Back to Home Page
Back to Live Page
Back to Lute Information Page
Transcriptions:
part 1 Miles Dempster
part 2 Tom Sellari
part 3 Terry Muska
part 4 Ed Durbrow
part 5 Tony Chalkley
part 6 Miles Dempster
part 7 Jason Yoshida
-----------------------------------
February 25th, 2007
ED: How did the tour with Emma happen?
JL: Well Emma and I have given concerts for many years and Ogawa-san of
Allegro Music, he knows me, he knows Emma separately, said one of the
women who works for him came to Europe and heard us play together. And
she said to him, " We must have those two together here". So when I was
here last year to do the concerts, which I think you came to, with
Musik Armane, he asked me would I like to do a tour with Emma. So
although we've played with each other for some years, Ogawa asked us to
do this tour together and in fact he's asked us back again in 2009 so
we'll do another tour and...
ED: It was a hit!
JL: Yes, I think he was very happy.
------
February 27th, 2007
part 1 Miles Dempster
ED: How many times have you been to Japan, actually?
JL: The first time was in 1986, and, when applying for this work
permit, they asked me to list the times, and I was unable to find my
passports with all the times that I have been here. but I know that
it`s more than 10, it could even be more than 15, I am not sure because
not only have I come solo but I’ve come with other artists and
other groups. So, yes something around 12 to15, could be more, but
around that.
ED: Great. So you like it.
JL: I do enjoy very much to come here, mainly, I suppose, because
the concert halls are so fantastic here, I find. They have the right
size hall for lute solo. I played in bigger halls too, but there are
many halls that hold about 300 people with the most incredible
acoustic. Also, what I find with Japanese people is that they are able
to be very quiet; they are respectful by nature, by tradition, I don[t
know exactly the reason why that is,
but you can build up a very good silence which is such a good basis for fine solo lute playing.
ED: Mmmm So important
JL: Yes, I think it is very important…although they cough
like any other nationality as well, but I can hear that they try very
hard not to!
ED: And you like this sembe (Japanese crackers).
JL: These biscuits are very nice, aren’t they, that was a
gift from a Japanese friend who… I was initially thinking I
would take them back to Europe with me but I was hungry the other day
and I opened it up and they are very delicious and so I am going to
finish it… which saves space in my suitcase for other things.
ED: And you are coming back here in 2009 with Emma?
JL: For sure, that is decided. Yes. Maybe I come back before that
as well, it is not clear, but the other agent who invites for solo
tours he said this time he built the tour on top of the tour with Emma
Kirkby but he thinks maybe its better to alternate and not do it at the
same time. But we’ll see, that’s in the future.
ED: I asked you the other day about how the Emma tour came about; how did this piece with biwa come about?
JL: Yes that was not of my initiation it was simply a request from
my agent, Japanese agent, who asked me would I be prepared to play a
piece for an ancient Eastern instrument with a lute and I responded in
saying well let`s see the piece and see if it would fit. The idea was
for a 4 string biwa with a plectrum to be playing with my old lute, and
I looked at the music and I was thinking this big plectrum on the
picture, and I was thinking well maybe it`s not so nice because
my old lute has got a very subtle palette of colours that will be
perhaps covered with a plectrum style instrument next to it. So since I
had been asked initially to do the lute concerti here but I already had
planned to bring my old lute so that was not on I suggested to my agent
why don’t we do the mandolin concerto by Vivaldi instead, because
the idea was half a solo programme half a programme with an ensemble,
so at that point I said how about using the mandoling with the biwa
since the mandolin has got a very high pitch and probably can more
easily penetrate, the instrument and I guess one wouldn`t say that
mandoline Milanese, although it is a very charming instrument, it`s
less colour-ful in terms of tone but I play it with fingertips so you
get a variety of tone colours, but it hasn`t got depth particularly.
And I think., it will work, I hope. Not sure yet.
ED: How do you like the, piece, the modern piece?
It`s nice, it`s nice, yes.its
ED: You haven`t heard it..with the ensemble
JL: I haven`t heard it with… well that just with biwa and
mandolin. Yes, I have seen the other part, it’s a sort of duo,
and it’s a dialogue, its very charming and quite a nice sonority.
It all depends on how loud that biwa is.
ED: Could you give some biographical details.
JL: Well, I`m born in Sweden and when I was 13-14 years old the
Beatles wave was flooding into Sweden, and like many other young people
I was taken by that beautiful music, which I still actually love, and
wanted at all costs to start learning the guitar which I did as a 14
year old and I had a very nice teacher who encouraged me in the
classical guitar direction, and also in direction towards the lute,
because he has been to the English Lute Society and me Diana Poulton
and as I was developing an interest in that music I remember
particularly loving the vihuela repertoire actually at the very
beginning He encouraged that so I was playing classical guitar and lute
a la Bream I suppose and went to London when I was 19 to study there
with Diana Poulton and I studied guitar and lute and eventually decided
to cut my nails off and focus on the lute and my guitar teacher said
well you`ll come back to the guitar very soon, but I never did.
ED: Another convert.
Do you have brothers and sisters?
JL: I have 2 brothers and a sister. My older sister is an eye
surgeon, first younger brother is an architect and my little brother is
a trombone player.
ED: So little brother is a musician. Were your parents musical?
JL: No my parents are artists. Painters.
ED: Really, professionals?
JL: Professional painters, my father is dead now but my mother
still does portraits and so on. Music wasn`t particularly…
ED: Pictures?
