Lully in Youtube and Vimeo
Arto Wikla
bourgeois gentilhomme". Yesterday I had time and eagerness to video my
arrangements for 10-course lute... ;-)
The pieces are
Marche pour la Ceremonie des Turcs
Ritournelle Italienne
Premier air des Espagnols
Second air des Espagnols
Canarie
The music (pdf's) and links to YouTube and Vimeo videos can be found in
my page:
http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/wikla/mus/Lully/Marche/
Arto
--
hans van leeuwen
> A couple of years ago I arranged some pieces by Lully from his "Le
> bourgeois gentilhomme". Yesterday I had time and eagerness to video my
> arrangements for 10-course lute... ;-)
>
Mr Wikla did a nice job arranging these Lullly 'hits'. Onfortunately
he wrote them for the wrong type of lute (10 course Renaissance lute).
Mr Wikla should have taken into account the wonderful works for the
baroque lute of that period by Denys Gaultier, Charles Mouton, Esaias
Reusner, Sylvius Leopold Weiss and others. Arrangements for modern
classical guitar would even have been more acceptable than these
annoying anachronisms.
Hans
PeterNewton
Why exactly would arrangement for modern classical guitar be better?
The instrument was not invented for about a century after Lully
wrote. At least the Renaissance lute existed at the time. Its tone
was not significantly different from that of the Baroque lute to which
you refer (and far closer than that of any classical guitar). Of
course the Baroque lute is capable of melodic and harmonic effects
that the Renaissance lute can't match, but of course they were not
called for in these arrangements. It seems to me we either eschew any
such rearrangements of old music for different media or we accept that
they are just that, rearrangements. They should stand or fall on their
own merits. Perhaps Mr. Wikla simply didn't have a Baroque lute, the
money to buy one, or the time to wait for it to be built and to learn
to play it. I for one am not going to blame him for playing the music
on what he had. Incidentally, I have not listened to his
performances.
Peter
John Howell
>On Sep 27, 7:08 pm, hans van leeuwen <hawvanleeu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 22 sep, 19:24, wi...@wox-10.cs.helsinki.fi (Arto Wikla) wrote:
>>
>> > A couple of years ago I arranged some pieces by Lully from his "Le
>> > bourgeois gentilhomme". Yesterday I had time and eagerness to video my
>> > arrangements for 10-course lute... ;-)
>>
>> Mr Wikla did a nice job arranging these Lullly 'hits'. Onfortunately
> > he wrote them for the wrong type of lute (10 course Renaissance lute).
> >
>The instrument was not invented for about a century after Lully
>wrote. At least the Renaissance lute existed at the time.
An interesting and very valid point. Musical
instruments have value--both monetary value and
the value of the hours that have gone into
mastering them--and players who have learned to
play instruments built to a certain form or
tuning are VERY unlikely to put those instruments
aside the moment someone invents something new or
different. If one accepts these propositions
(based on my own many years of experience knowing
and working with a wide variety of modern
musicians), then two corollaries follow. (1) At
any given time there will be a mixture of
instruments in use, some the most up-to-date,
some the "standard" models for the time and
place, and some already obsolescent but certainly
not obsolete. And (2), it basically takes a full
generation for anything new to be accepted by
practical, working musicians. If anyone doubts
this, I recommend reading Berlioz' comments about
various instruments in his treatise on
orchestration from around 1840!
There are hundreds of examples, if not thousands,
but here are just a couple. During the 1960s I
was privileged to hear a jazz woodwind player at
a club in Puerto Rico. One of the instruments on
which he was very proficient was the flute, and
his improvisations were both musically and
technically marvelous. And the flute he was
playing? A simple-system flute with 6 open
finger holes, encrusted with several generations
of added keys, each of them doing one and only
one thing. An instrument that in theory became
obsolete the moment Theobald Böhm's more
acoustically-proper flute became available, over
a century before. And yet that was HIS
instrument, the one he had grown up with and
mastered, and he had indeed mastered it!
A second example: The wonderful folks on the
HarpsichordList, many of them builders as well as
players, argue at great length about exactly
which kind of harpsichord, from which maker in
which country and with which arrangements of
keyboards and keys, are "suitable" for particular
harpsichord compositions. But every once in a
while someone cuts through all the technical
blather to point out that like musicians in any
time or place, 17th and 18th century players were
perfectly used to sitting down at whatever
instrument was present at the time, and ADJUSTING
THE MUSIC--including the range of notes--to fit
the instrument!!!
