No, no, no! the mandora wa a small lute like instrument that, in the Medeaival/ Renaissance period was tuned in a combinationof foruths and fifths..see Praetorius. By the Baroque era, various developments had occured and it had evolved into the mandolino ro mandolin, whihc was not standardized as the Neapolitan version but had variou snumbers of gut strings and tunings...a soprano lute, yes, you could indeed say that, but the earleir mandora/mandola was not tha or at least did not utilize that type of tuning. Check out Rob MacKillops recordings as well as the Broadside Band and Ron McFarlane for more on the historic mandora. As far s the 18th C Neopolitan Mandola, as made by Gaetano Vinaccia of Naples, it did and DOES exist. One extant isntrument is in the Musee Instrumental in Brussels, No. 3182, according to the book I have, with a photo and description. Overall Length: 108.0cm. Body Length: 53.0 cm, Body max width: 33.0 cm String Length: 77.5cm. four double courses, lower two wound. This is definitely NOT a mandolin! As I said, there may not be reproductions available, and the surviving examples few, but it strikes me that the roundback mandocellos still made in Italy may not be accurately the same thing, but perhaps a close approximation. Brad Doc Rossi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: I think the tuning for the Mandora was a tone lower than modern guitar, plus pitch may have been lower as well - from one to 3 semitones.
You're absolutely right about information being ignored - that's always upset me. On Mar 25, 2008, at 9:10 PM, Frank Nordberg wrote: > Brad McEwen wrote: > > I still think that an 18th C Mandola would be the ticket. I don't > > know if anyone makes them, but there are a lot of roundback short > > scale Italian made Mandocellos that are pretty close. > > There wasn't any mandocello as we know it back in the mid 18th > century. The mandolin back then was basically just a scaled down > lute. A scaled up version of a scaled down version of a lute would > be ... a lute. ;-) > > However, the 17th/18th century six course lute *is* an interesting > option no matter what name it goes by. It's a common belief that the > large lutes with extra bass strings completely replaced the old > renaissance lute but that may be a truth with modifications. > > Brescianello published a collection of music for a six course lute > around the middle of the 18th century. He called the instrument a > colascione (although it doesn't seem to have much in common with the > regular three course colascione) and apparently it had six single > strings tuned like a modern guitar EADGBE. > Usually we think of this instrument as purely Italian but > Brescianello was connected in some way to the court of the Duke of > Württemberg at some time during the first few decades of the 18th > C., so there may be a German/Central European connection. > > There is a surviving instrument of that kind that certainly has a > German connection. It was built by Johannes Schorn in Salzburg in > 1688. Barber and Harris are making a copy of it and you can view an > example at: > http://www.lutesandguitars.co.uk/htm/cat08.htm > (at the bottom of the page) > It's got a relatively long neck and small body, making it look as > much like a colascione as a standard lute. I'm sure I've seen them > with more regular lute propotions though - just can't remember where > and when. > > I'm a bit curious about the tuning mentioned there. The renaissance > A tuning seems awfully high for an 886 mm scale. > > Barber and Harris mentions that Godfrey Finger had a similar > instrument, only slightly larger. Yet another German connection... > > ------- > > Right now I'm wondering if we really know anything about 17th and > 18th century stringed instruments at all. This little excercise of > ours has already unveiled more than enough information to completely > rewrite the "official" history. Worst of all, nothing of this is new > information, it's information that's been ignored until now. > > Frank Nordberg > http://www.musicaviva.com > http://stores.ebay.com/Nordbergs-Music-Store?refid=store > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > --------------------------------- Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage. --
