their eating inanimate things, while I am going to relate a matter of fact, the like to which no history relates, (15) either among the Greeks or Barbarians? It is horrible to speak of it, and incredible when heard. I had indeed willingly omitted this calamity of ours, that I might not seem to deliver what is so portentous to posterity, but that I have innumerable witnesses to it in my own age; and besides, my country would have had little reason to thank me for suppressing the miseries that she underwent at this time. 4. There was a certain woman that dwelt beyond Jordan, her name was Mary; her father was Eleazar, of the village Bethezob, which signifies the house of Hyssop. She was eminent for her family and her wealth, and had fled away to Jerusalem with the rest of the multitude, and was with them besieged therein at this time. The other effects of this woman had been already seized upon, such I mean as she had brought with her out of Perea, and removed to the city. What she had treasured up besides, as also what food she had contrived to save, had been also carried off by the rapacious guards, who came every day running into her house for that purpose. This put the poor woman into a very great passion, and by the frequent reproaches and imprecations she east at these rapacious villains, she had provoked them to anger against her; but none of them, either out of the indignation she had raised against herself, or out of commiseration of her case, would take away her life; and if she found any food, she perceived her labors were for others, and not for herself; and it was now become impossible for her any way to find any more food, while the famine pierced through her very bowels and marrow, when also her passion was fired to a degree beyond the famine itself; nor did she consult with any thing but with her passion and the necessity she was in. She then attempted a most unnatural thing; and snatching up her son, who was a child sucking at her breast, she said, O thou miserable infant! for whom shall I preserve thee in this war, this famine, and this sedition? As to the war with the Romans, if they preserve our lives, we must be slaves. This famine also will destroy us, even before that slavery comes upon us. Yet are these seditious rogues more terrible than both the other. Come on; be thou my food, and be thou a fury to these seditious varlets, and a by-word to the world, which is all that is now wanting to complete the calamities of us Jews. As soon as she had said this, she slew her son, and then roasted him, and eat the one half of him, and kept the other half by her concealed. Upon this the seditious came in presently, and smelling the horrid scent of this food, they threatened her that they would cut her throat immediately if she did not show them what food she had gotten ready. She replied that she had saved a very fine portion of it for them, and withal uncovered what was left of her son. Hereupon they were seized with a horror and amazement of mind, and stood astonished at the sight, when she said to them, This is mine own son, and what hath been done was mine own doing! Come, eat of this food; for I have eaten of it myself! Do not you pretend to be either more tender than a woman, or more compassionate than a mother; but if you be so scrupulous, and do abominate this my sacrifice, as I have eaten the one half, let the rest be reserved for me also. After which those men went out trembling,
[VIHUELA] Re: Castaldi
It is indeed the Laurens/Dumestre recording. Have you heard it. Seguro que si. My review of it ran in the May 2004 LSA Quarterly. That's why I was casting about asking the same questions you're asking now. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: Pujol vihuela recording
LGS-Europe wrote: I have just bought a cd of the 16 july1954 concert in Madrid of Rosa Barbany, soprano, and Emilio Pujol on vihuela (!) in a programme of Spanish songs. Terrible sound quality, If this was a live concert, Pujol may simply have been pushing hard to play louder and become tense. It's a familiar story, no? Is there anyone here who has never done that? To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: La Cancion del Emperador
On Sunday, Apr 16, 2006, at 14:06 America/Los_Angeles, Arto Wikla wrote: I woud say Carlos V. i.e. Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire, or Chuck Five as his close friends called him. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: La Cancion del Emperador
David Rastall wrote: Also Chuck One of Spain, right? ( No doubt called that by a different set of close friends!) Son of Juana la Loca and father of Phillip II. The same. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: Mean tone temperament