JL: Pictures, yes, Paintings
ED: Quite something
JL: Yes. Difficult profession, and they tried to discourage us from...
[doorbell]
part 2 Tom Sellari
ED: So the guitar was your first...
JL: love...
ED: instrument.
JL: Yes.
ED: So you did play popular music.
JL: Yes. Yes. I was very much in that...
ED: It seems to be a common course.
JL: Yes, I guess.
ED: And you started with the Renaissance lute?
JL: Yes. The first lute that I bought was a Renaissance lute. It was
curious, actually, because I had inherited two sixteenth-century guns
from my grandfather, and I wanted---I needed---a new guitar. And Julian
Bream was one of the people, one of those role models for us in those
days---this was before I went to London---and I knew he played on a
Rubio guitar so I had a chance to try two Rubio guitars in
Gothenburg, and I went there with the money that I sold my two
sixteenth-century guns with. And in that shop I liked them, but I
didn't like them as much as I expected to, but there was a Ramirez
guitar, which I liked even more, and it was half-price. So I bought
that and I had money [left] over to buy a lute, so I bought a lute as
well. So from then on...
ED: From Rubio?
JL: No, no, that was a lute from a Swedish maker, very fine. I didn't
buy it there; after having bought the guitar I had money left over, and
somebody told me about this lute, so that's...
ED: So Diana Poulton was your main teacher for the lute...
JL: My main teacher for the lute, exactly. Yes.
ED: And what did you get from her?
JL: A historical sense, I think. She was very inspiring, and I think
useful in many ways. She couldn't demonstrate necessarily the pieces,
but what was very good for me at that time, I think, was, I was a very
fluent player, and I could play the pieces quite well, but she was
unimpressed by technical flashiness, you know. And she always said,
`Yes, it's OK to play like that, but really, look at these, you know,
treatises. Here they say you should play without nails.' And she
coaxed me into becoming what's called an `authentic player', I suppose,
without, in any way, pushing me or cornering me to be one. And so it
was a helpful style of teacher for me. She was very encouraging,
too, and very nice.
ED: Well, how did you get your initial lute technique?
JK: Well, the lute...that was a fascinating period. Of course, we read
various explanations in historical treatises, how they did it. We
looked at iconography, pictures, how they held the lute. I had met Tony
Bailes also, who showed me a little bit. But in fact, soon after I cut
my nails off, I had a duo partnership with Christopher Wilson, who also
decided to cut his nails off. And we had concerts without nails,
before---we had already done some concerts with nails---but we had
concerts lined up, in which we tried to perform without nails. And I
can remember actually, in a concert, finding out exactly what thumb and
forefinger was all about. In front of an audience, suddenly I realized,
`Ah, this is how you do it!' Because of course we knew how to hold the
thumb inside the forefinger---that was the style of Renaissance playing
that we adopted.
ED: You were playing the thumb in from the beginning?
JL: Yes, at that time. Yeah, from the beginning. As a non-nail player,
that is. And, so...but I remember playing this treble, and I suddenly
relaxed, and I realize, `Gosh, it's not a matter of pushing/pulling
up, pushing/pulling up; it's a matter of gravity allowing the hand to
fall, and then just lifting. So the only muscular sort of effort was
lifting every other stroke. And it was a fantastic feeling.
ED: A revelation.
JL: A revelation---total revelation. Then I remember we were trying to
work out where the second finger goes in relation to the thumb. That
was an issue. Does it go---do you go inside the second finger, or do
you go on that side of the second finger? There was an era where we discussed this in playing...
ED: So you and Christopher were sort of working together ...
JL: Yeah, we were working together on this...
ED: Exploring.
JL: Exploring this, yes, in front of audiences who had to listen to us
play. We played quite nicely, but obviously not of the virtuosity
that people can do nowadays, at that time. But, you know, we got
through the pieces.
ED: Did you ever hear Diana Poulton play? Did she play?
JL: She showed little bits of things. Yeah, of course. She had a
thumb-outside technique, the Thomas Robinson style, and the later
style. She showed it to us.
ED: She didn't play concerts or anything?
JL: She didn't play concerts at that time. She was pretty old. She was
researching, she was preparing her Dowland book at that time, I think,
which came out shortly...well, in that period. No, she provided me with
musical sources and ways of thinking more than styles of playing, I
suppose.
ED: How did she actually sound? I mean, I've read these tributes
to her and stuff, that recently came out. I was just wondering, well,
how did she sound when she played?
JL: Yes, yes.
ED: Was she very musical when she played?
JL: She never played long stretches of pieces. She showed what the
ornament signs meant, and could demonstrate that a little bit, and
played a little bit, but that wasn't really the way...I didn't imitate
her playing. That was not how we worked together.
ED: Right, right, right.
JL: I suppose the first time I really heard somebody who could could
make a beautiful sound on the lute, and I think that was when I cut my
nails off. In fact, I cut my nails off at that time, but I heard
Michael Schaeffer play at the Lute Society summer school, and I expect
that was probably 1975 or something like that. That was the first time
I really could hear that there is real beauty in the fingertip playing.
ED: That was an exciting time.
JL: It was a very fascinating period. Yes, and it's so long ago now, isn't it?
ED: I mean it was right around that time that everybody kind of rediscovered thumb-under.
JL: It was all happening then, yes. In England and on the Continent. Exciting.
ED: So you kind of worked that out. How did you develop your
technique further, like your speed and stuff? Did you work on
exercises, or just play a lot of trebles?
