14. Improvise a Prelude!
This page will have tips on improvisation on the baroque lute in Dm tuning. PayPal donation appreciated, to help pay for this website and all the free stuff I give away: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/SupportRob?locale.x PART I This first video is for guitar players, finding familiar shapes on strings 2, 3 and 4 of the Dm-tuned baroque lute.…
13. Contemporary Music for Baroque Lute
I plan to reserve this page for new music written for the baroque lute – some written by myself, some by others. My own tablatures will be free to download, though a donation to https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/SupportRob?locale.x would be very much appreciated. Observation by Gilbert Isbin – originally written for me to play on a 10-string classical…
12. Introducing the 12c Lute
Before discussing the 12c lute in general, I want to introduce you to my newly-made 12c. I’m very excited about my new lute by http://www.lutherie.uk – the father and son team of Adrian and Lawrence Dodd of Derbyshire, England. After many emails firing in both directions, we settled on a bowl of walnut, which has…
11. Hurel’s 1st Suite for théorbe de pièces
Charles (?) Hurel notated in manuscript form (c.1675) five suites for the théorbe de pièces, which are all of a high quality, characterful, and closer to the style of Robert de Visée than, say, Germain Pinel. One connection between de Visée and Hurel was the famous and influential, Jean-Baptiste Lully, whose work both men arranged…
10. The Panmure Lute Manuscripts
The Panmure collection of manuscripts at the National Library of Scotland contains among other items three very interesting lute manuscripts , known as Pan 4, Pan 5, and Pan 8. The collection also contains three highly important manuscripts for viol of music by Sainte Colombe and Marais, these manuscripts being associated with the Maule family…
9. Spot the difference: One Prelude, Two Manuscripts
In Blog #4, Sound files for the French Théorbe de Pièces, I include Prelude 29v from Goess. Since making that recording I read through the music for théorbe de pièces by Charles Hurel, and recognised the same prelude (18v-19r) but with some interesting differences. Here are the two scores – Goess first – with their…
8. Raising the tension – not strings
I’ve noticed while working through the Goess theorbo manuscript that a few pieces increase the tension before the final cadence. It’s something many composers have done before and after the 17th century, even now, but it is worth focussing in on how they did it back in the late 17th century. I’ve mentioned in post…
7. VIDEO: Goess Theorbo MS 29v/12v/37v
Three pieces in …well, what key shall we call it? On a large Italian theorbo it would be fingered for the key of G, but on a smaller French theorbo it is the key of C…but…at 392 pitch it comes out as Bb! I must admit to being in two or three minds about this…
6. Short Review: Performing Baroque Music on the Lute and Theorbo by Peter Croton
I wish I’d had this book when I started learning the lute some 30 years ago. If you are a young player, buy this book now, and devour it every night before sleeping. What you learn here will live with you throughout your playing and listening life. Essential stuff. So, why is it so essential?…
5. Interpreting the French Courante
The above is a very melodic and enjoyable-to-play courante for théorbe de pièces by Germain Pinel from the Goess Theorbo manuscript. The Goess MS comes from the second half of the 17th century, we are not sure exactly when. So, how to interpret a French courante? The Italian courante is certainly much easier to interpret,…
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