Anton Birula
Fri, 28 Sep 2007 01:12:22 -0700
Czesc Jarek, Thanks for your writing, I absolutely agree with your statements. I am not so concerned over correctness. I am indeed concerned with practical side of the matter since we are having usually one baroque lute for all repertoire from early french to late German baroque lute works. The gut strung lute allows us to play things in a way that is almost not achievable on synthetic. This is what makes me think of them in the first place. The tone and the feel especially I find absolutely great. You are right concerning wound strings. They are maybe not historical. And obviously the open wound gut strings are perfect for french music and some Weiss. But when comming to Bach compositions and transcriptions of cello suites and violin sonatas and partitas or late weiss works like fis moll suite from dresden the instrument asks for different bass.... I feel it so. I think Mimmos concept of basses is great and I have them. There are some things which make me want to compare them to wound concept. Actually I have two Klaus Jacobsen 13 course lutes here in warsaw strung in gut with different sorts of basses and a Richard Berg Lute with Dan Larson gimp and pistoy strings - a unique research field! You are welcome to try them since we are happily close in one city! Anton --- Jaros³aw Lipski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi Anton, > > Yes, I've tried them but they are not much different > from wound nylon. > Your question however gave me an impulse to write > couple of thoughts about > stringing. > In general when choosing strings for any lute I > consider three things: > 1/ do I want to be historically correct? ( and then > the obvious choice is > gut) > 2/ what tonal qualities of the lute are the most > important for me? > 3/ is this particular stringing practical in the > concert situation? > > Well, it's quite difficult to answer these questions > only one way. Firstly > are we 100% sure what really means historically > correct. I know that Mimo > Peruffo makes very extended research in this field, > but we actually don't > have strings from XVI century at hand so we can't > test them and say for sure > "this is what those old folks used". We know that > the bases where probably > loaded or specially treated but we can not ever be > sure how. > Now, if we want to answer the second question the > problem arises that we > have the modern ears. We can say for example this > sounds good because we > have the comparison with other tonal qualities of > different instruments that > we can hear nowadays. But who can say what people > liked in Baroque? What > tonal qualities they admired and what was acceptable > for their ears? I am > afraid we would be very surprised!! > And here comes the third consideration. If my lute > is not strung all over > gut and I don't mind being historically correct so > why to use wound gut > which is neither historical nor practical? I am not > trying to say we should > either use only gut or only synthetic, but for me > wound gut being reliable > on humidity and temperature doesn't bring any extra > qualities in exchange. > > Jarek > > -----Original Message----- > From: Anton Birula [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Saturday, September 22, 2007 12:01 AM > To: baroque-lute@cs.dartmouth.edu > Subject: [BAROQUE-LUTE] question about Savarez wound > Gut Strings > > Dear Friends, > > I wonder if anybody is using the savarez > - Copper Wound Gut or- Silver plated Wound Gut > strings. I would love to try theses strings on my > baroque lute but would be happy to hear from someone > who is familiar with them. I also wonder what the > tension idea is. > > I read about them here > http://www.savarez.fr/anglais/instanci-pince.html# > > Would appreciate any information. > Anton Birula > > > > ____________________________________________________________________________ > ________ > Pinpoint customers who are looking for what you > sell. > http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/ > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for a deal? Find great prices on flights and hotels with Yahoo! FareChase. http://farechase.yahoo.com/