JL: Yes, I remember sitting in London, and I have a flat in the center
of London, and it's a very nice old flat, and it's got a
wooden-panelled room with gray walls, painted walls, but it's wooden
panels, and I can remember sitting there, sort of half eyes-open, and
playing Capirola's `La Spanga Seconda' to build up the speed, and
focusing on that. I suppose, at that time, I picked certain pieces to
try and get the fluency going. Because, what it's a question of when
you're a solo player, of course, is you've got to jump from
thumb-and-forefinger position across and then grab the bass now and
again---out with the thumb and particularly with a low line in
two-parts, and `La Spanga Seconda' is a very good example for
that. There are many pieces one can work on.
ED: That whole double CD album of the Seren ...what is it?
JL: _Serenissima_.
ED: There's a lot of great stuff on that.
JL: Yeah, that's the early repertoire, that's right, the six-course
repertoire. But obviously also playing duets, and playing trebles, and
then if you look at the old manuscripts, which are often teaching
books, there's often a section of just trebles. So I recommend people
who are learning to play the lute to try and work in a duo formation
where one plays a ground and the other one plays treble. And they're
wonderful---enjoyable, but also very good for developing speed in thumb
and forefinger.
ED: To develop speed, I mean, a lot of those trebles are long strings of, you know, semi-demi-hemi-semi-quavers.
JL: Ha, ha. That's right! Exactly. Stamina!
ED: Do you recommend for a beginner or somebody trying to develop
their speed to take a couple of notes at a time and do them very
fast, or work on a long string?
JL: All levels, I think. On all different levels. But open strings I
used to end up doing da-da-da-dikka-da-da-da-dikki-da-da-da-dikki-da...
Another thing that I remember, one of my students, Jacob
Heringman, who I was suggesting to write a study, because what
holds speed up often is you
go from thumb on, say, the first string, and then the next note is with
the index on the second string, so you have to cross the fingers, in
order to...to... So, I would say it's easier to play a scale going up
in pitch than going down in pitch, because going up you move to the
next string, but you have to come back again, it means crossing. So to
develop that particular aspect is very useful, the crossing of thumb
and forefinger going opposite. And he wrote a very good little study on
that particular issue, I remember,
which I sometimes distribute to students. It's a good one.
Part 3 (transcribed by Terry Muska)
ED: More on technique – How do you vary the technique from
instrument to instrument? Do you have different techniques for
different instruments, or do you have one basic technique that you kind
of alter?
JL: I suppose perhaps, the latter. In my way of playing, rest
stroke with the thumb is a very central issue to how I play both
renaissance and late baroque lute, of course. And that stroke of
falling down with the thumb, giving volume and strength –
That’s one thing. Of course, in later repertoire, to play the
passage work, more and more you rely on m-i, rather than p-i. That, in
itself, opens up the hand slightly differently.
So, if I play early six-course repertoire, my lute
is more horizontal, which means that thumb inside is more natural. If I
play later style, the lute is more upright, and so, when thumb and
forefinger meet, they can meet on the other side, and in any case,
mostly the thumb is out, and the running passages work is being done by
m-i. But it’s a gradual development, and you can see in
iconography as well, how in medieval paintings the lute is at least
horizontal. And you get to the later, and it’s more and more
upright. And the whole thing hangs together. So a ten-course lute style
is somewhere in the middle there. There I use both i-m and p-i. It sort
of naturally flows from one to the other. But in recitals nowadays, I
usually don’t mix two much extreme techniques, so that I
won’t necessarily put half of six-course lute in a Weiss second
half.
I don’t do that anymore, but when I was
young, I did all sorts of things like that, but now, I suppose I focus
generally on certain aspects.
ED: Let me ask you about practicing. How much do you practice? Do
you try to practice at a regular time, or just whenever you can? When
you’re traveling, it must be different. How long do you
practice, for example?
JL: Well, it’s very varied, in my case, and it depends
a lot on what sort of recitals I have coming up, and particularly
perhaps what sort of recording that’s ahead of me. And if I have
a difficult recital, or a difficult recording, I really try to focus,
to prepare those pieces well before the event (laughs) so things work
smoothly. And I usually plan ahead at least a year or so – for
recordings, at least a year. For different solo programs, I must think
several months ahead to make sure that, first of all, the pieces are in
order, and I know exactly which notes to play because that sometimes
needs ... which ornaments and so on I’m intending to do. And
then, perhaps focus on the tricky passages a little bit and so on. But
it is really varied, and it all depends. On this trip here, before I
came, I cut my finger, and I was one week out of practice,
unfortunately. So, now there are a couple of free days, and I’ve
been practicing quite a lot doing those in order to...
ED: Coming up to a recording, or a tour or something,
and you’re at home, how long would a normal day be?
JL: I guess if I get four hours actual practice in
in a day, that’s quite good. Of course, when you actually then do
a recording, you will be playing for, perhaps eight or nine hours in a
day, and that can be incredibly good for technique as well. But I would
love to get four hours in everyday, but I often don’t, and it can
go days when I don’t actually practice at all.
ED: And do you have a routine or a warmup that you do?
JL: No, not anymore. I used to have certain pieces
and certain exercises, but not now. I attack the pieces, and play for
enjoyment. I try to enjoy playing, and I’m very conscious of
trying to relax into the instrument, and I think of posture, whereby
the lute is in a really good, solid position, so that everything else
can relax into it.
