April 2012
207 posts
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Tunes suitable for hurdy-gurdy
UK hurdy-gurdy luthier, Chris Allen, hosts a couple of collections of tunes for the hurdy-gurdy on his website here. These include 50 tunes collected by Graham Whyte (aka Jamie Hammond) and a collection of Ukraine and Lemko tunes for hurdy-gurdy from the Werner Icking Music archive.
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18th Century hurdy-gurdy music
Richard Haynes Music Services are offering a series of 18th Century pieces for hurdy-gurdy that Richard has transcribed from original scores written on the French violin clef. He makes a nominal charge for the music, which is available for download from his website here. Pieces include:
Baton op.3, Duet Sonata #5
Baton op.3, Duet Sonata #6
N.Chedeville, 6 Selected Pieces in C from Op.10
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WaterPig hurdy-gurdy sheet music project
Barnaby Walters is hosting a sheet music database dedicated to the hurdy-gurdy. To find a tune, use the Search function (and if you don’t enter any particular search string it will return all the tunes in the database). Tunes are returned in abc notation (described in my previous posting) so you’ll need to use an application to render them as a score.
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Dansons la Morvandelle (2nd ed)
British hurdy-gurdy maker, Mike Gilpin, has compiled a collection of 152 traditional French dance tunes from the Morvan region of France. This is available from his website here for £8.95 plus package and posting (worldwide shipping). Payment by UK cheque or PayPal.
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Neil Brook’s resources
British hurdy-gurdy maker, Neil Brook, has a number of good music resources on his website. These include:
An extensive list of tunes for the hurdy-gurdy in abc format
Midi recordings of the tunes from the Massif Central Books 1 and 2
Suggestions for suitable Irish tunes for the hurdy-gurdy
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Online bibliographies
Rather than duplicate existing bibliographies, I recommend readers take a look at some of the existing hurdy-gurdy bibliographies available online. In particular:
Olympic Musical Instruments has an extensive list here
Jon Hall describes some books here
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ABC music resources
Much of the music available on the Internet is stored in “abc notation”. This format dates from the early 1990’s and is a way of representing complex musical scores using normal text characters - which can then easily be emailed or shown on a web page. ABC notation is not designed to be human readable, and so having downloaded the music you use software to convert the text into a conventional...
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Chris Allen Symphonie
After a few months of waiting, my new Chris Allen Symphonie arrived this week. It’s a beautiful instrument and so I thought I’d post some photographs and provide some initial impressions. The Symphonie is modeled on the earliest form of hurdy-gurdy, the mediaeval symphonie, which was in use from the 12th Century onwards. Little is known about exactly how they were configured, but this model is...
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Le maitres de la vielle baroque (RootsWorld)
RootsWorld have a nice review of the album, le maîtres de la vielle baroque(French Music for hurdy-gurdy) online. They say:
Both tackling the hurdy-gurdy repertoire with extensive backgrounds in a variety of musical forms, Loibner and Delfino shed light on some of the gems of the baroque hurdy-gurdy on this album. The composers are hardly commonplace, but on listening to the selections recorded...
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Vielle a roue - Matthias Loibner (RootsWorld)
RootsWorld have a nice review of Loibner’s album, vielle à roué online. They say:
In Vielle à roué Matthias Loibner’s versatile musicianship is highlighted in thirteen recordings of solo hurdy-gurdy. Ranging from traditional klezmer music to his own compositions, along with arrangements and improvisations, Loibner’s music is at times melancholic, sometimes ecstatic, often stark (for...
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Winterreise - Matthias Loibner (Classics Today)
Matthias Loibner and Natasa Mirkovic-De Ro have released a wonderful recording of Schubert’s Winterreise for voice and hurdy-gurdy. It’s one of my favourite hurdy-gurdy recordings - but don’t take my word for it. Classics Today have written a glowing review of it:
Okay. A new recording of Schubert’s Winterreise. Fine. And a rare venture by a soprano—a Bosnian singer I’ve never...
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Abel Garcia - flamenco hurdy-gurdy player
Christa Muths sent me this review of Spanish hurdy-gurdy player, Abel Garcia - probably the first hurdy-gurdy player to use it for playing flamenco!
The instrument and the music: the hurdy and flamenco have much in common, says Abel, who is the first hurdy gurdy player to play flamenco. Both, he says, the instrument and the music are of unknown origin and they share another characteristic:...
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Marc Egea - Catalan hurdy-gurdy player
Reader Christa Muths sent me a review of possibly the best hurdy-gurdy player in Spain, Marc Egea. All the text that follows is from Christa:
Marc Egea (Barcelona 1973) is the leading Catalan musician and composer playing the hurdy-gurdy.
Marc started playing the hurdy-gurdy when he was 22 and soon recognised its enormous possibilities and followed in the foot steps of the great French...
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An interview with Matthias Loibner
There’s a great video interview with hurdy-gurdy virtuoso, Matthias Loibner over at interMuse - see here. Interesting description of the instrument and some fantastic playing. Well worth a watch!
Whilst you’re thinking about Loibner, there are a couple of nice videos on Vimeo of his Winterreise recording. See here and here.
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