Going Baroque

Subject: Going Baroque
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 04 Dec 05 - 09:45 PM

Jerry Rasmussen, at Hard To Find Music/Found, says:

Every once in awhile, I come across music that I've been looking for for a long time...

My version is:

"Every once in awhile, I come across music that I had no intention of coming across,"

but a "random act of Google" took me to a site that might be of interest to fans of Ancient Music, Baroque and/or perhaps REN or other enactors interested in the 1600s.

Welcome to the Jean-Baptiste Lully Collection at the University of North Texas Music Library.

I have no idea whether Lully's melodies have been picked up in folk music, but frequent references to him indicate he was sort of a "pop musician" (i.e. very popular) in his era. He's supposed to have been "very influentual" in music of his era(?).

If you use the "Browse" link at the site, you can see what's available, and can download complete manuscripts, .pdf with 200 dpi full size scans of the scores. Separate sections appear to offer texts.

Be warned - - the one I clicked to see what they offered here was a bit over 25 MB for the complete opera manuscript. With my dial-up connection that is "inconveniently large." If you click on the "Technical" link, there are instructions for setting your PDF Reader to download individual pages; but of course I have no idea which pages, if any, might be interesting. I presume that anyone with an interest in this kind of stuff will know how to poke about more efficiently than I can do.

The scores are in 17th century notation, but are mostly readable if you allow for the archaic staff usages.

There are a few Real Audio sound clips, running around 2+ minutes each, but the selections are vocals and "operatic." (They ain't bluegrass!) A very few old .mid files are of course "instrumental only" and are very brief. Click the "Browse" link and scroll down to see what's there.

My Real Audio demanded an update, 12 MB, to play the site's .ra files, and an additional codec download after the update. I don't know if this is because of site content or if it's another of RA's attempts to rule the media world. The EULA for the update appears to add new DRM verbiage, but appears harmless(?). The update was to "RealPlayer 10.5 with harmony." A "registration" was requested after the installation, so you may need to know your RealPlayer password – something it took me almost as long to look up as the 12MB update download. If you have a RealAudio player, you probably do (or did once) have one.

John

Subject: RE: Going Baroque
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 04 Dec 05 - 10:47 PM

Thanks for the information, John. The early music program at the U of North Texas seems to be doing well. I'll browse this site soon.

Mudcatters who have never heard any Lully and want to hear some files quickly can listen to the MIDI's at the Classical Music Archives. Go to composers after 1600 and click on L volume. (Lully was a composer and musician at the court of Louis XIV of France.)