doc rossi wrote: >>Also, is there any connection between the Waldzither and the "bell >>citterns" of a slightly earlier era? >> > > This is a great question, James, and one that I think always brings out > a tendency to compartmentalize.
I'm really learning this as we go along, but I've been studying the two German Waldzither sites a bit more and apparently the answer to that question is quite clearly no. I turns out the term Waldzither is much more specific to the Th�ringer variant of the cittern than I thought, and that particular cittern seems to have lived in a time warp, retaining all the characteristics of the renaissance cittern throughout the 17th and 18th and even into the 19th century while citterns elsewhere went through numerous metamorphoses. This c. 1800 specimem I find particularly interesting: http://www.studia-instrumentorum.de/MUSEUM/ZISTER/0634.htm Seems all you need to do to convert one of the EMS kit citterns into an early 19th century Th�ringer is to change the nut and the bridge. The Waldzither's 20th century popularity may well have been a romantic "back to the roots" reaction to the growing complexity of 19th C citterns. Frank Nordberg http://www.musicaviva.com To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
