Word: lutes
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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OLAF CHRIS HENRIKSEN, LUTE...
...named Concert Room is tiny, wood paneled and elegant, divided almost in half by a low stage. Some 40 people had squashed themselves into about 60 square feet, backed against the walls or seated on folding chairs. On the stage was another folding chair, a music stand and a lute...
...crudely, a lute looks some-thing like a small, pregnant guitar. It is has a body like a pear split in half made of between nine and 50 hardwood ribs. Its short, broad neck is fretted like a guitar but ends in a long and sharply angled pegbox. It is difficult to say exactly how many strings a lute has. The strings are divided into "courses," which are either a pair of strings played together or a single string, and different kinds of lutes from different periods had different numbers of courses. This is one of the most interesting things...
What kind of person plays the lute? Olav Chris Henriksen is a tall, bespectacled man with a courageous moustache and a demure goatee. Mr. Henriksen is a member of the faculty at the Boston Conservatory, and some of his performances include Tangelwood, the Boston Early Music Festivals and the Soirees Musicales du Chateau of de Versailles. He has also made a concert tour of his native Norway, sponsored by the Norwegian government. It is perhaps unjustly comical to watch him curl his long body in its grey suit and blue tie around the ancient frame of the lute. His sits...
...music itself is fascinating and intricate. Because of the short strings of the lute cannot sustain the notes for very long, a style was developed in France known as style brise which works by breaking up the notes of a chord instead of playing them in unison. The result is music that is not played but poured. The notes cascade from the strings. chords stretching out, developing and coming back together, voices rippling out against each other, chasing up and down across the bass tones, Lute repertoire covers a wide stylistic range, made up largely of pieces inspired by country...