I think the rest strike is so important. It’s
the same thing about – It’s clocking into gravity, I think.
You know, it’s a lovely feeling to play a note, whereby the
playing of a note is a relaxation, rather than a tension thing.
ED: And let gravity do the work.
JL: Let gravity do the work. That’s where the
rest stroke comes in. And building in pleasure into the physical
feeling of doing it is very nice.
ED: Should we talk about instruments?
JL: (with enthusiasm) OK!
ED: How many instruments do you have?
JL: Yes – I am not quite sure about that. I have got quite a
big number. Probably something around fifteen, maybe. I have from a
six-course lute, to a thirteen-course baroque lute, and most stages in
between, like a seven, eight, ten, eleven-couse, thirteen-course,
archlute, theorbo. I have a baroque guitar. I have an orpharion. I have
a cittern and a bandora. I have a treble lute in D. I have a big bass
lute in low D. A number of instruments, in addition to which, of
course, now recently, my old lute has been restored. That’s my
prized possession, really.
ED: Right. Now, just before we get to that, we should mention that you do try to keep the same nut spacing.
JL: Yes, the nut spacing is pretty much exactly the same on all of
these instruments. Obviously the right hand is very different, but the
left hand spacing is very nearly the same, and I have recently reviewed
my left hand spacing. and found that, in my youth, maybe I tried a
little bit too hard to play on a really narrow spacing. So I widened it
a little bit, but it’s fairly close, by comparison to guitars and
other instruments.
ED: Do you use the same strings for recording as for concerts?
JL: No. For concerts, I rarely use gut strings, for obvious,
practical reasons. But, for recordings in recent years, I try to use
gut strings. So yes, there is a difference there, and obviously
that’s a bit of a bother when you have to go from one type to the
other.
ED: So now . . . your “prized possession”. Who actually made your lute?
JL: Yes - This was made by Sixtus Rauwolf, who was active in Augsburg.
ED: Was he well known?
JL: He was well known in those days, yes. A prolific maker,
probably the son of his father, Leopold Rauwolf. I was excited to
hear that there was a street named after Sixtus Rauwolf in Augsburg. So
when I drove with my family from Italy up to Sweden once, I insisted we
go by Augsburg. Then, when I found the Rauwolf Strasse, except it was
Leopold Rauwolf, the botanist, not Sixtus after all. But I took a photo
of that street sign.
ED: So what’s the story? How did you first hear about this lute?
JL: Yes, there was an auction in London, where there were a couple
of old lutes. The Presbyter lute was for sale on that same
occasion. So I went there to look at the preview, and in this glass
case was the most beautiful instrument that I had ever seen. I mean, in
terms of shape. It was lying on its front, but it showed us the shape
of the back up and oh, fantastic!
And I spoke to Mike Lowe afterwards, and he agreed
with me, that he had the same feeling that it was a really nice lute.
He said he thought it was south German, about 1600. It was at that
point, not knowing who built it. So I bid for it, and I managed to buy
it. Although it had a nineteenth century pegbox and a dreadful
bridge, and you couldn’t get really much of an idea what it
sounded like.
ED: Were there many bidders?
JL: No. I think the other lute had more interest, the Presbyter
lute at that time, but that had a terrible sound board and was in bad
shape. I was not interested in that at all. Anyway I got it, and then
the long restoration process began, and Michael could confirm that is
was, in fact, a Sixtus Rauwolf instrument because it had this burn mark
at the end of the capping strip. And also, the capping strip cut out
was very typical for his lutes. And t here are not many surviving.
There is one in the Metropolitan Art Gallery in New York. There’s
one in Claude’s collection in Copenhagen. There’s one in a
private collection in England. And recently, it’s known that
there is also another one in Augsburg, in the museum there. It remained
there.
Part 4 Ed
ED: How had it been altered? Do you have a different pegbox?
JL: Just the pegbox and the bridge were new additions. The neck was not
typical for the style of Renaissance lute. It was wider. It had a label
inside with Leonhard Mausiel 1715. You can look on my web page to
get the correct spelling.
ED: So do you think the neck is from him?
JL: We think the neck is from then. It's a beautiful neck, actually,
very nice ebony veneered neck, and slightly curved. So the idea is that
it was probably converted to an eleven course Baroque lute at that
point. But the soundboard is original. Many of the bars are
original.The back, of course, is. And so, in a way, it was very
fortunate because you want to have a nice spacing on the bridge; you
want to have a nice pegbox where the pegs work, so somehow those are
the mechanical and necessary bits we could replace to get really
good, and then of course we could set up, and the idea was to
absolutely not lose any of the old stuff. So the bars had been tampered
with, so they had been cut down a little bit. So the restoration work,
it was a long process in which Steven Gottlieb and Michael Lowe. It
started with Michael Lowe and then we got a violin restorer
involved called David Monroe and then Steven Gottlieb also helped
on some parts of it.
ED: Was there a leader of the restorers?
JL: Yes, I would say that the head of the project, I suppose,
was Michael Lowe in terms of concept of what needed to be done.
But the one who did most of the really hard work was David Monroe.
And Steven Gottlieb was fantastic with bits in the neck so that it
works in terms of action and so on. It was a very tricky process. Also
what Steven Gottlieb did was, he spliced these bars. The original
bars had to be prolonged a bit, so for that we needed old wood and I
heard of this guitar maker in Florence who managed to buy sixteenth
century bookshelves from Palazi Piti and he used them for soundboards
and I bought a piece of that wood. so you know, these little spliced
extra bits and some of the yew bars also, are, in fact, from the
same period. Michael Lowe said it is important to get reasonably
similarly aged wood for the yew bits because, you know, so...