Jon Murphy wrote: What are distant keys? Keys that have few notes in common with the home key. A piece in C major will typically modulate to G or F or minor, but gets far afield if it drifts into A-flat or F-sharp, and in any equal temperament those sections will sound dissonant and unsettled because the tuning, which is designed for major thirds that are very close to to the perfect 5:4 frequency ratio of the overtone series (i.e E is 5/4 the frequency of C) in the keys used most, creates thirds that are considerably stretched and unsettled (out of tune) in distant keys. Equal temperament pretty much destroys this expressive effect. Most baroque music is in one of the simpler keys (i.e. few sharps or flats in the signature, and a piece in A-flat or F-sharp is unusual, and probably intended to sound exotic. Those keys are inherently remote in non-ET. Obviously, some of the other posters are convinced otherwise, and believe that a passage in D-flat should sound pretty much like a passage in C, which is what ET is for. The question is whether this is an advantage because everything, on average, is better in tune (although the vast bulk of the music is worse in tune, because ET essentially makes the simpler keys less well in tune to make the distant keys better in tune) or a denaturing of the music. The question is not simple. We have a pretty good idea that Vincenzo Galilei liked equal temperament, and when he wrote pieces in weird keys (or more properly, in modes based on unusual semitones), he intended to demonstrate that they sounded just as good (or bad) as pieces in simple keys. Lute players don't play these pieces much, and somewhere in the archives you'll find a pretty bad review of them from Stewart McCoy, who points out that the pieces in unusual keys play like (and in some cases are) just awkward transpositions of pieces originally written in normal keys. The point: to say that moveable chord shapes or excursions into F-sharp major necessarily mean equal temperament is to assume the conclusion that excursions into F-sharp major should sound more or less the same as passages in C or G. This is a natural conclusion to assume if you're raised on equal temperament. It doesn't necessarily mean the conclusion is wrong, of course. H To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: melancholy and the vihuela
Craig Allen wrote: But remember that Dowland too wrote music that if not actually melancholy was downright morose. If he were alive today he'd be taking anti-depressants and his doctors would have him on a suicide watch. No more than they would call Quentin Tarantino a homicidal maniac. Melancholy in the Elizabethan era was largely a literary convention (we might call it a fad today), and in any case should not be confused with depression. Think of Hamlet stringing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern along by telling them I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth etc., when it should have been perfectly obvious why. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: What is the historical vihuela?
Monica Hall wrote: This is what puzzles me a bit as I can't see the advantage of having a long string length for accompanying. Interesting that you're saying this a few days after Benjamin Narvey posted Linda Sayce's article arguing, in essence, that theorbos with short string lengths are musically inferior anachronisms. I'm skeptical about her conclusions, but I'm not sure what puzzles you, since you certainly know that (all other things being equal) the greater the string mass, the greater the volume of sound, and (whether all other things are equal or not) the greater the string mass, the longer the decay. An instrument capable of greater volume and greater sustain may not strike you as presenting advantages in accompaniment, but someone must have thought so in the years around 1600. I can assure you that the theorbo was not invented for convenience. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: What is the historical vihuela?
Monica Hall wrote: The string length however is only really relevant in so far as this has any bearing on it's authenticity. I would question whether a female player, who probably didn't have the technical ability of Rolf Lislevand, would have been able to play anything meaningful on an instrument of that size. Meaningful being the key word here. Our concept of what's worth playing is conditioned by the music on paper that has survived, but that may have little to do with what someone might have played on the instrument then. She may have accompanied simple songs with simple chords, and used whatever shapes were convenient. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: What is the historical vihuela?
Monica Hall wrote: On reflection, as a member of the fair sex I am a bit sceptical about this (as with everthing else!).I would find it impossible to play even the simplest of music on an instrument with a string length of 72.7. You need to have a chat with Lynda Sayce. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: What is the hysterical vihuela?
Monica Hall wrote: I can't see either why there should be any advantage in having a longer string length when accompanying, unless it is to tune to a lower pitch. This is not necessary if you are a member of the fair sex accompanying yourself either. But an alto singing a song written in soprano range (and vice versa) is just as in need of transposition as a bass singing a song written in tenor range (and vice versa). To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: What is the historical vihuela?
bill kilpatrick wrote: do you mean to infer that repertoire is the deciding factor? The word you're looking for is imply, and I'd say the answer to your question is no. Garry was not implying, but rather assuming, that an instrument useless for playing vihuela music is not a vihuela. That is, whatever else constitutes the definition of the 16th-century vihuela, part of that definition is that vihuela music can be played on it. It's an essential part of the definition for anyone interested in playing music instead of playing word games. HP To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: What is the historical vihuela?