Unfortunately Hans's attitude, while I understand
him perfectly, is the kind that assumes, even in
the absence of all proof, that on the day of
Bach's death in 1750 all composers stopped
writing counterpoint in the baroque fashion and
began writing accompanied melodies in the
classical fashion, or that the moment an
instrument resembling a piano became available
everyone threw away their harpsichords and
started playing fortepiano. It doesn't work that
way, it never has, and it never will.
Musicians--players and composers alike--are human
beings, and that means that they are stubborn,
illogical, and opinionated just as much as anyone
else.
John
--
John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music
Virginia Tech Department of Music
College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:John....@vt.edu)
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
"We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition
of jazz musicians.
Alain Naigeon
58dbac39-72ab-48e3...@f63g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> Incidentally, I have not listened to his performances.
I have found them quite enjoyable :-)
--
Français *==> "Musique renaissance" <==* English
midi - facsimiles - ligatures - mensuration
http://anaigeon.free.fr | http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/anaigeon/
Alain Naigeon - anai...@free.fr - Oberhoffen/Moder, France
http://fr.youtube.com/user/AlainNaigeon
hans van leeuwen
Peter, an arrangement of Lully's music for modern classical guitar
would be so highly anachronistic that it wouldn't matter anymore
whether you played it on a piano, mandoline or rock guitar. But if you
decide to play *baroque* music on a *renaissance* instrument you are
neclecting the spirit of that age and its cultural context. Arguments
like: 'no money to buy a baroque lute' and the total misconception
that 'its tone was not significantly different from that of the
Baroque lute' may be valid for lute novices but in my (humble) opinion
not for an experienced lute player and arranger like OP.
Hans
Arto Wikla
Many thanks, Hans, for your interesting and thinking activating comments!
There have been many interesting comments on on your comments, too.
A couple more of these here:
a) Actually a 10-course lute is not any more a "renaissance lute", it
really already is an early baroque lute - the way of playing and
the way it sounds.
b) In the French "air de cour" this type of tuning was used - and also
intabulated some tens of years in the first half of the 17th century.
c) In Italy the "baroque lute" was the archlute - and that was in the
so called "renaissance" tuning even in the beginning of the 18th
century.
d) My 10-course lute is model "Andreas Berr, Vienna, 1699" made by
Stephen Barber 1986. So the sound quality of the instrument perhaps
is more or less that of a French 11-course baroque lute, anyhow?
Again, thanks for your interesting comments and all the best,
Arto
--
howard posner
> c) In Italy the "baroque lute" was the archlute - and that was in the
> so called "renaissance" tuning even in the beginning of the 18th
> century.
Throughout the 18th century.
Arto Wikla
>Throughout the 18th century.
Actually even so! Thanks Howard! :-)
Arto
PS What is the latest known reference to archlute (by that name or some
other?) in the 18th century? Or even 19th?
--
howard posner
On Sep 29, 2008, at 1:37 PM, Arto Wikla wrote:
> What is the latest known reference to archlute (by that name or some
> other?) in the 18th century? Or even 19th?
I wouldn't know. The latest source of archlute music I can think of
at the moment is dalla Casa's 1759 book.
I have heard rumors that there's a lute discussion group. Maybe you
can ask there.
Arto Wikla
You mean the Lute List of D-mouth? I've never heard... ;-)
Arto
--
hans van leeuwen
>>
> Many thanks, Hans, for your interesting and thinking activating comments!
> There have been many interesting comments on on your comments, too.
> A couple more of these here:
>
> a) Actually a 10-course lute is not any more a "renaissance lute", it
> really already is an early baroque lute - the way of playing and
> the way it sounds.
> b) In the French "air de cour" this type of tuning was used - and also
> intabulated some tens of years in the first half of the 17th century.
> c) In Italy the "baroque lute" was the archlute - and that was in the
> so called "renaissance" tuning even in the beginning of the 18th
> century.
> d) My 10-course lute is model "Andreas Berr, Vienna, 1699" made by
> Stephen Barber 1986. So the sound quality of the instrument perhaps
> is more or less that of a French 11-course baroque lute, anyhow?
>
> Again, thanks for your interesting comments and all the best,
>
> Arto
>
baroque lute written by Denys Gaultier (1600-1672) and his uncle (?)
