Thanks Eugene
You have really summed up my position even better than I could myself.
This present discussion started when I mentioned that there are at least 5
different opinions as to the right tuning for Santiago de Murcia's music -
which I thought was rather amusing. The response was "Oh - but he must have
had a preference himself". But he may not have done. Composers don't
necessarily expect their music to be played in a very specific way.
From the historical point of view we want to try and recapture what the
music may have sounded like but we have a range of options to chose from.
There were different method of stringing but one method of stringing is not
better than another.
I am not sure whether that statement will meet with universal approval.
Monica
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eugene C. Braig IV" <brai...@osu.edu>
To: "'Vihuelalist'" <vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2011 4:14 PM
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: The stringing of the baroque guitar - again
I am a dabbler in early strings. I don't ever intend to be anything but.
However, I am a fan of scholarship (a biologist on the day job) and this
extends to my appreciation of music. I watch this bourdon-vs.-not debate
periodically because both sides tend to have insight that I appreciate. I
don't take sides because I tend to feel arguments from both sides are
correct; I would side with both. I hear the music as both contrapuntal
and
sparsely homophonic (if I may be permitted use of that term without
immediate consultation of Groves, Oxford, or similar reference), sometimes
more one than the other and often with both textures contained within
singular pieces, sometimes even within singular passages. If others hear
differently (or come to different conclusions based upon more in-depth
analyses), I'm OK with that.
Having not consulted all the originals directly myself (in fact, having
consulted only a small handful in facsimile or translation) I think Monica
has catalogued what was relatively conclusively written on the subject of
stringing the 5-course guitar quite nicely, usefully, and objectively.
There are a great many composers to have not written so conclusively, and
any approach to that music requires a greater degree of speculation. That
speculation can (regarding "HIP", probably should) be evidentially driven,
but without explicit text by the composer, that evidence is largely
circumstantial. There is a difference between evidence and conclusive
evidence. That's OK. Both concepts have their uses.
Some composers did write pretty clearly on stringing preferences, and some
expressed clearly differing preferences. Also, with so many not
explicitly
describing a preference, the end result today is that any one stringing
paradigm is compromise when applied across the extant body of repertoire.
I'm OK with that. I actually like hearing the famous Sanz Pavanas as much
without bourdons as with. They are different; with competent performance,
I
can find both enjoyable and neither offensive. (I admit, the one thing
that
does cause me to raise my skeptical eyebrow is the use of a g' on the g
course.) Even if Sanz himself may have been offended to hear a bourdon
playing his music (speculation), given his acknowledgement that the use of
bourdons was so prevalent where he lived and listened, I'd be willing to
wager some Spanish guitarist bought Sanz's book in the late 17th c. and
played that music fully bourdonned...and sounded good doing so. Again,
any
singular stringing paradigm embodies compromise. So what? Pick whichever
works best to your ears for the music you'd most like to play.
Live long and prosper, all brethren and sistren in pluck,
Eugene
To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
