Paul O'Dette Live at Wigmore Hall: Monday 2nd October

[doversoul1]

Live from Wigmore Hall, London, Paul O'Dette plays lute music from 17th-century England, including works by Byrd, Johnson, Dowland and Bacheler
Introduced by Sara Mohr-Pietsch.

Byrd: La Volta; Pavana Bray; Galliarda; The Woods So Wild, Lord Willoughby's Welcome Home
Johnson: Omnino Galliard; Delight Pavan and Galliard; Carman's Whistle
Dowland: Farewell (on In Nomine); Farewell
Bacheler: Daniells Jigge; Pavan and Galliard; Mounsieurs Almaine
Paul O'Dette (lute).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b096gn2c

[Richard Tarleton]

I shall be there, barring unforeseen events! A rare foray to the capital. I'll get to see Sara Mohr Pietsch!!

Several favourites. I have Paul O'Dette's Daniel Bacheler CD. Byrd's The Woods So Wild, a marvellous set of variations, is a particular fave - I even try to hack my way through it on the guitar. And Dowland! Carman's Whistle tune set by just about everybody.

[french frank]

I'll get to see Sara Mohr Pietsch!!

Don't forget to call out: "Hello forum!" just when she's about to speak

[BBMmk2]

Looks rather enticing!!

[ardcarp]

Looks rather enticing!!

What, SM-P ?

[Richard Tarleton]

Review tomorrow when I've recovered from the journey!

[Richard Tarleton]

A fabulous hour with one of the world's great lutenists. The Wigmore acoustic was perfect, Paul O'Dette playing an 8 course copy of a 1582 lute reflecting this repertoire. It was broadcast live on Radio 3 (Sara Mohr-Pietsch doing her stuff admirably) and will be repeated on Sunday. Groups of pieces, 14 in all, by Byrd, John Johnson (d. 1594), Dowland and Daniel Bacheler. Superbly virtuosic playing. Byrd's La Volta was a lively opener (this dance turns up all over the place, in Italy as Saltarello, even finding its way into Respighi's Ancient Airs and Dances), his variations on The Woods so Wild a particular favourite of mine. Another set of variations was John Johnson's Carman's Whistle (a risqué popular song). The emotional heart of the concert was Dowland's Farewell, regarded by O'Dette as Dowland's greatest piece, an extraordinary chromatic fantasia with eerily ascending chromatic lines and gripping dissonances. The last piece was Bacheler's Mounsieur's Almaine, with its brilliant tremolo passages. The encore was a Passacaglia by Allesandro Piccinini.

A member of the otherwise very well-behaved audience sitting near the front had a most unfortunate fit of suppressed coughing during the Dowland - not enough to bother me but I guess it will have been picked up by the microphones - I'll listen again with interest on Sunday.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I only heard part of this yesterday, but was sufficiently captivated to want to hear the whole thing on the i-Player. Wonderful Music, beautifully played, and presented with an understated enthusiasm that seemed to fit the styles of the Music ideally.

(Richard - what is "an 8 course" Lute? Frivolous suggestion self-modded.)

[Richard Tarleton]

I only heard part of this yesterday, but was sufficiently captivated to want to hear the whole thing on the i-Player. Wonderful Music, beautifully played, and presented with an understated enthusiasm that seemed to fit the styles of the Music ideally.

(Richard - what is "an 8 course" Lute? Frivolous suggestion self-modded.)

Sorry - lute strings are in pairs, except the top one which is a single string. Each pair of strings (or in the case of the top string, the string) is called a "course". The two strings, very close together, are struck together. In the upper reaches these are normally in unison, lower down they might be an octave apart. The ways of tuning a lute are many and baffling (too baffling for me). A mid-16thC Renaissance lute might have had 6 courses, by the end of the 16thC this had grown to 8, which steadily increased during the 17th century. The chap in my avatar is playing a 13-course lute. Then they started adding "free" bass strings outside the fingerboard, or diapasons....the whole thing became exceedingly unwieldy (and let's not start on archlutes, theorboes and chittarones) and difficult to tune. As Paul O'Dette said in his programme notes yesterday, "Ironically, the efforts of Dowland and his contemporaries to stretch the technical limits of lute playing may have precipitated the decline of the instrument. In the seventeenth century, amateurs complained about the extreme difficulty of playing the lute and, increasingly, they turned their attention to the guitar, which had fewer strings and was technically less demanding".

