Word: lutes
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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...
During each of his pauses for applause, Mr. Henriksen gave some history of the next composer's work, outlining as he proceeded chronologically from the Renaissance to the Baroque some of the changes and experiments in lute technique and tunings. Just as the physical structure of the lute was never static, lute music during the "grand" century was in a constant state of experimentation...
...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...
...great innovators Ennemond and Denis Gaultier. Mr. Henriksen played two or three pieces by each composer. At the end of each of these little sets he stood up, and moving out next to his music stand, placed one foot in front on the other solemnly bowing over his lute several times. I got the impression that Mr. Henriksen didn't mind our applause at all, and at the end of the concert it took very little persuading to get him to play an encore, a charming Canarie (a dance originating in the Canary Islands) by Ennemond Gaultier...
Various and complex tunings were used to achieve different tonal effects, and the move from the Renaissance style to the Baroque was distinctly audible over the course of the concert. It is this that is most interesting in the lute music: its ceaseless movement from one chord to the next, from one style to another. It is music never satisfied with itself, never stationary: It is dynamic and as intellectually satisfying as it is aesthetically pleasing...