Ah! It's good to learn about a person of our stripe enjoying the four-course guitar!
Regarding your questions, some commentaries you might want to look at are: * Jocelyn Carrie Nelson, "Adrian Le Roy's _Premiere livre de tabulature de guiterre_ (1551): Transcription and analysis of the ornamented pavanes, galliards, and branles," D.M.A. monograph, University of Colorado, 2002. * Michael Fink," The 'Lost' Guitar Pieces of Adrian Le Roy," _Lute Society of America Quarterly_, XLIII/3 (Sep 2008): 42-43. * The additional "plus diminuee" pieces discussed in the latter are published in _Pierre Phalese, Selectissima Elegantissimaque Guiterna Carmina 1570_, Introduction by Michael Fink. Lubeck: Tree Edition, (c)2007. IMHO, Renaissance dances in printed or ms. collections are somewhat bifocal. They may or may not be intended for the dance. The distinctive rhythms and periodicity of a dance may be present, but those features may be merely structural, and the piece may have been written mainly for listening and playing enjoyment. Thus tempos in Le Roy's "plus diminuee" versions could probably be modified from the unadorned versions with good effect. (BTW, Le Roy seems to be the only composer to write plain & fancy versions of the same piece for the guitar -- and for the lute.) At this point, I yield to Jocelyn with her extensive experience in this repertoire and deep knowledge of the Renaissance guitar. You may wish to write to her. Best wishes, Michael Fink _________________________ mich...@lgv-pub.com _________________________ -----Original Message----- From: Stuart Walsh [mailto:s.wa...@ntlworld.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 24, 2009 3:54 PM To: Vihuelalist Subject: [VIHUELA] four-course guitar music 'plus diminuees' I've got a four-course guitar for a short while. I used to try and play this four-course (mid 16th century) repertoire, years ago, on a baritone uke and a home-made concoction - without much success or pleasure. Anyway this current instrument is a good one...but I must admit I can't make it sound very well at all. But I'm interested to know what people think about the speeds of the 'plus diminuee' pieces, the versions of pieces with divisions. Leroy's Third Book has many little dances with second versions of the pieces with divisions. Perhaps it's important that the 'plus diminuees' versions are free-standing. Pieces with ornamented repeats might have been expected. But no, there is a straightforward, 'simple' version and then the 'plus diminuees' version. Some commentators (like Harvey Turnbull) have been quite dismissive of all of this 'amateur' music - which, I suppose, it must have been. But looking at the 'plus diminuees' pieces again, and trying to play them I wonder whoever could possibly have played them. As an example, the straightforward version of Almande tournee (Allemande Loreyne) f.16 feels like a two to a bar tune with running eighth notes. It's a lively little dance. But, at that speed for the straightforward version, the 'plus diminuees' version is ridiculously, absurdly - freakishly - fast. But if the 'plus diminuess' version is slowed down to a human level, the dance is now unbearably, turgidly slow. Th Spanish guitar books don't have an equivalent of these 'plus diminuees' pieces. The Spanish guitar pieces can be challenging and difficult - but not beyond practice and hard work. I don't think the Gorlier books have anything like the 'plus diminuees' pieces either. Paul Odette (fastest on earth?) has recorded some of this stuff and it sounds a bit weird...why turn a dance tune into a sort of machine gun burst? (And almost all of the divisions are within the first five frets of a four-course instrument: all squashed into to a tiny space). So I wonder what these 'plus diminuees' pieces are all about. Is anyone happily playing them? Stuart To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