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Magnificent - many thanks, Richard.

[Richard Tarleton]

Thank you - the one other thing I should add is that by lowering their G string to F#, guitarists can replicate the intervals of the strings or courses of the 6-course lute (and for that matter the vihuela) - enabling easy transfer of music from one to the other. And by placing a capo on the second fret, they can approximate the pitch. That is for those like me who find playing an actual lute too difficult

[richardfinegold]

Sorry - lute strings are in pairs, except the top one which is a single string. Each pair of strings (or in the case of the top string, the string) is called a "course". The two strings, very close together, are struck together. In the upper reaches these are normally in unison, lower down they might be an octave apart. The ways of tuning a lute are many and baffling (too baffling for me). A mid-16thC Renaissance lute might have had 6 courses, by the end of the 16thC this had grown to 8, which steadily increased during the 17th century. The chap in my avatar is playing a 13-course lute. Then they started adding "free" bass strings outside the fingerboard, or diapasons....the whole thing became exceedingly unwieldy (and let's not start on archlutes, theorboes and chittarones) and difficult to tune. As Paul O'Dette said in his programme notes yesterday, "Ironically, the efforts of Dowland and his contemporaries to stretch the technical limits of lute playing may have precipitated the decline of the instrument. In the seventeenth century, amateurs complained about the extreme difficulty of playing the lute and, increasingly, they turned their attention to the guitar, which had fewer strings and was technically less demanding".

I've always wondered what that terminology meant. Thank you for a great explanation.
I've seen him twice in Concert, probably 20 years apart, in the same hall. The first time was with the Soprano who sang on the 'Kings Noyze' recordings, whose name (Ellen Hargreaves?) is escaping me, and the second was a solo outing. He has an engaging stage Presence; apparently he found his way into 'early music' via the likes of 60s folk rock bands

[Nick Armstrong]

(Richard - what is "an 8 course" Lute? Frivolous suggestion self-modded.)

Was it linked with my first thought, which was of the connected concept of "a 3 Martini lunch"?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Was it linked with my first thought, which was of the connected concept of "a 3 Martini lunch"?

If "waffier-theen mints" were also on the fare, then yes

[doversoul1]

A fabulous hour with one of the world's great lutenists. The Wigmore acoustic was perfect, Paul O'Dette playing an 8 course copy of a 1582 lute reflecting this repertoire. It was broadcast live on Radio 3 (Sara Mohr-Pietsch doing her stuff admirably) and will be repeated on Sunday. Groups of pieces, 14 in all, by Byrd, John Johnson (d. 1594), Dowland and Daniel Bacheler. Superbly virtuosic playing. Byrd's La Volta was a lively opener (this dance turns up all over the place, in Italy as Saltarello, even finding its way into Respighi's Ancient Airs and Dances), his variations on The Woods so Wild a particular favourite of mine. Another set of variations was John Johnson's Carman's Whistle (a risqué popular song). The emotional heart of the concert was Dowland's Farewell, regarded by O'Dette as Dowland's greatest piece, an extraordinary chromatic fantasia with eerily ascending chromatic lines and gripping dissonances. The last piece was Bacheler's Mounsieur's Almaine, with its brilliant tremolo passages. The encore was a Passacaglia by Allesandro Piccinini.

A member of the otherwise very well-behaved audience sitting near the front had a most unfortunate fit of suppressed coughing during the Dowland - not enough to bother me but I guess it will have been picked up by the microphones - I'll listen again with interest on Sunday.

A wonderful concert. I don’t think I heard the coughing but nor the encore. What a pity (the encore, not the coughs).