and if he would like to see it, give me a · call.I didn't hear anything for about three months.I wrote to him saying I'd like to talk about it. He didn't call. Then finally he sent me a train ticket, a round-trip ticket from Paris to Padova with a letter saying he couldn't come to Paris to see it but he was still very interested so would I be so kind to come to Italy? For me it was really exciting because I love Italy and I was tired of Paris, so it was a vacation." It was, as it turned out, more than a vacation. The man who sent the train ticket was an anthropologist, a medical doctor and professor and involved with a group, Centro Musica Antica di Padova. While Terry was there, the group gave a concert and asked him to play a couple · of solo pieces. The reception was strongly supportive and appreciative. They told him he must come back, l'le must live there, they needed him. It was hard to say goodbye, but he did. They kept inviting him back and he kept going • and over time they convinced him, "not so much by what they said but by what it was like, the food, the way the people are, that I could be very happy there." He has spent the last year in Padova, playing, performing in wonderful ancient rooms before knowledgeable and enthusiastic audiences and researching i n libraries full of music that has not yet been resurrected. This is like a bottomless well to be drawn from for Terry. He is not at all interested in recent compositions for the lute, finding them to be academic exercises by people who don't understand the instrument. What he is interested in is interpreting the huge amount of work left behind by composers of the lute's golden age. "A problem that is also a benefit is that the tradition is broken so there's no one around to tell you, 'Oh, no, you have to play it like this.' So it opens up the potential to be creative while always trying to find the meaning of the piece. Sometimes I can work hard on a piece and never understand it. Sometimes it changes everytime I play it. Other times the first time I play it, it's there." He says he feels compelled to find as much information as he can about a piece, looking at paintings, reading letters that mention some aspect of the piece or some occasion at which it was "Mu idea l is to plau the l ute l i Re a good blues plauer." performed, reading novels of the time that give an idea of how the music was used, how ttie people lived, the architecture. His goal is to make this music as fresh and alive now as it was four centuries ago. On his visit to Portland this winter, Terry gave a performance at the Old Church, perhaps Portland's most reasonable facsimile of a renaissance edifice. He chose a lovely, small, restored room because he wanted it to be an intimate experience, not the usual sort of concert hall performance where the performer is set above and apart from the audience. The lute does not lend itself well to that type of performance. It is a quiet instrument that simply cannot be P,layed loudly. He handed me his lute as we talked about it and I was astounded at how light it was - a wood feather! The woods in the instrument are very thin, he explained, and the string tension very low, unlike a guitar. This means that it responds quickly to the slightest vibration and, as we spoke, I could feel the sound of our voices transmitted through the body. The lute is so sensitive, he says, that whether the skin of his fingers is moist or dry will make the sound different. And if his hands are tense tor any reason, emotional or physical, it affects his playing, making it very frustrating to have to perform at times. "It's a temperamental instrument. When it's on, it's my voice; it speaks much better than I can. When it's not - well, I've broken instruments in rage because it's l i ke it let you down or deceived you. " The sedate, blue room with high, vaulted ceilings was filled, and some people had to sit on folding chairs slightly outside it. The program announced pieces on the 1 1-course lute, chitarrone (something between a lute and a guitar) and a theorbo, a large and deep-toned lute relative, all instruments made by Robert Lundberg. Terry arrived, greeted us in his quiet, almost shy manner, and sat in a chair in one corner of the room. I squeezed in so that I could feel the effect of the tones rolling over me, almost a physical sensation. The pieces were somewhat lively and rich. But after the first group of pieces he got up, bowed and left the room in a premature intermission.He later said that he had been very distracted by another musician sitting directly in front of him, who tapped his toe and his hand to the music. Later in the program, he was able to overcome this distraction and play for the others who he felt were listening more openly. His immersion into the music showed. It took on an at once living and timeless quality. It was deep and calm. "I don't want to know all the mysteries," Terry said. "but one thing about the lute is that it is so soft, it doesn't force you to listen ; you want to listen and give your attention to it." "My ideal is to play the lute like a good blues player, so that I don't feel there's a separation from the music - being from the 1 7th Century and I'm playing it now and I'm playing all the notes right - but that I know the music well enough that it still has whatever I feel it needs, right at the moment - spontaneity. That's my ideal, that's my professional goal." After the concert the appreciative audience gathered around Terry to praise him and wish him their best. That is, I suppose, a benefit of returning home to Oregon occasionally: to hear uncritical, if not very knowledgeable, adulation. Our reward is to have music from another time and place brought to life before us. • (JreeK 'Deli &-> (Jrocery • Fantast i c Ch i cken and F r ies To Go • Large Selection of Greek and Domestic Wi nes · • Excel lent Sandwiches at Reasonable Prices • Greek Beer and Imported Foods • Featu r ing Authentic Greek Souvlaki • Cateri ng Avai l able for Sma l l Parties 1 740 E. BURNSIDE UNUSUAL INSTRUMENTS UNUSUAL GIFTS Hours: 10-6 Mon.Sat. ARTICHOKE MUSIC 722 NW 21st, Portland 248-0356 Clinton St. Quarterly 29 . -:,:.:. . . �. '""'.' - . �--J�:;�... � ·: . �:��=-�5:�-� I 1 232-0274 J
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