Lute News no. 88 (December 2008)

The first time I attended the early instrument makers' exhibition, when it was held in the Royal Horticultural Hall, and before I took up the lute, I was greatly charmed and intrigued by a small upright instrument of the harpsichord family that was being finished at the exhibition, for use in a single broadcast the following week. I was told it was a clavicytherium, a copy of the oldest surviving clavier, now in the Royal College of Music. It seems always to have been something of a rarity, and since then this is the first encounter I have had with one. Original sources suggest wire or gut stringing were alternatives, and Corina Marti chooses gut, in part for the blend with the lute and gitterns Michal Gondko plays. The combination is delighful. The jack is returned to place by a mechanism involving a Z-shaped frame and a hog's bristle spring, so there is more ramle than from instruments where gravity is allowed to do the work. They pair the keyboardw ith a 6-course lute in A by Gasienica and Wesche, and a gittern after Hans Ott by George Stevens.
Lamenting the gap berween the wide depiction of instrumental ensembles and the short age of surviving written instrumental music, they take as a starting point a 'recently discovered late-15th century document' known as the 'Kasseler Lautenkragen' which reveals a key to reading German keyboard notation onto the lute. This is new to me, and I am sure Lutesoc members would be very interested to know more, as it opens wide possibilities. It's reproduced in Fruehe Lautentabulaturen im Faksimile (Winterthur: Amadeus, 2003); a 5-course lute neck diagram with note names on fret positions, as used in old German organ tab, instead of German lute tab letters and numbers-Ed.] The music is chronologically ordered, beginning with a Dufay duet for clavier and gittern, played with a plectrum, and ending with two lute pieces by Blindhammer. The keyboard chords are generally played without spreading. In all there are three clavier/gittern pairings, three clavier/lute, nine clavier solos, and ten lute solos. In typical l5th century style, there is much decorated tracery, but no highly memorable tunes. More than half the music is anonymous, and only Blindhammer appears more than once as composer.
In solo playing Marti's style is more strict. Gondko, perhaps because his pieces tend to be preludes and the like, has a more relaxed way of playing. In his hands phrases come across like extempore thoughts chasing each other across the imagination, an effect many try for but very few succeed.
The CD case is beautifully produced; the essays are substantial and informative, and there is a list of manuscript sources. However, if you play the disc via your computer all the information and track details are in Japanese script only!

Meic Goodyear