ED: You said that they dated this wood.
JL: Yes the soundboard, one of the questions was: was it really
original? And the way to test that is to do dendrochonology and
you can measure thre rings in some sort of way. David Monroe took it to
this famous place in London called Beers. And they dated the wood in
such a way that they could say the tree started growing in 1418 and it
was cut sometime not long after 1560. The date of 1590 was just a date
that Michael reckons is roughly right. It could be a little before
that, we don’t know.
ED: But still the wood would have been aged, even then.
JL: Yeah, possibly, probably. And it is Alpine pine from south
Germany. It seems to be that lute makers live on both sides of the
alps, you know, north Italian or south German, because that’s
where they got the soundboard wood from.
ED: And you’re pleased with the results.
JL: I am incredibly pleased! More pleased than I thought,
particularly now that I feel I’m learning to understand the
sound. It’s a facinating sound, and it has so many colors.
What I love about it is it’s very clear, it’s not a
muddy sound, it’s a very clear sound. and it sustains beautifully
as well. To play counterpoint on it, it is fabulous. You can hear every
voice. Actually, I noticed when that Japanese player played on it in
that class, I went out, you know...
ED: Everybody sounded good on it.
JL: Yes, it’s the polyphonic pieces, they become very clear. So, I’m incredibly pleased with it now.
It took a long time to get used to it. the bridge flew off once,
and that was scary, and I’ve experimented with stringing and
tensions and so on, but now it’s working very well for me.
ED: How would you describe or compare it to other lutes?
JL: Well, for me, my ideal of lute has always been: I love
sustain but I don’t want sustain at the sacrifice of clarity
because for me a lute should speak. It should have vowels, but it
should also have clear consonants. And I find, it seems to me, that
lute makers today either succeed in getting a very clear sound,
tik-tik, but not so sustained or very sustained sound but not so
clearly spoken, articulated, enunciated, and this has exactly what I
want. It has that clarity and yet it also sustains, which is amazing.
But what I have in the past, I suppose, felt that clarity is perhaps
even more important than sustain because, in particular, in Renaissance
music, you get so many notes played. Why? Because the sound dies and so
you fill it out with divisions, naturally. But when you get sustain,
you can play nice melodies. It’s gorgeous.
PART 5
Square brackets are interruptions, curlies are me.
ED: How do you feel, like, modern makers, you know, now that
you’ve, and we collectively, have the experience of hearing an
original lute that’s been restored well, you know, how do we
compare the modern makers to that?
JL: Well, it’s interesting. Both Michael Lowe and Stephen
Gottlieb are very keen to make, well, copy, they don’t use the
word copy, but [ED: inspired from] but base instruments on this,
you know, use the size of the instrument, I find it, as I said first
that the shape of that back is very beautiful – it’s really
nice.
ED: What’s different about it?
JL: Well, it’s a little fuller than sometimes they are –
towards the neck end, you know sometimes lutes fade away there a bit
– there’s a very satisfying shape as in – you know
– many old lutes have that too in museums of course. And
so, I think, even Stephen might have made one already, although I
haven’t tried it. But they’re wondering what makes
this sound so particular, because the thicknessing of the
soundboard, the barrings and so on are not so very different from how
they make lutes so they reckon it probably is also to do with the
ageing, and this is something lutenists already knew. In the late
seventeenth century they often said “Please try and find me an
old lute”. Now, why is that? Well, because wood
matures, and it’s healthy. I remember, I had one student in
London, who had an - who was Egyptian, and he always said he had a
teacher who had an ‘ud that was a hundred years old and sounded
amazing. And I thought that was interesting, and you read –
so I always had in mind to try and get hold of an old lute, but I never
really had confidence that I would actually manage to do that, but
this…
ED: So were those baroque people looking for the old…
JL: They looked for the old Paduan lutes to convert them,
typically. This has, this was converted, and what’s amazing
is that it’s survived all these centuries, probably in a playing
fashion, so I think probably they liked the instrument throughout the
ages, also in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, really…
ED: What does another three hundred years do…
JL: … we won’t know about that, but…
{Pause}
ED: …and, what’s the length on that now?
JL: The string length of it is 69.5, so it’s quite long for
Renaissance tuning. I use it either as a ten-course Renaissance
lute or an eleven-course baroque lute. And the first CD I did on
it was, of course, this Weiss recording, and the second record, which
has come out just now with Emma Kirkby, in which I play a number of
solos, I used it as a ten-course Renaissance tuning, and it works
really well in both ways. Of course 69.5 is quite long for Renaissance
playing but it’s remarkable what you can do.
ED: You’re playing it in 3…
JL: 392, yes, I’m keeping it a tone lower than modern pitch, a whole tone lower…
ED: It’s like in F, concert F…
JL: Yes, that’s right
ED: And you very cleverly figured out how to make it a – give it a double life, so to speak.
