Stuart Walsh wrote:
> Frank, it did appear on the vihuela list.
Good. Apparently neither your original post nor my reply appeared on the
cittern list though, so I suppose everybody here are a bit confused what
it's all about right now. ;-)
Quick summary: After I mentioned the Storm ms. here about a month ago
(the "18th German Cittern Tuning" thread - 29-09-08), Rocky Mjos
contacted me for more info about it. I sent him scans of the cittern
related pages I have copies of (all the music but none of the pages with
playing instructions) and he took the job of transcribing the music,
posting it at the earlyguitar ning:
http://earlyguitar.ning.com/profile/RockyMjos
At the moment there are still a few unanswered (and possibly
unanswerable) questions about the music: what kind of cittern it was
written for, how many courses it had, how it was tuned, what cittern
tradition it belongs to etc.
Stuart Walsh wrote:
> So what size instrument are we talking about? A small bell cittern or
> something bigger?
We don't know if it was a bell cittern at all. The tuning intervals
seems to suggest that but it still may have been any kind of European
18th C. cittern.
> Rocky gives a tuning with a top d'' which implies a small thing.
Good point. Rocky's info is from an article describing the manuscript
(sorry, can't remember the author at the moment). It's quite possible
either that article of Storm himself got it an octave wrong.
> Ages ago you (Frank,or was it Are) said that Bellman had two
> citterns: a bell cittern from his grandfather and a smaller (!)
> instrument.
Oh no, Bellman's second instrument was larger than his first with a
bunch of extra theorbo style bass strings. We have absolutely no clue as
to how Bellman tuned either of his citterns though (or maybe we have -
let me think about this). In any case there doesn't seem to be any
strong connection between Bellman and Storm so it may not be relevant.
> So there were larger bell citterns?
I'm beginning to realise I know absolutely nothing about the Hamburger
citrinchen. I've always thought of it as a kind of fancy shaped English
guittar and never understood how small it really is.
There was an 18th century bell cittern at least as big as a modern
waldzither (probably close to a portuguese guitar in size) and at least
sometimes with one or two extra bass strings in addition to the five
double courses. It was known in Hamburg and in various places in
Scandinavia.
Is that news? I always thought that was the size of the Hamburger
citrinchen.
Here is a well-known painting of Carl Michael Bellman with his old bell
cittern:
http://hem.passagen.se/iblis/bellman.jpg
Even allowing for the inexact propotions of a painting, this certainly
isn't a small instrument.
I wrote in an earlier post:
>>> Bellman played a six course bell cittern he had inherited from his
>>> grandfather through most of his career.
Woops, seems it had *seven* courses! Sorry!
> And the Storm MS cittern is obviously for fingerstyle play but
> evidently the existing tablatures for the bell cittern imply plectrum
> technique (tiny pluckies usually do). Perhaps then the Storm MS is for
> a larger instrument?
Good point. You will notice from the painting that Bellman too seems to
have played with his fingers.
> In the Storm MS the instrument is described as 'zitter' but don't
>> Norwegians use the term 'sister'?
Sister is a fairly modern term, introduced to distinguish it from the
"alpine zither" that appeared during the 19th century.
> I seem to remember that Germans
> called their cittern, the 'zitter' (but I can't find where I got this
> idea from.) Maybe cyster, sister,sittra, zitter, zither are just as
> interchangeable as guitar, guittar, cetra, citra etc in Britain.
Yes.
>>> > Does the tablature unambiguously show seven courses?
..
> Mm..interesting. So perhaps a fruitful and intriguing difference of
> opinion between your interpretation of the MS and Rocky's?
Probably. Unfortunately the only way to answer the question properly is
to locate Storm's cittern or the original he copied the music from.
Unfortunately there's very little chance that'll happen.
Rocky has interpreted the two different ways of notating bass notes as
signifying two different bass strings. This is certainly what a
transcriber should do - adding a note about the issue and leaving the
decision to the interpreter.
The problem is that this doesn't really seem to fit musically. Some bass
notes are clearly wrong when played on a seventh rather than the sixth
course. On the occasions where seventh course bass notes do fit the
harmonies, they invariably lead to 2nd inversion chords that don't seem
to fit any musical style that may be relevant in this context.
Storm wasn't a professional musician but his piano compositions and
arrangements show that he had a fairly good understanding of the basis
harmonisation principles of his time. He certainly knew about chord
inversions and wouldn't have gotten it "wrong" out of ignorance. Nor
does it seem to be any indication he did it on purpose as a musical effect.
Frank Nordberg
http://www.musicaviva.com
http://stores.ebay.com/Nordbergs-Music-Store?refid=store
http://www.tablatvre.com
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