WGBH Radio Boston has posted a live recording from 2003 of The Flanders Recorder Quartet. Download their podcast through iTunes music store this feed, or as MP3
Apr 142007
Jul 262006
Here is the second podcast, slightly delayed since production but ready for your enjoyment. The reason for the delay is that neither I nor Mogens have found the picture we promised in the podcast, so we’ll have to get back to you with that one. Greetings from the Ringve Early Music Course here at lovely Sund, Innerøy, Norway.
Jun 022006
First, let me invite you to post links to faximiles available on the net as a comment to this post. I’ve been puzzled by the lack of faximiles available on the net. For us early music lovers these books should be in the public domain as all copyright claims have long expired. Many are locked up in libraries and private collections that only give republishing-rights to certain publishers, making faximiles very expensive. Don’t get me wrong, I think the S.P.E.S. faximiles are some of the most gorgeous books in my book-case. But apart from a very nice cover, what new have they added that decides that we cannot scan the prints and republish it for everyone to see?
The question comes from our podcast where I’d love to put the Philidor suite available so that you can look through it and make up your own mind rather than to rewrite it myself and just post a few bars that explain a problem in the faximile. Would this be illegal? Or should it be considered in the public domain and be encouraged? I know I mentioned republishing rights, but what rights do these libraries and collections have? They make an agreement with i.e. S.P.E.S., my local library acquires a copy that I borrow. Then I’m no part in that republishing-agreement and stand with a wonderfull piece of art with no copyright.
I hope I’ve given you a little insight to my confusion and I’m really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the matter and your links to faximiles that are available on the net.
May 262006
As promised Nik & Mogens have made the first podcast for the Early Music Blog. It’s available for download here. If you’d like to subscribe to it you can use iTunes (select Subscribe to Podcast from the Advanced menu) or any other podcast capable program and use the link http://earlymusicblog.net/?feed=rss2&category_name=Podcasts.
This first podcast includes the Sarabande from Philidor’s 10ème suite that we played in concert in the beginning of April. The rest of the parts will come in later podcasts. It refers to this blogpost about Philidor’s notation.
This is our first ever podcast so please be gentle, the more we learn the better the quality of these episodes will be. 
Apr 172006
Continuing with Quantz goodies I’d like to use him to comment on what to embellish and what not to. We know that the French wrote down many (but not all) of the necessary embelishments and we know the French almost didn’t embelish compared to the Italians who could be accused of overdoing it. I assume the Germans did it as well, being inspired by the French and Italians. So instead of asking when do we ornament, the question is when don’t we? In chapter 12, paragraph 26, he sais “The majestetic admits few additions, but those that are appropriate must be executed in an elevated style”. Perhaps there is nowhere that one shouldn’t ornament, but rather how much should one ornament?
Feb 192006
About two weeks ago I bought a Harpsichord (Jørgen Bengaard). Of cause it wasn´t new and I consider it more to be a donation since it was very cheap. It wasn´t the harpsichord I was looking for either. I needed one that I could bring with me at any concert I might do. But this was unlike any Harpsichord I have ever seen before. There were foot-pedals (toggles) and 16´-stops and was as heavy as any grand piano (it held an iron frame). But I had to buy it!!! and now I found out that there is absolutely no information saying anything about this kind of instrument. It seems that most early musicians (of our time) would rather that it had never existed! So in the future you will find many posts regarding this particular kind of harpsichord that must have been the obvious choice of instrument for the not-quite-so-early Harpsichordist. My first priority will be to find a recording of the instrument from the time it was build…
Listen to original recordings of early music. That´s a dream we all share, because we will never be able to know exactly how old music was played in its time. This is not possible – but I´ve just discovered a homepage where it is possible to listen to very early music. Both wax cylinders an tinfoil recordings gathered right here at tinfoil.com. Interesting to hear how people sang and played around 1890-1913; in the years just before the sinking of Titanic (yes! it is possible to hear a recording of ´Nearer My God to Thee´ from those years!) Well, have a listen (and a laugh). Cylinders of the month!
Feb 162006
Wanting to get a different sound from my cornetto, an oboe playing friend of mine and I mounted a reed instead of the regular mouth piece on it. I wanted more of a crumhorn sound but ended up with something that sounded fantastic on every 20th try and otherwise was really hard to play. Lots of strange sounds coming as well. 
But I like the idea. Here are the photos. First the reed, then two full-length versions of my Moeck cornetto with the reed and finally the normal mouthpiece.
