Krishna Sol Jimenez performs Robert de Visee's Suite in G Major on an instrument by Antonio Stradivari, arguably the most famous musical instrument maker of all time.
Known primarily for his peerless violins, violas and violoncelli, Stradivari also made other stringed instruments, including some guitars. There are only 5 known extant guitars by Stradivari, of which the Sabionari is the only playable example, restored to its current condition by French expert restorers Sinier de Ridder [1].
It is best to give this performance a listen through more than once, in order to get accustomed to the transparent delicacy of the Baroque guitar's timbre, which is quite different to that of a modern Classical guitar. The Prelude, which opens the performance, perhaps sounds the most alien of the movements to the modern unprepared ear, with its freer form and modal clashes.
Once you are used to the tone, the graceful, plaintive Sarabande, the Chaconne (about half-way through) and the Menuet (last up) are brought to glowing life with this wonderful instrument.
Jimenez' superb performance reflects an authentic approach - not just by playing without nails. Note the contact with the soundboard by the little finger of the right hand (a practice that was to extend into the 19th century), the use of the index finger and thumb to encompass the strings, the use of strumming and the florid left-hand ornamentation especially on extended notes.
While treatises from any previous historical era on technique are sparse (in practice most early performers would likely just have developed their own style), Jimenez' right hand position and approach is consistent with hints we have about general performance practice of the time.
For a start, we have the design of the instrument itself; the guitar at this point was a five-course instrument (with 5 pairs of strings) rather than having the modern arrangement of six single strings. Double strings give the guitar a particular resonance when strumming, but the absence of a sixth course limits the polyphonic possibilities a little.
The guitar at this time was also longer scale (the scale length of Baroque instruments like this was often shortened later to keep pace with changes in repertoire and technique - more polyphony implies further left-hand spans across the fingerboard, made more difficult on a longer-scale instrument). This particular example has a 74cm neck, suggesting a focus on continuo playing and strummed repertoire; although fine solo playing, as Jimenez demonstrates, is certainly also possible, the design of the instrument and its contemporary repertoire lends to performance a more conservative technique for both hands here (note how Jimenez' left hand movement does not stray above the fifth position).
Also, there is the repertoire: works of a more ambitious and sophisticated style tended to be reserved for the guitar's shorter-scaled cousin the lute, which went on to accumulate more and more courses over the end of the Renaissance into the Baroque period to allow for more dense and elaborate polyphonic textures.
However, in addition to the continuo and (generally strummed) dance music written for the Baroque guitar, there remains a legacy of charming and cunningly constructed solo works of art music, especially those by Francesco Corbetta - a notable Baroque virtuoso and guitar composer - and from de Visee, of course, who may well have been a pupil of Corbetta's.
And then we have the contemporary equivalent of photographs.
A painting by the Dutch master Johannes Vermeer, painted a few years before the Sabionari was made, indicates the right hand position very precisely. [2]
Jean-Antoine Watteau was another artist famous for favouring as a subject musicians with their instruments and a number made of guitarists survive. [3]
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[1] For provenance and further details, see the Sabionari website http://www.sabionari.com .
[2] http://www.essentialvermeer.com/catalogue/guitar_player.html
[3] http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/w/watteau/antoine/1/index.html - see 'The Italian Comedy', 'La Perspective (View through the Trees in the Park of Pierre Crozat)', 'Gilles and his Family' and ''La gamme d'amour' (The Love Song)' for examples of indications of styles strummed and plucked.
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