bill kilpatrick wrote: i don't think i'll ever get you to acknowledge the historic validity of my cute little chordaphone of choice Nobody here has said that the charango doesn't have historical validity, although we do have one crank on the list who seems to have such a low opinion of the charango's position in the musical world that he keeps insisting that it's the vihuela that Mudarra and Milan wrote for. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: What is the historical vihuela?
bill kilpatrick wrote: playing this music on a charango - or ukulele if it comes to that - is not useless. nor are single voice melodies from more complex compositions played on whatever comes to hand. My point is that if you can't play vihuela music on it, it's not a vihuela. This is self-evident. Your being able pluck out bits of a Milan vihuela fantasia on your charango--if indeed, you've ever tried it--is wonderful, but it doesn't amount to playing vihuela music on a vihuela. I can sing the themes of a Beethoven symphony, but that doesn't make me an orchestra. what is useless - of very little use to anyone - is to shackle a composition to a particular instrument, exclusive of any other, and insist on it being so for ever. It's certainly useless, and it's also not what anyone is talking about. The subject is whether a charango is a vihuela, not whether you can play vihuela music on a harp or a modern guitar or a piano. am i to infer from your implication that 16th cent. vihuela music should never be played on any instrument other than the one the composer intended? Good lord, play it on a kazoo if you want to. Just don't call your kazoo a vihuela. outside of honolulu, is there a recognized repertoire for the renaissance guitar? Yes. Mudarra and Fuenllana, who published books of music for vihuela, included some pieces for guitar in those books. In Mudarra's book, they are labelled guitarra and written on tablature staves of four lines instead of six. I've actually played some of the pieces on a ukulele, but since the characteristic ukulele re-entrant tuning didn't work, I had to restring it, which demonstrates that the modern ukulele and the renaissance guitar are not one and the same. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: What is the historical vihuela?
bill kilpatrick wrote: crank? ... pummeling the baroque guitar supporters? ... wuffing up the renaissance guitar list? ... crank, (something) and wanton wiles? ... calm down. I'm perfectly calm, I assure you. I said you were a crank because you fit the dictionary definition. The other remarks, from other posters, were all in good fun, since there's no perceived need around here to take you seriously, particularly since your settings are stuck on send. But, as long as I'm wasting bandwidth, here's a final comment, from Tom Stoppard, in Act I of Travesties: Tzara: Nowadays, an artist is someone who makes art mean the things he does. A man may be an artist by exhibiting his hindquarters. He may be a poet by drawing words out of a hat. In fact some of my best poems have been drawn out of my hat which I afterwards exhibited to general acclaim at the Dada Gallery in Bahnhofstrasse. Carr: But that is simply to change the meaning of the word Art. Tzara: I see I have made myself clear. Carr: Then you are not actually an artist at all? Tzara: On the contrary. I have just told you I am. Carr: But that does not make you an artist. An artist is someone who is gifted in some way that enables him to do something more or less well which can only be done badly or not at all by someone who is not thus gifted. If there is any point in using language at all it is that a word is taken to stand for a particular fact or idea and not for other facts or ideas. I might claim to be able to fly... Lo, I say, I am flying. But you are not propelling yourself about while suspended in the air, someone may point out. Ah no, I reply, that is no longer considered the proper concern of people who can fly. In fact, it is frowned upon. Nowadays, a flyer never leaves the ground and wouldn't know how. I see, says my somewhat baffled interlocutor, so when you say you can fly you are using the word in a purely private sense. I see I have made myself clear, I say. Then, says, this chap in some relief, you cannot actually fly after all? On the contrary, I say, I have just told you that I can. Don't you see my dear Tristan you are simply asking me to accept that the word Art means whatever you wish it to mean; but I do not accept it. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: What is the historical vihuela?
