Tombeau sur la mort de Madame la contesse de Logi - LB209

[General Discussion]

From LB 209. My copy is very hard to read so I enhanced it. A beautiful tombeau for his mother I think followed by a sarabande and menuet which could be of Logi also.

[Jiri Arnet]

This is how it looks like.

[Jiri Arnet]

The MS however, never goes below 6th course (no matter Accordo shows 6 more borduns: 7-12) and in fact a big number of compositions (let say second half) do not go below 5th course, so they can be played on guitar with no obstructions. It looks like the owner of Cytharae and Mandorae got into troubles, had to sell one of the instruments to survive (for mandora he would get more, obviously) and continued to record compositions just for guitar ;-) 

[Stuart Walsh]

Very interesting. Twelve-course mandoras are quite unusual?

[Jiri Arnet]

Yes, strange. How about retuned 12 course baroque lute?  But why so, if he would not use the borduns in compositions? Or was he playing the borduns straight instead of the basses on the lines? It could be possible, I do the same in opposite way when need to play 13 course lute music on 11 course instrument. I am missing two borduns and I play them an octave higher just from the tablature with no remarks ( I remember my teacher even played rennaissance music on baroque lute just straight from the ren. tablature)  And it is not a big problem to learn it.  So this could be imaginable. He might wanted to keep tablature for standard type of instrument and he might be adding basses this way when he played his intrument. I am not the mandora specialist, just speculating, but Pietro Prosser published quite exhaustive study about mandora some years ago, maybe he has an answer. What do you think about it?        

[Daniel Shoskes]

Wow, what a surprise to find this! It is found in the Haslemere GB-HAB2 (mis-)attributed to Weiss and probably by Bohr von Bohrenfels. I even recorded it (http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/dshoskes-weissundercover?song=5). Is the Saizenay concordance attributed to a composer?

[Jiri Arnet]

Hans, it is me again. Sorry for that ;-) But on the other hand, who else should know if not Losy's years long admirer. Her name was Anna Constantia Koller zu Lerchenried and died in 1690. Married to Johann Losy the Elder in 1643, survived him for 8 years, had two sons and a lot of troubles with the younger brother wildly living Johann Baptist, after his death she had to pay his debts in a proceeding against her (1687).   

[Jiri Arnet]

Losys were cheerful people, coming from Swiss -Italian city of Piuro (family name was Losio), with sense of humour and sense for arts. Lutenist Losy was e.g. known because of ability  to imitate other people's voices.  Johann Baptist born something like after 1652, because there is a decree of adulthood from 1673, where his age is legally stated to 21 years.He studied at Jesuit University in Prague and graduated 1668 with a dissertation, where is he titled as poeta academicus. In 1677 a Prague citizen requested a house arrest for Johann Baptist and aked for 1126 florins and 23 kreuzer (looks like a wild and expensive action a night before). Similar money asked another merchant for delivered goods and another nobleman asked back borrowed money according to records. So it gives a picture of an easy minded noble youth member, who did not know the value of money. He died in 1686 with a total debt of 45 887 florins. Mother paid.      

[Stuart Walsh]

The Menuet is interesting in that it appears to have campanella passages and thus suggests some kind of re-entrant tuning. I thought the general view of guitar music associated with Losy was for a guitar with bourdons on fourth and fifth.

The chord on the second beat of bar 15 would be really quite dissonant if it were taken with a full up stroke on all courses. And I can't see how a normal person with just the usual four fingers could play the chord at the start of bar 17! Perhaps it's just the M chord shape written incorrectly.

I don't recall seeing the chord shape used at the beginning of bar 19.

Quite a sophisticated little menuet?

[Stuart Walsh]

Thank you!

You play these pieces fully re-entrantly? (High fourth and fifth courses like Sanz etc?)

These three pieces seem very different from the Losy pieces that Karl Scheidt arranged for modern classical guitar several decades ago or that Michael Treder put on the internet about 10 years ago (from MSS in Prague). These Prague pieces seem very much bass and treble whereas the Tombeau, menuet seem from a rather different world.

[Jiri Arnet]

Yes, when Pantaleon Hebenstreit heard Losy playing the lute he said: "I have been to Italy, heard all the beatifull music it offers, but nothing similar ever met my ears."  Losy's music compositions vary in quality quite a lot, thus there is of course a problem of ascription of certain amount of lute pieces. He was a dilletant in the best sense of that word, but on the other hand it looks like he spent with the music quite a lot of his time. He followed the contemporary music, played violin, played lute in the bed and composed during his travels - simply surrounded by the music. Not being professional composed prevented him on the other side may be from wrting spiritless passages just to compose. He did not want to be boring any single second and his passion for musical beauty is known, when he came to a top point in the played composition, his servant Huelse had to keep and repeat several times the top moment on clavecin while Losy was playing the violin and loudly confessing: "E una nota d'oro!" He wanted to achieve clear expression of melody, on the other hand he knew very well, what the Parisians are trying to achieve with brisee. His compositions are mirroring most probably destination of his European travels and of course the age. Some of the compositions are of Italian cantabile shape, by some others you would ask by which French composer it was written. Lullian 3 part Ouverture in F shows his special admiration to his great master Lully - guy who was able to sell Italian music to French. It seems to me that at the end of his life he achieved a ballanced sythesis of both inspirational sources (suite Bb major, Chaconne in F major).  Cheerfull, bright, nobless, together with Mezangeau and old Gaultier my superstar. If there could be a way how to share Anthony's recording I would love to listen.

[Martyn Hodgson]

Dear Hans,

I only have a few facsimile extracts from LB 209:  could you possibly let me have a digital pdf of the entire MS copy you have?

I realise from what you say that it's not a very good copy but in the same way as you enhanced the tombeau you kndly sent us, I'd try to enhance the MS (probably using Picassa.... or similar).

regards

Martyn

[Martyn Hodgson]

Dear Hans,

Further to the above,  but I wondered if you had been able to sort out a new scanner yet. When you've got time I'd be very grateful for the digital scan of LB 209.

regards

Martyn