JL: Yes, I spent some time thinking about that, because I obviously,
wanting to use it in both forms, and I devised a way, whereby, I just
change the nut for it, when I change it from a ten to eleven course,
with an overhanging nut, typical from the period, because often
eleven-course lutes were converted ten-course lutes. They
didn’t bother to put a new neck on, they just put it down/the
sound? But in the right hand I have a drilling system,
whereby eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven – those courses, as an
eleven-course lute become ten, nine, eight, seven, six –
that’s a renaissance lute. So they stay always in the same
place, and they’re the same strings – I don’t change
those strings. So, I just have to change the other strings, and
there, of course, the ten-course lute spacing is a little bit wider
between the courses when you go from one to six than when you go from
one to seven on a baroque lute tuning, but – it works, very well,
because…
ED: You use some of the same holes…
JL: Some of the same holes even. Yeah. I think the F
string, which is, well, in effect it’s an E flat, I mean the
fourth course, stays in the same place, I think, or maybe it’s
one of it's two courses {sic} stays in the same place, I can’t
remember. Yeah. I shift most of them around, and there’s
quite a complicated hole system in there, and I have to absolutely use
a little template to make sure that I put the strings in the right
place.
ED: But I mean like for example, the high side on one will end up being in the hole of the low…
JL: Yeah, sometimes it is fortunate like that, other times there
is {sic} more holes, and in one case, one of the holes is a little
square, where I shifted it in order for it to work.
[ED: Oh, I’ve seen those…]
JL: So, there’s all sorts of ways of drilling that, hole, I mean
Michael Lowe was going crazy when he had to do it, because Michael Lowe
is responsible for the bridge and the peg box.
ED: Oh.
JL: Stephen made the pegs. It’s all by committee. Everybody’s had their little bit to do.
ED: And how do you have it strung – what kind of strings do you have on it?
JL: Well, at the moment, on this tour, I have it nylon strung, and
I’m using Kürschner copper wound bass strings. I find
that they sound most similar to gut strings. And I have a
combination of Nylgut and Kürschner nylon. For the first
recording I did, which was Weiss, I had it all gut strung, with Dan
Larson’s gimped strings in the basses, except for the last two,
one or two, I can’t remember, where I had one of Mimmo
Peruffo’s early corde appesantite. And, so, that’s
the way I’ve done it. [All gut] All gut. I did play
for the English Lute Society with a combination of gut and the
Kürschner basses, but it sounds really lovely both with nylon and
gut, actually. So it works both ways.
ED: Anything else to say about that?
JL: Ehm, no, I think that covers everything. Ha, ha.
ED: What about the string technology of today?
JL: Yes, interesting chapter. I feel that’s where we
haven’t really got as far as I would have loved us to have
gone. I think lute making is of a really high quality, lute
playing is pretty good now as well. String making was clearly a
very advanced business in those days, strings were very costly, and
lute strings in particular. So how were they made? Well, Mimmo
Peruffo’s done a lot of hard work on that, and I know that
he’s devoting himself again to trying to recreate these strings
in the way he thinks they were made which is corde appesantite, some
way made heavier, and I was very enthusiastic in his first stages of
that and I used it on my Bach recording and on my Dowland CDs as
well. But then I didn’t feel that he developed it as well
as he could, and I believe that he said that his gut supply
wasn’t as good as in the early days, and now he’s
apparently got that early gut supply back, and he’s just made me
a string before me leaving Europe to come to Japan and I, unfortunately
I didn’t have time to t ry it yet, so I will try it, but
I’m hopeful, but I think a lot of time and experimentation is
necessary there – and devotion. I believe that –
it’s really to do with the bass strings. I feel the strings
up to the sixth course – a six-course lute we can string very
nicely using these Venice Catlines that are made by Dan Larson and
Mimmo Peruffo, and as you say, Nicholas Baldock. I believe
they’re pretty good. It’s just these bass strings,
you know, where – when, lute players and makers decided they can
go down a course to a low D, down a fourth, that’s when,
obviously, something happened in lute string technology. And, you
know, then all these bass strings that were coloured on old pictures
now, how were they made? They clearly sounded great, I’m
sure.
ED: And when we talk about the late Baroque, and Weiss, and stuff…
JL: Well the wound string{s} were already invented by then [Yeah], so
there I think it’s a little bit easier, and I think perhaps
we’ve got them…
{Pause - turning on the lights}
Part 6 Miles Dempster
ED: Well, I’m wondering if having overspun strings, as we
have today, basically like soft guitar strings or something, I’m
wondering….
JL: …how they were made, as well. I know, again I think the
research…I think they had open wound as well. I know a little
bit less about that. I think Mimmo Peruffo has again had occasion to do
some research on the way they wound the strings. For me as a lute
player, really what I would love to solve is this time before they had
the wound strings.
ED: Yes. It’s the biggest mystery.
JL: Yes. I think so.
ED: Would you say that’s the biggest mystery?
JL: It’s one of the big mysteries to be solved now, but I
think that we are nearly there. But it’s got to be fantastic
sounding.
ED: How about performing, and so on? How many CDs have you made?
JL: I’ve made a lot of CDs. On my website I’ve got
listed just about all the ones that I have taken part in, I think, in
terms of solo or where I’m directing or playing concerti and so
on. How many can it be? Actually I don’t know the number, but
probably 25…30, something of that kind. Yes, I’ve been
pretty productive since my first LP, which I recorded in 1981, was
it…the Scottish Lute Music, came out. Yes it was my first one.
My first love was these wonderful Scottish lute manuscripts.
ED: The one that I remember is, the Dowland project. I think you
are the only person to have been involved in recording the complete
solo works of Dowland – Twice!
JL: Maybe you are right. That’s true, I forgot about that
record, yes, no, that is true, I was involved in that LP set. Yes,
that’s the first one. But then, that was 5 in a box. When I
crawled out of the box and did my own, that was the Scottish one. But
that’s true.
