Stuart, I have very little knowledge in the history of EG (Philip Coggin's
article in EM, 1987 is all that I've read so far) and how it all spread
around, either from England to France or vice versa. I'm only focusing on to
_where the idea of watch-key tuning mechanism could come from_, that's all.
The earliest guittars with watch keys by Preston can probably be dated by
1760s. I never saw precisely dated Preston with such keys, neither those
with ordinary wooden pegs that also bear his stamp. The French ones are
dated from 1760s (the ones that I saw anyway), so they all come about at
approximately the same time. Would French just steal his idea? I haven't got
a clue. I only know they had lots of sophisticated musical instrument making
technologies at that time too; like the Erars for example, making all those
incredibly complex mechanisms in harps etc.
Alexander
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stuart Walsh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Alexander Batov" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
<[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 10:29 PM
Subject: Re: [CITTERN] Re: Preston tuner history
Alexander Batov wrote:
There is even more to the story. I came across a number of French cistres
(some with seven-courses) which had watch key tuners without Preston mark
on
them. Were they copied after Preston's, smuggled out of England and
rebranded ...? I very much doubt it.
Apart from one puzzling cistre in the V&A, it looks to me that there was a
guittar (English guitar) fad in Britain that then spread to France and the
Low Countries. Guittars and music appear in Britain from the 1750s and
start to appear in France a decade or so later. The guitharre angloise -
tuned in C - is mentioned by Joseph Carpentier in 1770 (who evidently
disliked the pitch at C). Pieces from the guittar repertoire published in
Britain are sometimes ripped off and appear anew in (later) French
publications with the French preferred tuning of a modified A chordal
tuning.
So there really does seem a direction of influence from Britain to France.
From a French perspective, they picked up an inconsiderable instrument
from Britain and made it into something more tolerable!
So, the British use of watch keys - and metal tuners - would
understandably be taken up by the French too.
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