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Music historians point out that
courts, cities, churches and private chambers in many parts of late
medieval and early modern Europe very often echoed to fine music
provided by German players of wind and stringed instruments. Sadly,
considering the vigour of this instrumental tradition in German-speaking
lands, the art of these instrumentalists has left relatively little
trace in written musical accounts.
Most of the surviving fifteenth-century
instrumental music that can be directly linked to the activity of
German instrumentalists comes from the realm of keyboard playing.
This fact has implications beyond the history of keyboard playing
alone: study of the surviving fifteenth-century German keyboard
tablatures helps to partly mitigate the loss of the repertoire of
fifteenth-century German players of »soft« instruments
(most of all, the lute).
It is without doubt an exciting
area in the early history of European instrumental music, but one
paradoxically seldom visited by performers and thus virtually unknown
to the wider public.
Corina
Marti and Michal Gondko,
artistic directors of LA MORRA, perform (respectively) on claviciterium
(an upright stringed keyboard instrument with a vertical soundboard)
as well as on lute and gittern (a smaller relative of the lute).
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IN THE UPPER-RIGHT CORNER:
"Kasseler Lautenkragen", Germany, late 15th century (Universitätsbibliothek
Kassel, part of the manuscript 2° Ms. math. et art. 31)
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