Howard
I would love to be as new and innocent as you would like to
imagine me (Is that your wish to me for the new year?, I gratefully
accept, see below). I hope I do come over as young to the lute, but
if that is so that is probably because I have a mad strain of
enthusiam and the spark has not been quite "damped out". I am new to
playing Baroque lute (that is true), but my first contact with French
Baroque lute was around the end of the 60s, when I received lessons
in renaissance lute from Terence Waterhouse a student of Michael
Schaeffer. Terence was above all a Baroque lute performer, and I
attended a lesson he gave on the Baroque lute just before my
renaissance lute session. Around that time I bought the RCA Schaeffer
recording as well as the reference EMI Bailes record. I soon acquired
a good library of Baroque lute LPs (Hoppy Astrée etc), and assisted
at many concerts. I stopped playing the lute, because of my work
load, but did not drop my interest.
Fortunately, perhaps, this happened to me when gut strings were
already the rage, and before the return of synthetics.
I am now retired and profiting from this second youth to spend more
time with lute music and my beautifully gut strung lutes. I am,
however, quite aware of the ins and outs of lute fashion (which
remind me of a rondo "eternel retour"), my fascination with history
has made me particularly sensitive to this whole question, on which I
have often ventured to communicate on this list.
Le 3 janv. 09 à 17:58, howard posner a écrit :
On Jan 3, 2009, at 8:47 AM, Anthony Hind wrote:
I agree with you, being able to damp strings does not mean that
you have to damp them all the time.
It is something to be kept in the panoply of the lute player. If
you don't know how to do so, however,
you have no choice.
I add that I would prefer this was not true, as I am new to
Baroque lute, and it is something I need to learn.
and:
I think there is often a tendance to overuse a technique, vibrato
or whatever, that the player has just mastered, or likes to use.
It is not specific to damping. The performance can then become far
too mannered.
Your newness may render you innocent about the horrible,
unspeakable Baroque lute past, in which damping the bass strings
was taught as part of the basic technique, considered to be
necessary to avoid having the bass strings ring like gongs and fog
the music. Indeed, the Pyramid strings in common use 20 years ago
tend to do this, because they sustain for a long time, which is
what they were designed for; sustain was considered the hallmark of
excellence in instruments and strings. So damping was not a matter
of taste, but necessity.
Surely ytou have noticed that the same thing has occurred with thumb-
out. At one time lutists from the guitar world all used thumb out,
and then someone discovered TI in a few paintings and communciated it
to Michael Schaeffer.
Suddenly, TI became the rage and showed you were no longer one of
those guitare-lutenist "glute" players (Julian Bream). Lutenists
did not realize that in this over-generalization they were still
caricaturing the past.
Now as a more complex view is surfacing, we are gradually seeing that
both TI and TO have a role, but not to be applied systematically (I
am one of those trying to struggle to play TI and TO, but depending
on context, not easy actually).
Perhaps damping was also seen as the techniqe of the guitar-lutist
and rejected along with TO by revolutionary TI players (I am not
criticizing them, this is how we progress). Perhaps it is time to
revisit it, not as a caricature, but as part of a lutenists panoply
which can help clarify the musical discourse. Particularly, as we
are beginning to understand that historic lutes may have had more
sustain than some modern lutes now have when strung with some types
of modern gut. To tell the truth, I do not use this technique, and it
could be costly to acquire, particularly, as I think it should be
used sparingly.
Thanks for the rejuvenation, I really needed that. I just recieved a
mail from the university telling me that I might be too old to be
paid for my recent lectures, bit of a shock (not that I wouldn't be
paid), but I had quite forgotten how old I was!
Regards
Anthony
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