[VIHUELA] Re: Bartolotti Videos performed by Lex Eisenhardt

[Martin Shepherd]

Hi All,

Just to give a lutenist's perspective (and copying to the lute list as 
it might be of interest there):

For much of the 16th century lutes were routinely strung with octaves on 
courses 4-6.  Almost equally routinely, the upper octaves are ignored as 
far as the counterpoint is concerned - lutenists making intabulations 
(with a few notable exceptions) just intabulated the voice parts 
literally.  The degree to which the upper octave can be heard depends on 
many things, but perhaps most of all the skill of the player - mostly, 
you want the octave to be audible but not too strong as it is really 
there to "colour" the sound, adding some upper partials to the sound of 
the gut basses.  The re-entrant tuning of the guitar is another kettle 
of fish....

Just as an aside, Dowland's remarks on octaves in Varietie of Lute 
Lessons (1610) have been widely misunderstood, even though what he 
writes is perfectly clear.  He says that octaves were used more in 
England than elsewhere, so there is some justification (and quite a bit 
of evidence from the music itself) for using octaves even up to the 4th 
course in the music of Cutting, John Johnson, Holborne, and anyone else 
active in the 1580s and 90s (except possibly Ferrabosco, since he 
probably brought his Italian habits with him!).  Oh and of course 
Barley's book of 1597 specifies octaves on courses 4-6, and although he 
borrowed much of his material from Le Roy (1568) he obviously thought it 
was still common practice.

Best wishes,

Martin

Monica Hall wrote:
Yes - that is certainly the case.  However with baroque guitar music 
the octaves are intermittent rather than continuous.   The other point 
is that because of the way that the guitar is strung one tends to hear 
the upper notes rather than the lower ones and because the instrument 
has a small compass the upper notes on the lower courses overlap with 
the notes on the upper courses.   You get the same effect with octave 
stringing on the third course. It is not that one voice in the 
counterpoint is being duplicated. This is rather  different from 
playing passages in octaves on the piano or harpsichord - where there 
wont be the same overlapping.   On the organ it is possible to play 
different parts on different manuals but this raises quite different 
issues from the guitar.

The point I was making about the vihuela is relevant here too because 
one of the arguments put forward in favour of unison stringing is that 
the individual contrapuntal lines will be compromised by the high 
octave strings. In my experience not many lutenists use octave 
stringing even for the earlier repertoire  but when they do the effect 
this has on the music is very noticeable and quite difficult to adapt 
to.   And as far as I am aware, they don't put the high octave string 
on the thumb side of a course.

Monica


----- Original Message ----- From: "michael.f...@notesinc.com" 
<michael.f...@notesinc.com>
To: "'Lex Eisenhardt'" <eisenha...@planet.nl>; "'Vihuelalist'" 
<vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Monday, August 30, 2010 11:36 PM
Subject: [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






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