ED: About Dowland, you must have a real affinity for Dowland, I think.
JL: I enjoy him very much. I love the humor, the tunefulness, and
the melancholy - the spectrum. I find his division writing extremely
artful, nice middle parts, and, of course, there are not so many
authenticated solo versions that have come down to us. It’s only
about a dozen or so that really we can say he has had a lot to do with.
Other pieces come through manuscript form, often very good I’m
sure, but he hasn’t really corrected them, whereas I suppose if
we look at the writing of lesser pieces he had a lot to say about
those, although his son published it. But, yes…a fabulous
composer.
ED: How about the difference between the first time you recorded
the Dowland and the second. What changes had occurred, it was a long
gap?
JL: Yes. It’s long gap. Of course the second time I took it
up on me to do everything. So, having played most of the pieces in
concert at one time or another, I still did some pieces that I recorded
which were unplayed in concert. But what is particularly
different… well, I had played for so long without nails because
the first one I had only played for a couple of years without nails, I
think. I haven’t listened to that first one, and I wonder how
different they are; it’s very difficult to say. I don’t
think that I changed a great deal in terms of how I heard the music. I
think it’s fairly straightforward the music, I don’t think
it should be over interpreted, but I think it should be given the
gravity where there is gravity, and given the humour where there is
humour, for sure. I don’t think they are that different, but
I’ll leave that for other people to judge, or I should listen to
them, which I haven’t done!
ED: You’ve covered the gamut, really, of lute repertoire. Is
there any repertoire that you haven’t delved into so much that
you…
JL: I terms of actually playing or recording? There plenty that I
haven’t recorded, of course, I suppose that I have probably
looked at just about most of it, most of the different genres. I did do
quite a lot of work on the French early baroque lute repertoire and
did, I think it was, three BBC radio programmes of that repertoire, so
I looked at that quite in detail, and performed that; very keen on
that. Of course the Italian lute music I’ve looked at a lot. The
German late repertoire after Weiss I’ve also looked at quite a
bit. I think that I’ve sniffed at it all, really.
ED: And is there one that you particularly attracted to?
JL: There are many that I am particularly attracted to; in fact I couldn’t really choose.
ED: And is there one that you would like to go to in the future?
JL: I will go to many of the repertoires in the future, for sure;
and now that I have this old lute, there is a lot that I would like to
record on it.
ED: That opens up a lot.
JL: Yes, it does in a way. And I think that as an 11 course lute
it would be lovely to do not only the French 11 course lute repertoire
but also maybe Reusner who is a lovely composer - not often played. As
a 10 course lute there’s a lot of stuff that I’d delve into
as well, but I’m not just staying with that lute because I think
that my next CD that I’m planning is probably going to be on a 13
course lute. So, who knows, I’ll keep dipping my toes in
all this repertoire, from time to time; and enjoying it, I think, for
its variety.
ED: So you’re saying there’s about a 1 year cycle to getting something to fruition.
JL: Possibly, yes, it’s difficult to say, but, yes, I
suppose if I’m setting myself to do a CD, first of all it will be
of music that I have performed; most of it will be of music that I have
performed. I will start to put together the program at least a year in
advance to make sure that I know which pieces would go on to it. Yes, I
think that I would need that amount of time.
ED: How do you come upon new material. Do you use libraries?
JL: Yes, I do play through music, and I have quite a lot of
facsimile editions and manuscripts. photocopies of manuscripts. Yes,
I’ve got a lot of repertoire; and actually quite often students
will come to me with certain pieces, like you played Gianoncelli for me
today, and I thought ‘Gosh, that’s nice stuff, you
know,’ and so, just hearing it again, although I’ve played
it, but sometimes I say ‘Oh, why hadn’t I thought of
playing that,’ you know, and so quite often just stumbling across
it could be a way for me to decide. Or, you know, maybe it just starts
growing in the back of my mind, and then I think ‘Well, it would
be nice to do something on my archlute,’ and then it will come
back to me, and I will think ‘Oh, yes, Gianoncelli, now
that’s nice.’ So you see it’s all a matter of keeping
an open mind and listening to what’s going on around you.
ED: How many performances do you give a year?
JL: That varies, also, I suppose, and I probably couldn’t
tell you. I think if we include performances with other musicians and
solo recitals and so on, I suppose…30-40 maybe, something of
that kind.
ED: You’re pretty busy.
JL: I am quite busy, with practicing as well.
ED: Are you still teaching at the Royal College of Music?
JL: Yes.
Do you have private students too?
JL: I have a few, but very, very few.
ED: How about advice for people learning to play the lute. First
of all, how do you feel about the lute in Japan; how did you feel about
the state of lute playing in Japan?
JL: Yes, you mean to base it on the master class I did there? There’s a couple of...
ED: And before, you came here....
I’ve been a few times, yes. No, I think there are good players
here, fluent players, and people devoting themselves to the history of
the thing as well. And I think it’s pretty healthy here, really,
it seems to me. And there are quite nice lutes that they play. There
are some good lute makers here too. So I think they, you know,
like...???
part 7 Jason Yoshida
ED: What do you think is a common stumbling-block, or common errors in people learning to play?
JL: As I see it, I think, “holding the thing.”
ED: Do you think that is a “theme” this time?
JL: Well, it’s often the case that I see people holding it
in a way that means they cannot benefit from gravity. And I think that
is one thing. I also think that not enough players dig in to the lute.
