Critique: More Examples

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(4) Critique: More Examples (Examples A-L)

Good music editing requires consistency. That is, when the same figure reappears, it will be notated the same way each time. This is violated here in Examples A and B. The same broken chord figure appears, but in Example A Matanya shortens it from the "authorized" text. In Example B, he lengthens it from what was given as the authorized text. It's a whimsical approach, that shows up elsewhere as Matanya sets about mutilating Ward's edition. In some instances the music is so convoluted that it's unplayable.

Example A: Walsingham (lute transc., page 91)

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Example B: No. 18 Galliard ("before" and "after")

What Matanya doesn't understand is the difference between a homophonic and polyphonic texture. They are not notated the same way.

Here is also creates unwanted harmonic clashes.

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Example C: Galliards to Flat Pavan and La Vecchia Pavans

Below is a familiar motive that runs through Johnson's music almost as a signature. Here are galliards to the Flat Pavan and La Vecchia. He adds dots incorrectly, thoughtlessly. Each and every time the motive appears Matanya gets the notation wrong.

Twice the authorized version is changed. He changed correct notation into mistakes, everytime. This is the kind of sloppy, amateurish notation that I complained about. To no avail.

Is Matanya's name on the titlepage as editor? No. So who gets the blame? John M. Ward.

Matanya seems to deplore stem down. He's still in the world of 19th-century guitar music. Here he typically makes the highest sounding notes into a soprano-centrist passage. But a similar passage appears 7 other times in this piece, and he leaves them as Ward wrote them. Why change it just once? Whimsy. And a distinctive feature of Johnson's lutenist style is the exploitation of inner voices.

That second measure is distressing, and illustrative of the mindless alterations this retired airline pilot made. It was correct in the"authorized" reading, but he changes it and doesn't even pay attention to the effect of his alteration. It's a 4/2 measure. If one is going to make corrections, then as a minimum the person making the correction should know what's wrong. It's editing by whimsy.

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Example D: Galliard to Delight Pavan

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Example E: Passingmeasures Pavan

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Example F: Goodnight

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Example G: Goodnight (No. 40)

Ward wanted the variations one above the others, as I provided. Matanya reformatted the variations, with ugly results, I believe. See pages 104-107. Vertical justification is inappropriate there.

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Example I. Long Pavan

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Example J

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Example K.

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Example L.

Matanya can't even get the simplest measure down correctly. This is the kind of illiterate alterations that I objected to. And to no avail as shown here. What can you do when the publisher can't recognize obvious mistakes like these even when they are pointed out to him? That is what is so very distressing. To see disaster, and being unable to do anything about it. All those long hours wasted.

So much effort, four years to be exact, went into creating a professional edition, one that would meet the exacting standards of grant-offering foundations, and what happens? DESTROYED!

And whose work was it? Mine? Am I named anywhere?

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Example M. "Imaginary Rests"

It makes no sense to remove the dots for the dotted notes. Are they replaced with "Imaginary" rests? Also see the Chilesotti Exx. 1-2 at this link:

http://mysite.verizon.net/vzepq31c/musexx

Matanya seems to have taken the dots from here, since he needed them inhis Chilesotti examples.

These were correct until Matanya made them WRONG!

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Example H: Delight Pavan

These are just from a little more than a single page. and illustrate how Matanya's unauthorized re-write of John Ward's fine-tuned edition produced a disaster. I pointed out all these mistakes, and Matanya refused to make corrections. The comments follow.

(1) The ornaments were removed. Originally the guitar volume was advertised as having performance practice information, and the various ornaments would be explained. I even supplied a monograoph for use in assembling the latest information. The late Robert Spencer commented on the lack of such information in his review for Classical Guitar magazine.

(2) The A is marked with a tenue line. It is respected here. But not always. See Galliard to Delight, above, and meas. 46 below.

(3) In preparing the guitar volume, I went through the tablatures and indicated the courses, so that Matanya could provide accurate fingerings. Johnson's use is often very imaginative, and should be respected. Here all the notes marked 2 are on the second course. But Ophee indicates them on the top string in IInd position. That's a misrepresentation of what Johnson wanted. It's typical of Johnson and his contemporaries to keep the notes on the same course in passages like this one. I guess Matanya thinks he knows more than John Johnson.

(4) Sharp missing. As volume editor, Matanya should have caught it.

(5) The course indications I provided from the tablature are not respected. Matanya is "assuming authorship" by making this kind of change. He did so without telling us. I guess he considers his ideas superior to Johnson's. Also see (3), above.

(6) The open courses are respected in meas. 32, but more frequently are cut short as in meas. 40 and 42. It produces a jarring effect to have them missing. The ringing of strings is an important part of writing for lute, and any string instrument. Matanya seems insensitive to this important aspect of lute composition.

(7) The cautionary accidental is needed here. They are mandatory according to the G. Schirmer Manual, a practice which we adopted for the series. In music like Johnson's, on the cusp of tonality, degree inflection makes cautionary accidentals especially necessary.

(8) I often put in unusual right hand fingerings, as in this passage. Ophee removed all of them, under the mistaken belief that he had superior knowledge of the matter. Except one strange place where he entered his own (see page 4, meas. 7).

(9) Matanya has trouble with his dots. When the stem goes down, the dot goes in the space below, when stem up, in the space above. It's OK here in meas. 37. But elsewhere? See meas. 39, 41, 45. Below is an example from No. 12A, The Long Pavan. Matanya flipped his stems, but did not flip his dots. The notation is confusing.

(11) The courses indicated are not observed in the notation.

(12) The strain and reprise indications should go above the staff and not below as here, or between the staves in the grand staff transcriptions. These were changed throughout without telling us. They create havoc with layout and my beautiful pages were mangled. All that work for nothing. See page 85.