The picture, promised in the last podcast (yes, it’s been too long, but we’ve got material brewing ) is finally here, found on a CD in a big pile of CDs with images

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

Owen Morse-Brown has made a set of CDs if you want to play duets but have no-one to play with. The series contain Telemann Boismortier sonatas.

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.

I’m quite used to transposing music to where it fits my instrument, even though I know some people don’t approve of this. I think what is important to know when doing this is what character is implied by using a certain signature. Since I don’t have a copy of Mattheson’s Neueröffnetes Orchestre I looked for the quote and found this page that quotes Mattheson directly on what they mean. Here is a translation to English by Babelfish

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.

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.

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?

A short little update: now you can use the submit story/recording/photo buttons in the righthand sidebar to submit the material you’d like included on the blog. No need to register and create the blog entries yourself anymore.

Sorry about the long delay before writing. I am in the middle of moving to a new apartment and spend my days building and painting walls. But, Mogens’ harpsichord is well in place, Craig has sent me one of his Carmichael’s Modern Baroque Recorder that I’ll be trying out as soon as I’ve finished moving. Also, we have some music in store for you to listen to and some pictures coming up. So stay tuned.

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…