GENERAL DISCUSSION on the Variation Challenge "Marizápalos"

This is the place for general discussions which don't fit in the main thread or the byweekly updates thread 👋

  • Perhaps you have a guitar question inspired by the challenge?
  • Want to chat about general topics of early music like ornamentation, harmonic etc.?
  • Or just looking to chat with fellow challenge participants about music?
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    • Olli
    • Mr. Pizza
    • Saitenzwirbler
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Hello again, wow - great Idea .... already listened to that superb music.

    Found this on Youtube and I think it`s a great recording of this piece.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI3bZqT7J3I

    Like 3
    • Olli yes this is wonderful music. Beautifully played here. Thanks for the link 

      Like 1
  • If you wish to learn more about the origins of Santiago de Murcia and Baroque guitar then I've linked the PhD of Stanley Yates. It should answer any questions regarding the instrument, the man and the development of Baroque guitar music.

     

    https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc278964/m2/1/high_res_d/1002720939-yates.pdf

    Like 3
      • martinTeam
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      • martin.3
      • 3 yrs ago
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      Dennis Greensmith Oh wow, I should probably read that one, too! 🧙‍♂️

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      • Olli
      • Mr. Pizza
      • Saitenzwirbler
      • 3 yrs ago
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      Dennis Greensmith Hello Dennis, thank you for posting - this is so much information...my brain is smoking 😉

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    • Olli
    • Mr. Pizza
    • Saitenzwirbler
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Maybe this also helpful:

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      • martinTeam
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      • martin.3
      • 3 yrs ago
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      Olli Awesome! There are a lot of those ornament tables, I really like the one by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach! 

       We are probably not going to dive too deep into the rabbit hole of ornamentation, but since there are several signs given in the facsimile by Santiago de Murcia, we will need to touch on that subject for sure!

      Like 2
    • Barney
    • Barney
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

     In this piece, since the ornaments are so important for a nice performance, it would great to get counsel from a Baroque ornaments

    "expert" to analyze and notate this score for us.  Anyone at Tonebase with that expertise?  ( Would Mircea know?).  It would be helpful, if possible, to have this settled at the beginning of practicing the piece so we don't have to unlearn our mistakes. 

    Anyway, just my two cents...  thanks!!

    Like 1
      • Olli
      • Mr. Pizza
      • Saitenzwirbler
      • 3 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Barney Hello Barney, there are so many possibilities to bring color to the pieces by using ornamentations. On top of this thread there is a link "Ornamentations" - a tone base tutorial from Brandon Acker. That helped me a lot to get a better idea about using them. Anyway, here i post the link again.

      https://app.tonebase.co/guitar/lessons/player/brandon-acker-teaches-on-baroque-ornamentation?title=On+Baroque+Ornamentation&from=dashboard

      Like 3
      • martinTeam
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      • martin.3
      • 3 yrs ago
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      Barney Hi Barney! Thank you for your remarks on ornaments! Since this is such a vast topic I decided to have a more general approach on ornaments, which is to trill from the upper auxiliary note. It's a shame that there is no further indication in de Murcia's work since the original manuscripts decides to give us already redundant information (the auxiliary note is almost all the time deductible from the key of the piece with the exception of the b-flat in the F major chord).
      The amazing analysis by Stanley Yates takes a lot more secondary information into account, the most important being the works of Gureau and Ribayez (p.118)

      You will also come across a small line with two dots in this manner , which in Italy is marked with a T and two dots, which is called the Trino or Aleado. which is executed with the left hand, placing the correct finger at the fret that the sign indicates [i.e. the main note], and playing the string with another finger of the same hand, continuously, one or two frets higher, depending on what the key asks for?

      The manner of trilling is to pluck the string to be trilled with the right hand, and to shake the appropriate finger of the left hand immediately ral puntol (on the string and fret at which it is formed); the manner of shaking the finger is, place it and lift it twice without interrupting the tempo, nor do you have to pluck more than once with the right hand for each trill.

      Gaspar Sanz seems to be indicating something similar, but then again, if you look on the table on p.121, there is the aleado and two different trinos stated, so Yates rightly concludes (p.122):

      From the written  evidence of treatises, then, it is possible to determine that main-note trills are certainly an option in Spanish guitar music of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Examination of Murcia's music, however, reveals that a varied approach to the execution of the trill is possible, especially when the stylistic diversity of his collections is considered.


      Thanks to Olli for linking Brandon's phenomenal tutorial, this is a great watch!!! :) Brandon goes into phenomenal detail for the different kinds of trills and also talking about the inconsistencies of notation. But the general rule he applies for Italian/Spanish baroque music is to trill from the main note, while I was showing the German/French way of trilling. I hope you excuse my regional bias, in the next workshop I will advise to trill from the main note upwards since we are dealing with a Spanish composer! 🧙‍♂️ I will edit my score and upload it accordingly!

