Early Venetian Lute Music

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Cat No: 8553694

Release Date: 12 January 1999

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 730099469425

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: Early Venetian Lute Music

Description
Early Venetian Lute Music Although the lute figures prominently inthe pictorial art of the fifteenth century, it was not a popular instrument inthe true sense of the word; it can hardly be seen as an instrument 'of thepeople'. In fact it was most cultivated by that section of society thatcommissioned the paintings in which it so often features: the aristocracy andthe upper echelons of the merchant class on whose success in business thepolitical power of a city-state like Venice really depended. Early in thecentury the instrument was principally the domain of the professional musician;lutenists usually worked in pairs, one showing off his consummate skill inimprovising exuberant variations over a slower-moving 'tenor' played by hishumbler partner. It seems likely that the junior partner sometimes played areduction of the lower parts of a well-known vocal ensemble piece, be it anamorous chanson or even a sacred motet, on his lute, While this complex texturecould be approximated by the skilful use of the customary plectrum, it wasactually easier to do using the individual fingertips of the right hand ratherthan with the 'strumming' technique of the plectrum. It cannot have taken longto see the expressive potential of playing with the fingertips, which allowed agreater range of dynamic and tonal nuance. This new technique also opened upthe possibility of playing truly polyphonic music devised for the lute, and bythe time the first lute music was published in 1507, it had become the dominantstyle, although the old plectrum technique must have remained in professionaluse for some time after that when the occasion arose.The music beautifully printed byOttaviano Petrucci in Venice from around 1500 was not intended for professionalmusicians. It supplied a demand for high-quality music for consumption byamateur musicians with the money to spare They were emulating their richercontemporaries, the aristocrats and merchants, who were, of course, theprincipal employers of professional players, and most music manuscripts of theperiod, sometimes extravagantly calligraphed and decorated, come from thatexalted circle Since professional lutenists worked within an essentiallyimprovisational, aural tradition (as they continued to do throughout the lute'shistory) they had little need of music that was written any differently fromthat used by singers or players of any other instrument. From the latefifteenth century, however, there began to appear manuscripts and, from 1507, aseries of printed books, of idiomatic music specifically composed or arrangedfor the lute. All these manuscripts and prints used tablature, a form ofnotation that made it easy for an amateur lutenist to find the sometimescomplicated fingering positions for the sophisticated music, itself probablybased on the repertory of the professional players whose playing was so highlyrespected.While the early lute manuscripts andprints hand down to us a repertory of elaborated versions of vocal courtlychanson
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