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ISSN: 1089-747X
Volume 26 (2020) No. 1
Corbetta: La guitarre royalle. Izhar Elias, Baroque guitar. Brilliant Classics, 2018. Compact disc. [95587BR.]
Reviewed by Michael A. Bane*
3. Ornamentation and Improvisation
1. Introduction
1.1 When Francesco Corbetta (ca. 1615–81) arrived in Paris at mid-century, he was a leading figure of the Italian Baroque guitar. Lured to France by Cardinal Jules Mazarin, Corbetta would influence Antoine Carré, Rémy Médard, Robert de Visée, and other members of a burgeoning French guitar school. At the same time, he assimilated much of what he heard at court, and his final two publications, both entitled La guitarre royalle, beautifully demonstrate the fruits of his long sojourn abroad. The first, published in Paris in 1671 and dedicated to Charles II of England (at whose court Corbetta also spent considerable time), contains virtuosic French suites of impressive sophistication. The second, published in Paris three years later and dedicated to Louis XIV, is a lighter collection of pieces in a strummed style preferred by the king. With these two collections Corbetta achieved a potent combination of Italian daring and French elegance, one that greatly contributed to his reputation as a composer and to the guitar’s rising status as a “royal” instrument equal to the lute in prestige.[1]
1.2 It is no surprise, then, that modern guitarists have long been attracted to Corbetta’s work and the final two collections in particular. Izhar Elias’s La guitarre royalle is the latest recording to draw either mostly or entirely from the Paris publications; it follows compact discs by Antonio Ligios (1998), William Carter (2003), and Lex Eisenhardt (2003), all also entitled La guitarre royalle (or “The Royal Guitar” in Eisenhardt’s case).[2] See the Appendix for details. Like the earlier guitarists, Elias concentrates on the more elaborate compositions from the first book—only five of the disc’s twenty-four tracks are pieces from the second, easier publication. Despite the familiar terrain, Elias’s recording is worth hearing for its intelligent renditions of Corbetta’s difficult music. In what follows, however, I will discuss some of the more contentious choices made by Elias on his otherwise fine album.
2. Tuning
2.1 The modern Baroque guitarist must first confront the issue of tuning. Several schemes coexisted for the instrument in the seventeenth century, and composers rarely specified their intentions. In France, evidence from the first half of the century suggests that the guitar was most often tuned to a re-entrant scheme: a/a–d′/d′–g/g–b/b–e′. By the 1670s, however, some players had begun to add a lower octave, or “bourdon,” to the fourth course, which resulted in a semi re-entrant ordering: a/a–d′/d–g/g–b/b–e′. Corbetta’s 1671 Guitarre royalle is the first publication in France to specify this so-called French tuning. A third scheme, with bourdons on both the fourth and fifth courses, was current in Italy but probably not in France until the following century. Much of the repertory is performable in any of these tunings, but bourdons naturally affect counterpoint, register, and chord inversions.[3]
2.2 Because Corbetta specified the semi re-entrant scheme in his first Paris publication, the matter would seem to be settled—for his work at least. But Elias opts for bourdons on both the fourth and fifth courses, the one scheme with the scantiest historical record in France. Two considerations might justify his choice. First, though Corbetta spent much of his career abroad, he first learned to play guitar in Italy, where evidence for the double-bourdon scheme is strongest. He might have brought this tuning with him to France. (There is suggestive but not unequivocal evidence that Corbetta used bourdons on the fourth and fifth courses in Italy.) If so, it is possible that his specification of the fourth-course bourdon in 1671 represented a compromise with French players accustomed to a fully re-entrant scheme; better a bourdon on the fourth course than no bourdon at all.[4] Second, whatever its historical accuracy, a bourdon on the fifth course extends the range of the instrument and, for experienced players at least, allows for greater interpretive freedom in comparison with the other two schemes. A skilled performer is able to pluck either the high or low octave depending on musical context.[5]