Vieux Gaultier. As ar as I know the baroque tuning came rapidly into
fashion after their pionering work, and many lutenists (in France
anyhow) changed to D minor tuning. But you are right, many lutenist
also must have sticked to the old G tuning during that transition
period (e.g.Robert Ballard). You did a fine job, no doubt about that,
but I still wonder how Lully arrangements will sound on baroque
lute......
greetings
Hans
Roman Turovsky
"Arto Wikla" <wi...@wox-10.cs.helsinki.fi> wrote in message
news:wikla.1222720202@wox-10...
>>> c) In Italy the "baroque lute" was the archlute - and that was in the
>>> so called "renaissance" tuning even in the beginning of the 18th
>>> century.
>
>>Throughout the 18th century.
>
> Actually even so! Thanks Howard! :-)
>
> Arto
>
> PS What is the latest known reference to archlute (by that name or some
> other?) in the 18th century? Or even 19th?
> --
"Any late Italian Baroque music with a part labelled 'liuto' will mean
'arciliuto', the classic Renaissance lute being in disuse by this time. The
most important composers of archlute music in the 17th century are
Alessandro Piccinini and in the 18th century Giovanni Zamboni, whose set of
12 sonatas (1718, Lucca) for the instrument is extant, and Antonio Scotti
and Melchiorre Chiesa, Milanese composers from late 18th century. Other
known composers of archlute music were Antonio Tinazzoli, Giuseppe Vaccari
and Lodovico Fontanelli."
RT
Roman Turovsky
RT
"howard posner" <howard...@ca.rr.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.158.122272...@wu-wien.ac.at...
hans van leeuwen
Thank you for this interesting list of Italian lute composers. But the
discussion here was about French lute-music and lutenists during the
Lully period. This was definitively the time of the baroque lutes in
D minor tuning.
hans van leeuwen
> Unfortunately Hans's attitude, while I understand
> him perfectly, is the kind that assumes, even in
> the absence of all proof, that on the day of
> Bach's death in 1750 all composers stopped
> writing counterpoint in the baroque fashion and
> began writing accompanied melodies in the
> classical fashion, or that the moment an
> instrument resembling a piano became available
> everyone threw away their harpsichords and
> started playing fortepiano. It doesn't work that
> John
>
> --
> John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music
> of jazz musicians.
Of course..... you don't need to tell me anything about jazz (I'm jazz
guitarist from origin) but PLEASE don't apply any jazz arguments to
baroque or renaissance music. These are 2 different worlds, Professor.
Roland Hutchinson
> Unfortunately Hans's attitude, while I understand
> him perfectly, is the kind that assumes, even in
> the absence of all proof, that on the day of
> Bach's death in 1750 all composers stopped
> writing counterpoint in the baroque fashion and
> began writing accompanied melodies in the
> classical fashion,
Speaking of which, I heard on the radio tonight some Bach-style fugues that
were new to me: written by Edvard Grieg at the age of 18 or so. Worth
hunting up to listen to or to play!
--
Roland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food.
NB mail to my.spamtrap [at] verizon.net is heavily filtered to
remove spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it.
howard posner
> Thank you for this interesting list of Italian lute composers. But the
> discussion here was about French lute-music and lutenists during the
> Lully period.
You may have thought that was what the discussion was about, but no
one else thought so.
The discussion was about what instrument might be appropriate for an
arrangement of Lully's music at some unspecified time in some
unspecified country roughly contemporary with Lully's music. It's a
complicated question, since Lully's music was played long after his
death in 1685, and in countries other than France. Even in France,
Robert de Visee did guitar versions of Lully, and the Hurel
Manuscript, which may have been written when Lully was alive, has
Lully pieces for theorbo.
In England, renaissance tuning coexisted with the d minor tuning --
the Italian archlute was common in England in the 18th century. In
Central Europe, the mandora/gallichon, essentially a big renaissance
lute, co-existed with the d-minor lute and theorbo.
Even if all we were talking about was the lute in France, your
categorical statement about the ten-course renaissance lute don't
ring true. We have a rough idea of when the d minor tuning
supplanted renaissance tuning among professional players in France --
a process still going on in Lully's youth-- but have no idea how
long amateurs continued to play in renaissance tuning. Someone born
in the early 1600's, thinking, as many people do, that the music of
his youth (which he may have played on an 8-course) was the greatest
music ever, might not have felt a need to convert his lute into an 11-
course in d minor, a process that required installation of treble and
bass riders. If he wanted to play some tunes from those new Lully
operas, he could play them on the lute he had. This would be equally
true of an English or Bohemian player, of course.
So while it may be true that Charles Mouton would have used an 11-
course had he played his versions of Lully in Paris in 1679, it makes
no sense to dismiss the ten-course renaissance lute as an anachronism.