> Pace Mathias - but baroque guitarists were way ahead of every one else in > their > understanding of harmony and tonality. They may have used "modes" in the > titles of their pieces, but much of the music is no longer really modal.
but baroque guitarists were way ahead of every one else in their understanding of harmony and tonality. Thats a bold statement! I havent looked at the Baroque lute repertoire for a while but as I remember, there are very few daring or outrageous harmonies - just major and minor chords, sevenths and suspensions. Maybe there are some more unusual chords but they really are unusual; the lute has the lovely, grave, basses but the guitar has the really interesting harmonies. There are many extraordinary harmonies in Baroque guitar music. Sometimes these arise from modifying strummed chords. Monica and others will know countless examples. Just to take one: theres a strummed chord on the first (i.e. strong) beat of a bar in the final strain of an A minor Passacaille in the De Gallot MS clearly written (from the bass up): b,d,a,c,e. It sounds wonderful to me; I hear it as something like an Arvo Part chord, but I cant imagine how it fitted into the music of the time. Murcia, Matteis, Sanz and other Baroque guitarists wrote instructions on continuo and this chord wouldnt be part of that universe nor in the music that followed in the next century. I have the impression that some commentators have thought that some of these guitar harmonies were a bit grotesque or crude and that composers like De Visee were smoother! ----------------------------------------- Email provided by http://www.ntlhome.com/ To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
