Roger E. Blumberg wrote > >there was so much variation, and so little standardization, that it's hard >to pin things down to one visual sound-bite if you will. The Signorelli >fresco is c.1500, so the instrument at top dead center is definately a >vihuela-viola. Big instruments apear to have been common, one of many >common sizes and shapes present from let's say 1490 to 1550. > >here's some examples of big ones: > >http://tinyurl.com/7hmla > >http://www.thecipher.com/viol-guitar_GonesseOrgan_1508_France_det1.jpg > >http://tinyurl.com/bvbh7 > >http://www.thecipher.com/braccio_AngelConsort1503cntrarco_deta1.jpg > >http://tinyurl.com/9vuzl > >http://www.thecipher.com/vihuela_Luis_Milan_El_Maestro_1536sm.jpg > >http://www.thecipher.com/vihuela_16th_monasteryGuadalupe_deta.jpg > >http://tinyurl.com/9dmp8 > >http://tinyurl.com/8a75f > >
I particularly like the one with the guy resting his foot on the Hiscox case :-) Nothing changes! I know the music changes, but in some ways it is the 'nothing changes' aspect I like about this material. You can see the same posture and the same captured moment as you might today, and somehow get a sense that despite the context, the same affection for the instrument (call it a vihuela or a guitar, I think we are looking at a low register accompaniment instrument with a range well suited to many vocal registers - then as now). If you take a modern dreadnought guitar and attempt to play it in the same posture as the vihuela, almost 'classical position', it immediately looks enormous so perhaps these are not huge, just guitar-sized. > >here's a blow up the one you're wondering about >http://www.thecipher.com/Signorelli_2down-left_deta.jpg >The peg-stock looks typical bent-back lute to me, and vihuela-viola can be >found with many different types of peg-boxes including the right-angle lute >style. It's very hard to tell from a dead-on frontal shot if there's a deep >bowl or not. It could be flat-backed, as could many others. I'd buy it, but >it's just too hard to tell. > > The headstock, when built this way, can be fitted into the neck without requiring a glue joint. Though most instruments today are also glued, Egyptian ouds use a simple kind of spike which fits into a hole in the end of the neck, and the tension of the string actually holds the headstock in place. So I can imagine the same technique would be used in preference, as it can not be done with the straight-line string tension of a cittern-type headstock. Study the other images (below) and you may notice that the instrument comes half way or more down the thigh towards the knee. This example has nearly all the thigh exposed, the entire length; I don't see how it can be other than a flatback, or a construction like the modern Portuguese mandolin (straight sides and slightly bowled staved back). >One could imagine that both of these instruments too, seen from the front, >are flat-back. >http://www.thecipher.com/lutes_BartolomeoMontagna_1498_det.jpg >Maybe they're flat-backed chittara? Maybe the vihuela line included a >tear-drop contoured instrument the whole time and no-one is seeing it >because they're fixated on bowl-backed lutes and projecting something that >isn't actually there, i.e. a beep bowl. I had to use this same kind of >argument re thin-ribbed viols in general, i.e. that they existed, and in >fairly large quantity. > > I think they are bowlback. For technical reasons, the particular lute shape used influences how you can build the back. I had a Russian guitar (1920s) shaped exactly the same as the enigmatic Signorelli instrument. It used a staved back, but not a bowl, because the bends involved just don't fit the shape. More like the depth of an Ovation guitar today, and with distinct ribs and ridges. I no longer have it, but the Russian guitar could almost be the Signorelli item apart from the lute-type headstock. >Here's a monster bass vihuela from Catalan, with no apearent waist indents >of any kind, flat back, slab constructed, late 15th century, lower left >http://tinyurl.com/75jvf > > What interests me in this is the pipe and tabor player who is beating a psaltery instead of a drum - hitting the strings of the vertical zither-like instrument with a narrow wand - that looks like a practical and interesting alternative to hitting a tabor, same basic technique for the pipe - never seen it before. >This lute-shaped or tear-drop bowed instrument may be flat-backed too, 1510 >http://tinyurl.com/b4esk > > Either flat or extremely shallow - a true bowl would be impossible to play in that position. >So you could be right, who knows. It's worth investigating, maybe someone >already has, I don't know. I have seen a few others that I also thought or >know were flat backed and tear-dropped shaped, smaller ones usually. > >I don't think you can gauge much about 16th century instruments by pointing >to current viola seen in Portugal in any event (just to grab that loose >end). > > > > I took a walk in the Marrakesh souk looking for instruments last month. They had an amazing variety of flatback, gut, wire, everything. Each one has a name but I didn't try to work out whether they were modern corruptions or genuinely old instruments, because everything in souk was rubbish. I contacted a professional player instead. He sold me a (used) standard six-course large Moroccan oud, which is an almost perfect shape and build for an early 16th century large bodied lute, with an almost 'straight' end and very simple design. I did not buy, since 600 Euros was a bit more than I wanted to pay, a seven-course bass oud which resembles the largest lutes shown in early representations. Maybe the vihuela with its 700-mm ish scale (obviously on that level) was played like the Moroccan bass oud, which is also a long scale, more than a modern guitar, primarily as a bass to accompany voice, fiddle and tambourine - the Moroccan traditional ensemble resembles a mediaeval southern European ensemble very closely in instrument line-up. Morocco is a place I'd like to visit properly - I was only there for a couple of days - because the music is so very close to Andalucian themes and the oud technique includes a bare finger method close to guitar fashion. David David To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
