Tue, 1 Dec 2009 12:44:56 -0700 Fred Sturm <fssturm at unm.edu> wrote: > > > This statement didn't ring true to me, so I went to the library and > browsed a bit. And I found a very different story. The score to Orfeo > calls for an interesting array of instruments, including an large > contingent of various continuo instruments, from harpsichord and organ > to both fretted and unfretted, plucked and bowed string instruments. > The instruments are listed on the title page (the edition I consulted > had an actual facsimile) in a disordered way, with no grouping of > instruments. In the score, in various places, there is an indication > of the instrumentation for that particular section. The lists of > instrumentation tend to distinguish between strings and winds, each > with a continuo contingent. In each case the continuo contingent is > mixed, with plucked/fretted alongside harpsichord, playing under winds > or under bowed strings. He specifies, sometimes, where the ensemble > should be placed (left of stage, right of stage, on stage, etc.) > I also consulted a couple books, including one dedicated entirely to > Orfeo. It is clear that there are many decisions to be made by anyone > putting on this opera. For instance, instrumentation is not specified > for many of the numbers. But there is no indication whatsoever that > there were two separate halves of orchestra, one tuned to ET and one > to MT. Nor that the instrumentation was grouped as described above. > So I suggest, Israel, that your memory of this event is probably > faulty - not surprising, since the event you refer to took place 16 > years ago. I distinctly remember how the keyboard instruments were arranged. There were three harpsichords, an organ and a regal (that's a reed organ) in that orchestra. The strings, chittarone, and violone were in the pit stage right, with their own harpsichord and the organ. The winds (trumpet - Fred Holmgren who is also a piano tuner - sackbuts and cornetti) were stage left, with their own harpsichord, the regal, and the harp. The two harpsichords were nearly identical John Phillips instruments - so tone color was not the issue. The third harpsichord was with the stage band - which also included a couple viols and a recorder. The program notes made a big deal of the split nature of the orchestra. I'll see if I still have them somewhere... I didn't get my information from books. I got it directly from people who intensively study and perform this music as a career - many of whom I met and studied with at various workshops for twenty or so years, and some of whom coached my own performances and taught me how to play my assortment of instruments. Maybe some of it gets garbled in the transmission - fine. But one thing I am sure of - the sort of "dead-letter" prescriptive dicta that one gets in the piano tuning community, based merely on reading a few texts - without exploring the actual performance and instrumentation issues as well as the structure of the music being performed - aren't very useful in period performance. Perhaps it's good enough for historical tunings on modern pianos - which is strictly a 20th century practice... . This is why I would suggest that the sort of question Gerry asked really should be directed to people who make a career of studying and performing this music.- of whom there are plenty in his area. For my taste, I really would hate to sit through a performance of Monteverdi where the main continuo instrument is struggling with a tuning system for which it is not suited. The intonation of the entire ensemble will go to hell if it doesn't have a solid bass line under it - and in this case it is the archlute that is expected to provide that bass line. > In any case, I think the notion that > "there is plentiful evidence that when it came to tuning, at least in > Italy, keyboards yielded to frets rather than the other way around" > is a pretty big stretch. The burden of proof is squarely on you, to > come up with and present any such plentiful evidence. Perhaps there is > some. For my part, I have never heard of any Point taken. I don't have any current evidence to give you - I have been out of touch with developments for some years now and I already wasted enough time on this to go digging for it. However, I do remember some quite lively discussions on these matters by people who do this for a living. And not one of them ever dared to hand down such stark, unqualified and broadly definitive dicta as I see here from people who apparently have little first-hand connection with actual performance of this style. My intent was to suggest that - based on what I learned from my practical studies with actual musicians - the issue isn't quite as clear cut as you seem to think it is, Fred. Perhaps some of my statements were a bit, well, overstated... Israel Stein -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20091201/4255ca57/attachment.htm>
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