Thanks, Dan.
Just a footnote to the effect that if you have a double first course,
you're more likely to be tuning to a lower pitch (because otherwise the
total tension on the first course would be too great for comfort), so if
anything you'd be more likely to want octaves on the lower courses.
M
On 12/05/2015 13:34, Dan Winheld wrote:
Here's Mimmo's researched opinion:
"The lute in its historical reality"
by Mimmo Peruffo
p.22- The vihuela case: unisons or octaves?
1. Italian and German string making technology before 1570 ca. (the
best of that time)
was not so advanced as to grant the production of efficient enough
bass strings (octaves
were needed to provide the harmonics), as made clear by Virdung and
Tinctoris.
2. Spain, in the 16th century, ruled over large parts of Italy and,
indeed, the Viola da mano
enjoyed a certain popularity: hard to believe that they could possess
any ‘secret’
technology for the production of bass strings without Italian and
German string makers,
the most renowned in Europe, knowing anything about it. We also know
that Spain
imported large quantities of strings - from Munich, to be precise -
and, had they had
bass strings of a superior quality themselves, it would be fair to
expect an intensive
exporting activity to the rest of Europe, as was later the case with
Rome in the 16th
and17th century, for example.
3. Pisador (1552), talking about the 4th course, made it clear it
ought to be strung in
unison:
Such a statement could imply that the use of octaves was standard but
he did not like it,
or it was not appropriate for his music. Hence the necessity to write
down something
that was outside the musicians’ common practice.
4. Fuenllana (1554) prescribes playing only one of the two strings in
the course in some
passages (as does Dalza): this artifice is only limited to the 2nd,
3rd and 4th course, though,
another hint that at least the 4th would be strung with unisons. We
know nothing about
the 5th and 6th.
5. Bermudo (1555) states that the guitar’s 4th course has an octave,
like the fourth of the
lute, or Flemish vihuela. Here can be inferred that the 4th of the
vihuela was a unison
while the lute wasn’t, since he needs to refer to the lute, an
instrument less familiar to
him, while it would have been natural to refer to the vihuela. Again,
we know nothing
about the 5th and 6th.
6. Bermudo also says that if you wish to turn a vihuela into a guitar
(4th with octave, all
other courses in unison) you simply have to take off the 1st and 6th
courses. This would
suggest that the vihuela had a unison 4th (but sometimes also a paired
octave, as implied
by Pisador - see above 3.), i.e. guitar 3rd, and the 5th, i.e. guitar
4th, with octave. It follows
that the 6th must also have had an octave.
7. On top of that Bermudo also discusses slanting the bridge (ch.
LXXXV), in order to
compensate for the amount of space taken by the large knot of the 6th
string, which is
always referred to in the singular, never in the plural. So the course
must have had a paired
octave. The larger amount of space taken by the knot (not by the
knots!) and the resulting
need to slant the bridge in order to keep the length of all strings
equal, clearly indicate
that the string must have been pretty thick.
If the basses were that thick, they could not, owing to their high
Inharmonicity Index,
have had such a good acoustical performance. The stringent consequence
is that it
needed an octave.
8. The only source clearly mentioning unison stringing on the vihuela
dates back to
1611, a fairly long time after the instrument had fallen into disuse.
This source (Sebastian
de Covarrubia’s Tesoro de la lengua castellana, 1611) does not
specifically treat musical
matters. It is a dictionary compiled at a time where the progress made
in the string
making technology already allowed to dispose of octave strings on the
lute. So it is an
anachronism to apply a piece of information from the early 17th
century to an instrument
that was in use in the mid 16th century. Applying the same principle
we could assume,
reading Dowland, that Francesco da Milano’s lute was strung with all
unisons!
9. Double treble and unison courses: the fact that the vihuela was
generally (but not
always) strung with a double treble led some scholars to take that as
evidence in favour
of all courses having been strung with unisons. We fail to grasp the
logic of it. There is,
on the other hand, evidence proving that the vihuela could have a
single treble, whereas
most Renaissance lutes where strung with double trebles.
Conclusions
In the light of all the information we have so far, we suggest
that the Spanish Vihuela de mano was not strung with unison
courses throughout.
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