Monica Hall wrote: I think we need to be very cautious about all the illustrations in the vihuela books as the engravers are often incompetant and unreliable, Or not paid enough to make it worthwhile or just not interested in putting a lot of accuracy and detail into a tiny picture. The instrument in the Mudarra illustration (page 245 of the Chantarelle facsimile) is as long as my thumb is wide, and it's very sparse. I'm not even sure it's supposed to be a vihuela. Far more prominence is given to the tortoise-shell lyre (complete with tortoise) that Hermes (?) is holding in the front of the book. If you didn't know better, you'd assume the tortoise-shell lyre is the vihuela. In the 1970's, a record company put out a re-issue of some of Bream's recordings entitled the Spanish Guitar or the Classical Guitar. Its front cover consisted of the title and a large picture of a standard-issue American-style 12-string guitar. What would a musicologist make of that four centuries down the road? HP To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: rain ...
On Saturday, Oct 22, 2005, at 03:24 America/Los_Angeles, bill kilpatrick wrote: guitar history properly begins with the appearance of the first written score for the instrument. If you said this about the lute, you'd be wrong by centuries. If you said it about most other instruments, you'd also be wrong by a considerable margin: e.g. more than half a century for the violin, more than a century for the trombone. There are a good many instruments for which there is no music written specifically. When was the first written score for the charango, I wonder? To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: [VIHUELA] Re: [VIHUELA] style brisé
bill kilpatrick wrote: unless i have it completely wrong, i play oud using style brisÈ - alternating tremolo, sometimes in continuo, between individual notes which together comprise a simple chord (in the case of the oud) made with two notes. I'm not sure what you're trying to say, but you're mistaken about at least one of the terms you use above. Tremolo means rapid reiteration of one note. Continuo means an accompaniment consisting of improvised chords above a written bass line. Style brise (broken style) is a modern term meaning a way of ornamenting a melody by turning it into a progression of arpeggios, or sometimes (if you can follow my pathetic attempt to describe this) linear sequences with leaps that turn one voice into alternating voices. The three terms don't have much to do with each other. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: jarana or xarano
Eugene C. Braig IV wrote: An utter lack of corroboration in extant European instruments. I don't know why people would feel obliged to justify the worth of American instruments by insisting they are their European parallels/conceptual ancestors. I still don't understand why this debate goes on. Does it? Is there a real debate? Or is it one charangophile who wants to show that his instrument came over on the Mayflower, as it were, despite the lack of armadillos in the Old World? To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Luz y Norte
RTHUR NESS wrote: I still do not understand its significance as the title of a guitar treatise Light [or Lantern] and North Star, as in a guide in the dark. HP To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Dedillo/redobles
bill kilpatrick wrote: is dedillo the same as redobles - fast, single line passage(s)? No. Dedillo is a way of playing passages of that sort using only the index finger, presumably in the manner of a plectrum. It's occasionally marked in vihuela sources. HP To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: cement
bill kilpatrick wrote: all i have is the internet. i didn't study music at school and i don't have access to a library - i'm totally dependent on you for information. Yet remarkably resistant to the information that's offered. the fact that you knew (collectively - i assume most of you know what it means) and i didn't is ignorance on my part - which says a lot about me that fact that you (collectively) couldn't or wouldn't make the association between it and the charango is equally revealing about you. those of you who - for whatever reason - can not or will not make the association between the modern charango and whatever it was that the 16th cent. europeans in south america referred to as a vihuela must have the imaginative facility of a sack of cement. It's not that we're incapable of flights of fancy. It's just that we don't share your particular flight of fancy, let alone accept it as fact. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Air on the G string?
Stanley Yates wrote: Yet, as far as I know, there is no single statement to be found among the perfromance practice sources of the period that discusses the modern concept of differentiated plucking on an octave-strung course. This is not to say that master guitarists of the time didn't do it, only that they didn't consider it worth writing about; presumably thay didn't consider it it a central tenet of their idiom. Or considered it a trade secret. Or, just as likely, figured that anyone who could actually do it was advanced enough not to need instruction from a preface. HP To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Air on the G string?
Monica Hall wrote: And why not? We shouldn't worry too much about authenticity. Communicating with the listener is more important. Making assumptions about the thought processes of people who disagree with you is a fool's game. That's why it succeeds as a persuasive device only in politics. I just don't think there is any evidence that this is what they did in the 17th century, or that the voice leading is any more accurate than it would be with another method of stringing. There is no they. Stringing practices in the 17th century varied. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