They tickle the strings. They don’t use rest-strokes. They
don’t draw out the sound. It’s an instrument, with maybe
not a lot of sound but it is quite a bit of sound and I think that
players should try and draw out the maximum. Not just to play loudly
but to have a dynamic range.
Wonderful to play pianissimo, isn’t it? But also, in order for
that to really have an effect, you have to haves that maximum sound as
well, and I see that people often don’t go to the big sound
unless they are on a theorbo. But I think, you know, they should find a
full sound.
ED: I know what you mean. I feel like there is this beautiful
shape, and it’s full of tension and vibration. Potential
vibration, that you want to invigorate the air around, somehow.
Last time you were here you came with this big group. I was a little
surprised to find that they were all Swedish. I never thought of Sweden
as a “hotbed” of early music.
JL: There are good performances in Sweden as there are anywhere
else and I think there is a good tradition for singing in Sweden. And
so when I was asked to come here, the initial idea was for me to bring
a whole opera here actually, Jacopo Peri’s Euridice, which
I directed in Sweden at the Drottningholm Theater. That was what
Ogawa-san was interested in bringing over, but in fact the expenses of
that was too big. So instead it became what Ogawa, the agent, called,
“Monteverdi Gala,” where I picked out favorite moments from
Monteverdi operas and some beautiful six-part madrigals. So it was an
inspiring project for me to do. And I just had two violins, six singers
and chitarrone. It was nice, also, not to have a bowed-bass, but to do
these ritornellos with a plucked-bass and two violins. I think
it’s a very beautiful way of playing that early Italian
repertoire. Chitarrone is a great bass instrument and it’s only
in recent years that people appreciate it in that forum(form?).
ED: What composer or repertoire do you think is under-represented in the lute world?
JL: Well I think there are too few solo lute recitals all
together. I think it could be much more featured. I think there is a
problem now that professional lute playing is more and more about
continuo playing and I think there is wonderful Renaissance ensemble
music and there is wonderful Renaissance solo lute music and lute
songs. I am looking at London, perhaps, and Europe. It seems as if in
the seventies there was a big surge of Renaissance music making and
it’s gone later: Baroque, it’s early Classical. So this
whole wave of early music is going a little bit later and if we enjoy
Renaissance music it is usually through vocal consorts. And so,
perhaps, I would like to see Renaissance music performed more, by more
people.
ED: And by Renaissance music, when I think of the lute in the
Renaissance, I think of from when we have tab. And all that stuff in
the 15th century that is still Renaissance, where we don’t have
tab...
JL: That is right. Yes. I know less about that repertoire but of
course, Frottola and all the lute song accompaniments. The lute is such
a wonderful instrument and of course it was center(central) to music
making throughout the 16th century and 15th century for that matter, as
you say. And I think that repertoire is rarely performed and it’s
a shame.
ED: Have you investigated the Swedish lute or the Bellman cittern?
JL: I have actually. I have an instrument, the cister. I bought
one at an auction, actually a 1776 instrument, which I have used in
concert with one of the singers who came to Japan last time. We have
just recorded a CD which is of Bellman songs to this wonderful
instrument. It’s metal strung. Very beautiful. So you know about
the songs? They are wonderful poetry. He is one of our greatest poets
and it’s a bit like watching a Hogarth painting. You know,
drinking, the drinking houses. He illustrates life in Stockholm in the
mid to late 18th century. Beautiful tunes. Very nice accompaniments.
And of course, we don’t have any written out accompaniments by
him for this instrument, but his music was published by a keyboard man,
who, I think, sat with Bellman and heard Bellman play on the instrument
and wrote it out for piano, and sold the music. It was very popular. So
I have gone back the opposite way by looking at the keyboard
accompaniments. Understanding the kind of figurations that Bellman
would have used on his cister…
ED: Reverse engineering…
JL: Reverse enginered, and I have created these accompaniments
which work extremely well. And you can see that the idea, there, from
these arpeggiations or little things, ideas that the keyboard
transcriber put in can easily be fitted on to the instrument. And they
are very attractive. I have done quite a bit of work on that particular
issue, you’d be surprised to know.
ED: What’s next for you?
JL: What’s next for me? Well immediately after this tour of
Japan I am doing a four concert tour in England actually, of playing on
my Sixtus Rauwolf lute. I do Oxford, Cambridge, Norridge and Davin. And
it’s actually an all-Dowland program but I have been asked to
perform another recital, so I changed that program around. And so I
need to get over the jet-lag quickly because it starts on the 10th of
March. So that’s my immediate future. And then I have quite a lot
of recitals still with Emma Kirkby lined up through the year. I am
going to do a solo record towards the end of November on the 13-course
lute. I won’t say more than that…
ED: More Weiss?
JL: I won’t say more than that…
ED: It will be a surprise…
JL: It will be a surprise. And yes, I sort of pretty much set the
work ahead a year. I got a lot of other concerts I can’t remember
without looking at my diary, but various things. A few courses. I am
doing a course in Neuberg in Germany, and there is a very nice festival
in Switzerland which I have done three years running, but there
is a string ensemble and we just meet to do two concerts and rehearse
and that’s when I often play some of these late 18th century
concerti with lute and strings. So I should be playing some works by
Kohaut there. That will be fun.
Keeping busy. Yeah, so...
Good questions
ED: Anything, you’d like to add?
JL: No that’s fine. Thanks.
Back to Home Page
Back to Live Page
Back to Lute Information Page