Feb 032006
This weekend Dan Laurin is giving a masterclass in Esbjerg, and me and Michael are going to play Belicha, an estampitta from the 14th century Italy. As far as I’ve understood, there was much culture imported from the middle east to Italy at this time, and you weren’t really in style if you didn’t have your clothes imported from Istanbul. Grove lists this piece as a dance, but I think many would agree to this being more improvised music. I sure would like to see someone dance to it. So I’ve been at the library borrowing stacks of music with Taksims (TaqsÄ«m) trying to get to know the contemporary arab classical music more. According to Grove, TaqsÄ«m means dimunition and is a form dating back to the 18th century, but I haven’t been able to find any earlier forms leading up to the taqsÄ«ms until now, so these will have to do. And my imediate reaction is that early music lovers should get some CDs and listen to this! There is so much brilliant music and musicians in this genre! I’ll definetly use their input for improving my Belicha. Perhaps not for this masterclass, but certainly during this semester. Lots of great ornaments to be “borrowed”.
Jan 282006
Sarah Peck has started to build a gamba. It’s all nicely documented on her blog and the progression will be linked in the column to the right. Check out the first entries about the beginning: 
and how far she has come today: 
Looking forward to following your progress, Sarah. Keep us updated!
Christian and Annette Mondrup maintain an archive of scores for recorder ensembles. The latest addition is a madrigal consisting of 8 parts for 5 voices: Al bel de tuoi capelli by Orazio Vecchi (1550-1605). The score is complete with text, so should be nice for singing as well.
In paragraph 23, chapter 4, page 58 of On playing the Flute Quantz writes on intonating:
“The flute has the innate defect that some of its notes when sharpened [playing sharps] are not quite true, some being a little too low, some a little to high. For in tuning the flute you must first see to it that the natural [diatonic] notes are tuned truly in accordance with their proportions. The faulty ones you must, as much as possible, seek to play in tune with the help of your embouchure and your ear.â€?
This is a little note to those who claim that you should play any instrument as is and that some instruments can never be played in tune. Many other instruments have the same problems (i.e. saxophone and recorder) and the players of all the instruments that have these problems should seek to play them as well intonated as possible.
In paragraph 16 he writes: “This defect can be easily remedied, however, if the player possesses a good embouchure, a good musical ear, a correct system of fingering, and an adequate knowledge of the proportions of the notes.â€?
Now, if you’ll excuse me I have to go practice playing in tune
Jan 072006
In On playing the Flute paragraph 17 chapter I, page 34, Quantz describes the “flutes d’amour†as a flute that is a minor third lower than the common flute. Funny, as I always imagined it was a name for the voice flute (a recorder in D), being a minor third lower than the alto recorder.
When Quantz writes “On playing the fluteâ€, the flute is just emerging from a time of much change, and we know that the flute changed much until it became the flute we know today. The recorder is in a similar situation today where the recorders that are made are often very different from what they were only fifteen year ago, and through my correspondence with inventors and recorder builders I have no reason to believe that the recorder is done developing now.
What I have found is that recorders made by good recorder players are in general better than those made by instrument makers who are not good recorder players. And I was happy to find support for this finding in Quantz’ book. He writes this for the traverso, but I see no reason why this should be different for the recorder if we replace the word embouchure with breathing technique. He writes:
“Pure intonation from one note to another depends upon a firm and secure embouchure, a good musical ear, and upon a good understanding of the proportions of the notes. Whoever possesses this knowledge and also plays well is in a position to make a good, accurately tuned flute. But since the majority of flute makers are not able to do so it is difficult not only to get hold of a good flute, but also to acquire a good ear, even with frequent playing.â€
Quantz then goes on to advocate that flute players should know much on flute making. I disagree with this since I don’t think we have the time for it, but I would strongly suggest only buying recorders from makers who are good recorder players themselves.
Dec 222005
In this first post I’d like to talk about Pierre Philidor’s notation of ornaments and what this might mean. The ornament in question is the grace note leading up to the second quarternote in the third bar:
Seeing just the upper voice and that second bar, I’d think this is inégal. However, as this is french late baroque music, we would assume that inégal would be written in quavers like the fourth bar in the bass line. But if we can expect a regular inégal, why would Philidor then in the next system write the dotted figure seen in the upper voice first bar and bass second bar in the following example?
It seems like Philidor likes to play with the sharpness of the inégal. But if this is the case, we still haven’t decided what the second bar in the first excerpt means. My personal take on this is to see what Vivaldi is doing at the same time. Shame on me for thinking about italians when working with french music, but hey, Philidor and his fellow french composers were more influenced by italians than the previous generation composers would have allowed. Vivaldi uses such grace notes as dissonances in front of the harmonically correct notes, and since we know that they should have at least half the length of the note, they become great dissoances while it’s easy to read where we’re going harmonically. So I tried playing it lombardic, but I’m not sure that this would be a great solution either.
Get it here