Stuart Walsh wrote:
> A very interesting thread. Just expressing a few doubts here!
Indeed. Hope everybody agrees, cause this may go on for a while. ;-)
> It would be really interesting to see some scans of the chorales form
> the Moravian Archives.
Me too. That would be really helpful.
> Maybe...?. Do we even know if the nut is original?
One of the questions I asked the Stockholm museum is whether there are
any signs of the cittern having been rebuilt at some time.
I got a reply from them btw. They'll be happy to help but it may take
them a while to gather the data I requested. So for now we'll just have
to wait and see.
[the Krafft painting]
> But a cithrinchen is a small instrument with a thin body (like other
> seventeenth century citterns). The thing that Bellman holds in the
> painting is much, much bigger with a really deep body.
Yes. This is one of the four reasons why I stipulate there might have
been two different bell citterns, the small citrinchen and a
considerably alrger one that may have been called a citrinchen or zither.
> Frank, I don't know about this. Which cithrinchen tuning? I've seen
> references (Groves, I'm pretty sure) to the maj7 tuning in C and F and
> now, thanks to Rocky, to Bb. And you mentioned another weird one. So: do
> we really know what size the Storm cittern would have been?
No but assuming the tuning given is correct (another issue we need to
investigate further), it must have been small. The scale length can't
have been more than 36 cm (14") and probably less.
Regarding the various tunings of the Hamburger citrinchen, Michel's
article which I referred to earlier, is quite informative - although
less so than some of his similar articles on other German cittern
variants. Perhaps I should have gone into more details. I understand not
everybody here are comfortable reading articles in German:
1) A manuscript, started in 1664 and continued until at least 1680, with
music in tablature for "Hamburger citrinchen" gives two different
tunings a fourth apart:
c-e-g-b-e'
f-a-c'-e'-a'
This is the earliest source of insformation about the tuning.
(Incidentally, the two different tunings here is another of the four
reasons behind my theory of the citrinchen as a family rather than as a
single type/size of isntrument).
2) In 1718 Johann Arnold Vockerodt mentions three different tunings:
f-a-c'-e'-a' (same as the highest 1664 tuning)
d-g-c'-e'-a'
f-b-d'-f'-b'
3) In 1912 Georg Kinsky conluded that the Hamburger citrinchen was tuned
like a baroque guitar: A-d-g-b-e'. There's very little evidence to
support this though, just a quote from a 1689 book by Jacob Kremberg
stating that a five course "Hamburger Citringen" can be used as a
substitute for a guitar.
Hoever, it is interesting to note that the four course d-g-b-e' cittern
tuning was indeed known in Thüringen around the mid 18th C.
4) In 1992 Dieter Kirsch and Lenz Meierott suggested that some of the
later pieces in the 1664 manuscript may actually have been written for a
tuning as high as
b-d'-f'-a'-d''
If I understand Michel correctly, this suggestion was based on some
string gauge specs written on f. 89 of the ms and may not be valid if it
turns out the citrinchen did indeed come in different sizes. It is
however interesting that the tuning they came up with is the same as the
one given for the Storm ms.
[The lute-cittern]
> Any more details on this?
Sure:
http://www.studia-instrumentorum.de/MUSEUM/zist_laute.htm
> Here's a picture from the 19th century. Perhaps a lute-cittern, in
> duet with an alpine horn!?
Most interesting. I'm not quite sure if the instrument is supposed to be
a lute-cittern or just a regular lute though.
Frank Nordberg
http://www.musicaviva.com
http://stores.ebay.com/Nordbergs-Music-Store?refid=store
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