      Like 3
      • Olli
      • Mr. Pizza
      • Saitenzwirbler
      • 3 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      martin listening to Jacob Lindbergs recording, the second ornamentation in bar 22 is f-e-f-e (if my ears don't cheat me) - starting the ornamentation not on the notated tone .

      That means he also plays Spanish baroque music using English/German  art of ornamentation ?

      Or did I misunderstand that you don't do it that way in Spanish music in baroque time ? ( do we have to start always on the written note ? ) 🤪

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      • martinTeam
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      • martin.3
      • 3 yrs ago
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      Olli when it comes to ornamentations, we need to keep several things in mind! First of all, several sources from that time contradict each other in terms of wording, definition and musical execution. We need to get a feel for the overall tradition of that time which indicated in Spanish baroque music to trill from the main note upwards, but of course the function of the ornament is to embellish the melody and to emphasize not only the note but also the direction of it! So I definitely can see that deriviating from the hard law is no problem 🧙‍♂️

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      • martinTeam
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      • martin.3
      • 3 yrs ago
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      Olli btw, sorry for replying so late to your question, I had super busy days due to an orchestral live stream, but I saw that you already recorded a phenomenal submission in the Updates thread, thank you for that! 🤘

      Like 1
    • Barney
    • Barney
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Thanks Olli and Martin for helping me with this.  You guys are awesome, and it is much appreciated!!  I will need to make some time to study this information.  See you later!

    Like 2
  • Is the technical detail really that important?   The goal is to give an interesting sound to the note being played.  As long as the target note is emphasized it hardly matters whether the second note is above or below the target note.  

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      • martinTeam
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      • martin.3
      • 3 yrs ago
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      Norman Talking about the proper execution of ornaments can quickly get very academic, that's true 😅 But since the question was raised in the live stream and since we have some wonderful videos on that topic on tonebase, I wanted to dig a little bit into the topic! 

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    • martin great.  Always good to know what the masters expected of us.  

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  • Agree with Norman. The ornaments have the function to enhance the melody notes, (especially when they are part of a chord.)  Note above or below, to be decided by the context -  direction of the melody. 

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      • martinTeam
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      • martin.3
      • 3 yrs ago
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      joosje  Yes, ornaments are there to embellish the music, I just took yesterday's question as an opportunity to dive into a very fascinating topic! 🧙‍♂️ But you raised a very important point: we also have to take the direction of the melody into account, especially if we are closing in on a cadence!

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    • Peternull
    • Peter.1
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view
    1. Yates says this is a "cancion bailable" associated with the theatre and a baile not a danza  (P44-46).
    2. There is some history on Marizápalos, identifying it is a romanza here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_Calder%C3%B3n 
    3. The lyrics for the romanza are: https://www.google.com/search?q=marizapalos+lyrics
    4. A performance of the sung romanza can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKBngq7WRK0 and if you press "Show More" beneath the video you can see a translation of the lyrics.
    5. We all know what "...making bad use of their latin" must mean, but how?
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    • Peter another reference I like

      https://youtu.be/1ejllsOwYCs

       

      Like 1
      • Peternull
      • Peter.1
      • 3 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      @joosje Thanks - I like that one a lot. This one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgB6w3NGsjA

      has the same lyrics as yours - different from the first ones I posted. The translation actually makes sense to me too while the original puzzled.

       

      What was the original theatrical performance? I think it was a low comedy song and dance number - not slapstick though. I envisage a strolling baroque guitarist entering stage right while Marizápalos dances on from the left. Her dance has little skips when the dotted rhythm appears. Then singing after?

       

      All these performances seem too solemn to me. 

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      • martinTeam
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      • martin.3
      • 3 yrs ago
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      Peter joosje Wonderful, thank you both these wonderful rendition! I agree with with solemn, these performances seem very solemn, a characteristic that a lot of performances share! 
      I have no idea where the lyrics are originally from, but I could imagine this ballad being integrated into the tradition of Comedia de'll Arte, a early form of a traveling theatre company. 
      When it comes to performing these kind of pieces, I really like the renditions of a baroque ensemble called "Le Poéme Harmonique", here with a performance of "Mort et convoi de l'invincible Malbrough", a piece that Fernando Sor transcribed in a beautiful variation cycle (which we MIGHT look at in a future Variation Challenge 😉)

      Like 1
      • Peternull
      • Peter.1
      • 3 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      @martin  Joosje This was the  Spanish Golden Age. Note the 

       

      mention of "farcical interludes" between the religious plays.... This is how I see Marizápalos.

      Like 1
      • Peternull
      • Peter.1
      • 3 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      @martin @joosje  In Plaza Mayor, Madrid, https://youtu.be/Yz2SkQMYDBk

       

      Note that this is described as legend.... The higher the social station, the better the gossip. Still, this is a story that would have been very widely known when Sanz, Guerau and Murcia's intabulations appeared.

      Like 2
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