"Lute Musicke for Kinges, Queenes and Popes" - works of Philip van Wilder, Francesco da Milano, John Dowland & others
2012 Berkeley Festival Fringe at Trinity Chamber Concerts
Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana Street, Berkeley
Monday June 4th 2012, 8 p.m.
The sixteenth century - or cinquecento - is without doubt the golden age of lute music. Other times have produced outstanding lutenists, such as Silvius Leoplold Weiss, history's most prolific lute composer. But the sixteenth century is unique for the lute. The instrument had the full support of every European court. The dissemination of lute music was given an unprecedented boost by Gutenberg's invention of the printing press, and Ottaviano Petrucci's pioneering efforts of the 1500s in a movable type for lute tablature. The demand for learning the instrument was so high that an entire cottage industry in lutemaking sprang up across Europe. When the famous luthier Laux Maler died in 1552, his will listed an inventory of one thousand completed instruments. Supported by the courts of kings, queens and popes, there was money to be made, and illustrious careers to be had, in performing, teaching, or manufacturing the lute. But all would come to naught if lute music itself were just mediocre. Lute music of the sixteenth century was in fact outstanding, and artistically the equal of harpsichord or organ music of the same era. The technical breakthrough for this musical achievement was the change from "picking" the notes with a plectrum or quill, to plucking the strings with individual fingers of the right hand, a technique modern guitarists call "fingerstyle." This development changed the lute from a homophonic to a polyphonic instrument. It allowed the lutenist-composer to practice strict counterpoints of the Flemish school exemplified by Josquin des Prez.
Franklin Lei
Born in Hong Kong, Franklin took a degree in electrical engineering at MIT before embarking on his musical odyssey to Cologne, Basel and London, studying Renaissance and Baroque lutes with Michael Schäffer, Eugen Müller-Dombois, and Christopher Wilson. He taught music for nine years as lute instructor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, before returning to Berkeley and working for the University Library. More recently he began to play fingerstyle Jazz guitar. Unusual for lutenists, who always read, Franklin has embarked on committing his best pieces to memory, seeing that someone such as Mieczysław Horszowski played well into his nineties from memory while losing his eyesight. Franklin sees himself as a "crossover" musician, in that he loves the Ars Subtilior, Anton Bruckner, Béla Bartók, Joe Pass, Bill Evans and Gene Bertoncini just about equally, and that he himself just happens to play the lute.
Franklin Lei on YouTube:
