Melchior Neusidler new CD

Arthur J Ness ha scritto:
This message appeared on the Lute Newsgroup from Dartmouth College:

Paul O'Dette's new CD of music by Melchior Newsidler is scheduled for release later in the month. It's available as an mp3 download from Amazon now:

http://snipurl.com/3zmb1

I scored an advance copy and it's an amazing performance. Most of the program Paul played at the 2006 LSA recital. Those of us in attendance may remember that this music seldom drops below the 8th fret!

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

This is exciting news. And long awaited. As I understand Paul O'Dette started planning for a CD of works by Melchior Newsidler about 15 years ago. Newsidler was very prolific (well over 200 surviving works), and Paul wanted to get to know every work before committing to a CD. How many musicians take such a thorough approach to repertory building? And the CD benefits because Paul was able to select a well balanced cross-section of the various genres in which Newsidler worked.

Newsidler (ca. 1531-after 1590), son (not brother!!**) of Hans Newsidler, is (in the opinion of many) the greatest of central European lutenist-composers of the Renaissance. His music is not easy and often will gradually extend into the lute's highest register. A master of counterpoint, he may have studied with the famous music pedagogue Sebald Heyden, who held the position of organist and choir master at the Nuremberg Church of St. Sebald in Newsidler's childhood parish.

He and his brother Conrad, also a lutenist, the only two of Hans' 18 children known to have become lutenists, were doubtlessly trained by their father, who incorporated the teaching materials into his published books, which contain much music that would appeal to a pair of young boys. They both later settled in Augsburg where Melchior was the favored lutenist of the Fuggers (he is reported to have played for them when they went sledding), and headed a popular consort, "die stille Musik." After one wedding engagement (for a Dr. Trudel and his bride), Newsidler's musicians were waylaid ("in the Turkish manner"—whatever that means) and had a mighty brawl with wind players engaged for the wedding festivities. The wind players led by the Stadtpfeifer and virtuoso recorder player Wolf Ganss felt they had been slighted because Newsidler's players dominated the evening. Among the weapons was a bombard, or Pommer, a kind of bass shawm.<g> The damaged bombard was on loan from the city's musical instrument collection, and the resulting court records tell of the fight.

A French tablature edition (not mine) with many MN ricercars and fantasias will be published soon. I'll keep you posted. In addition facsimiles of Melchior Newsidler works are available from Minkoff in Geneva, Cornetto Verlag in Stuttgart, and Dr. Becker in Cologne.
_____________________________
**There are two portraits of Newsidler, one is the engraving by Tobias Stimmer in the 1574 Lautenbuch, the other is an oil portrait in Oslo that is quite like the engraving, and may have been the model for the engraving. The Fuggers are said to have commissioned such a portrait of a man about 40 years of age. Unfortunately art historians base the date on the mistaken belief that Melchior was born about 1500 and was Hans's brother. Consequently their attribution is incorrect. The portraits are here:

http://mysite.verizon.net/vzepq31c/id30.html

Some music by Marco dall'Aquila, Francesco da Milano's foremost predecessor is here (in progress):

http://mysite.verizon.net/vzepq31c/arthurjnesslutescores/id16.html
=====AJN (Boston, Mass.)=====