Dear Collected Wisdom, I'm new to the baroque lute list, but a reader of, and infrequent poster to, the (renaissance) lute list. I need your suggestions for string pitches, string materials, and string diameters for an instrument I bought recently. The fellow I bought it from is a music person, but not a lute person. He obtained the instrument at an estate sale for resale, thus he knows virtually nothing specific about it. Hans Jordan built this instrument in the mid 1950's. From what I've learned about him, Jordan was a mover and shaker in the very early revival of interest in early music instruments. He worked in Markneukirchen and was known for making, among other things, replicas (not necessarily exact copies, as I understand it) of old instruments. The general layout of the instrument resembles that of the German Baroque Lute after Michael Rauche featured in David Van Edwards web site, but it has fewer courses, lacks the exquisite decorations, and its dimensions are somewhat shorter. Overall length is 118.5cm. The body is made of 27 flamed maple ribs; it's 52cm long, 36cm wide, and 15cm deep. The three identical roses feature an intricate knot, rather deeply carved. The body, neck, body/neck/peghead joints, pegheads, and pegs all appear sound. Workmanship is first rate. The instrument has seven fretted courses. The vibrating length of the fretted strings is 64cm. The bridge is drilled in such a way that the top two courses are single-strung; the remaining five fretted courses are double-strung. Grooves in the ebony nut indicate unison stringing for these courses. Diapason length is 93cm. The bridge drilling indicates three, double-strung diapason courses. String grooves on the diapason nut suggest unison strings except for the lowest, with it having grooves for a thicker and thinner string. The strings on it at the moment are in disarray, with many frayed, unwound, or detached, and a couple missing entirely. The strings on the first three courses appear to be relatively recent vintage nylon. The fourth course has one gut string and one copper wound. All the rest look like standard wound-on-nylon strings. Some are older and blacker than even the 17 year old strings I replaced on the guitar I keep at my dad's house for him to play. Others look like they're wound with copper. The task immediately at hand is the basso (cello) part for a (I believe) 19th century re-working of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. Most of the pieces are in flat keys-- one to four flats. The low note is a D below the bass clef. The five celli currently playing this part will undoubtedly cover up the lute, which, at the moment, is probably a good thing, but it's a start for me. I'd like to be able to lower the pitch of the lowest diapason to C if necessary for other works and retain good sound. Your sugggestions, please. Best regards, Steve
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