Dear Martyn, I agree with you criticism wholeheartedly. Initially I wanted to put officially in inverted commas but, for fear of offending the experts (or the Office of Vihuela authentication, as you put it) omitted them.
The whole subject of authentic vihuela construction is still well "under construction". New evidence, however, comes to light (as E.0748 'Chambure', for example) and encourages non-experts (myself included) to look at things from a different perspective. As for me, the "Dias guitar" is the ultimate vihuela. Regards, Alexander Batov From: martyn . hodgson Subject: Re: fluted ribs Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 06:12:44 -0700 Dear Alexander, I'm sorry to say that the below is a good example of how a supposition, if repeated often enough, seems to transform into established fact. Just how and who has 'authenticated' that 'three instruments are considered "officially" as authentic vihuelas'? Only one (in Jacquemart-Andre) has gained universal acceptance; there are still unresolved issues around the others. Incidentally I'm unaware of the Office of Vihuela authentication - I'd be grateful for its address. It is a common error outside scholarly circles (and sometimes within it) to proceed from 'it could be' to 'it is' and we ought not to encourage such sloppy thinking. regards Martyn Hodgson To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
