Jakob Lindberg's remarks about the wonderful sustain of his old Rauwolf seems to confirm what you say (sustain, complexity and clarity, together according to JL). Mersenne would certainly have heard marvellous old Bologna lutes sought out by French luthenists, no doubt exactly for these qualities (rather than as antiques), but for all strings surely, not just for bass sustain or prominence. If the French revelled in bass sustain, which one might gather from Mersenne, wouldn't they have adopted demi-file, or kept on using the extended 12C lute? Yet, I seem to remember a quotation of the Burwell author, saying the French shunned the 12C lute exactly because of its bass course prominence and nazality. At least for this repertoire I have always imagined that a homogenous sustain through all strings is best, and that is what Mimmo's new basses do seem to give us. They have good sustain but on my lute at least, their low impedance allow the Means and Trebles to shine through. Regards Anthony
Le 9 janv. 2017 à 10:52, Matthew Daillie <[1]dail...@club-internet.fr> a écrit : One thing nobody seems to have mentioned is the vast differences in sustain from one instrument to another. Maybe Mersenne's comments go to show just how good some lutes were at the time. If one was to rest a lute on the edge of a wooden table as they were wont to do at the time, then maybe those 20 seconds are not so unrealistic. Best, Matthew To get on or off this list see list information at [2]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. mailto:dail...@club-internet.fr 2. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