2.3 Elias handles the challenge of plucking the individual strings of closely strung courses with great skill.[6] Indeed, it was not until well into the opening suite that I first noticed that Elias had strung his fifth course with a lower bourdon, a testament to its judicious use. Corbetta’s counterpoint is never interrupted or transposed due to a re-entrant course, and there is a distinct bass register lacking in earlier recordings of this music. That said, the one objection I would raise to the use of two bourdons is that it risks neutralizing the most distinctive traits of French Baroque guitar music, i.e., the peculiar leaps in octave occasioned by re-entrant tuning and the relative lack of a lower register. Other composers in France seemed to recognize the re-entrant fifth course as intrinsic to the instrument and its music. Robert de Visée, for example, who specified the semi re-entrant tuning in his publications, wrote in 1682 that he hoped experts would not dismiss his music for breaking rules of composition, for the instrument requires it (“c’est l’Instrument qui le veut”).[7] Though re-entrant tuning wreaked havoc on certain rules of well-crafted composition, it nevertheless lent the guitar its unique sound. A fifth-course bourdon “corrects” the strangeness that I and others (both past and present) have found charming in much of the repertory. Whether the trade-off is worth it in this case is open to dispute, especially in light of the fact that Corbetta stipulated a semi re-entrant tuning. Where one settles on this issue will depend, I suspect, on whether one believes Corbetta’s Paris publications belong to an Italian or to a French tradition of guitar composition.
3. Ornamentation and Improvisation
3.1 As Hélène Charnassé, Rafael Andia, and Gérard Rebours have noted, the Baroque guitar is relatively impoverished in terms of ornament symbols.[8] A single symbol often represents not just an ornament type but its derivatives as well. Guitarists must be alert to the context in which a symbol appears in order to select the most appropriate, tasteful variant. In general, Elias does an admirable job interpreting Corbetta’s notation. His ornaments are historically appropriate, never redundant or banal, and often graceful.
3.2 While he handles the notated ornaments well, Elias falters in my opinion in his elaboration of section repeats. I would describe his approach here as minimalist. Though he occasionally introduces improvised ornamentation the second time through an A or B section, the reworkings are generally brief and isolated. This lack of variation is less noticeable in the quicker dances, when the ear is occupied with Corbetta’s counterpoint, but becomes apparent in the slower movements, where pregnant pauses seem to me to require more spontaneous elaboration on the player’s part. Jakob Lindberg’s recording from 1997 (cited in the Appendix) is a good example of the tasteful coloration that can enhance Corbetta’s music.
4. Conclusions
4.1 The above reservations notwithstanding, this recording has much to recommend it: Elias’s excellent technique; his relaxed but sensitive handling of rhythm, inequality, and meter; and the beautiful tone of his guitar, a copy of a Baroque model tuned to ⅙-comma meantone. The arrangement of the disc’s tracks is carefully managed as well, with the key of each suite moving through the circle of fourths. If Elias’s performance of some of Corbetta’s more popular pieces—the “Caprice de chacone” from the 1671 book, for example, or the passacaille from the same book’s suite in G minor—lacks the excitement of earlier recordings (due in part to slower tempos), he nevertheless offers new and rewarding ways of hearing familiar material.
4.2 I will conclude by noting that the large and growing discography dedicated to the music of Corbetta—and to his later publications in particular—reflects a hesitancy among guitarists to record music of lesser-known composers working in France. Along with Corbetta’s, Robert de Visée’s oeuvre has benefitted from several recordings. However, the works of François Martin, Antoine Carré, Henry Grenerin, Rémy Médard, François Le Cocq, and others have been overlooked in comparison.[9] This is too bad. Though these composers failed to match the verve and originality of Corbetta’s best work, they nevertheless crafted music of grace, beauty, and unpredictability. And because their work is largely free of the most challenging techniques employed by Corbetta, it better reflects the abilities and ambitions of the many amateur players who strummed guitars in and around Paris. An effort to record more of this music would be a worthy project for the guitar community. At the very least, it would help to situate the many recordings of Corbetta’s music within a richer context of plucked musical culture in seventeenth-century France.