Dear Elias,
> Gaultier-Portrait shows the little finger even behind the
> bridge. 3 different positions, 3 different moments, 3
> different painters, etc..... How should a painter of our days
> do a piano player's hands showing "typically Russian"
> technique? Would someone be able 500 years later to tell? I
> think no painter would care about it, noone would have the
> knowledge to even observe details like that. Nor would the
> pianoplayer give any importance to it.
Right, but in the mean the right hand of the portraied baroque lute players
is closer to the bridge of that, say, of Francesco da Milano. Then there
might be differences, someone closer to the bridge, someone with the pinky
behind the bridge etc. depending on the personal taste and the hand of the
player. There are the same differencies nowadays amongst different players.
> rather low tension, also for the sake of general sound. A
> Polish lutenist that has attended seminars with H. Smith
> confirmed that, he said that Smith is using low tension not
> only on baroque but also on renaissance lute and on vijuela.
> I can hear the difference even on CDs, however for
> renaissance lute I generally prefer the sound of somewhat
> higher tension.
We should understand what "low tension" means. As physics of strings
demonstrates, given a 70cm baroque lute and a 0.40 chantarelle you can never
go below ~3.7N of tension unless you tune the lute a lot below its nominal
pitch or chose a smaller lute, and both things are unhistorical. This
chantarelle tension means a general tension of around 2.9-3N for the other
courses or the chantarelle would be too much stiff compared to the other
strings. This is the lowest possible tension, then it might be that someone
uses a higher tension in Baroque lutes, I don't know, but if one uses gut
basses this is not a good idea because those strings are already pretty
thick (even if loaded or half wound) and rising the tension means to have
thicker basses that actually would sound worse. There are quite limited
choices in stringing a lute when using gut strings, because lutes were
designed to exploit the possibilities of gut strings at their extreme
limits. With synthetic or wound strings there is much more freedom but it's
no more historical.
The same holds for Renaissance lutes. The diapason of a Renaissance
lute is the longest possible to have a chantarelle tuned at g pitch (or the
lute nominal pitch) lasting 2-3 weeks and the thickness of the chantarelle
is the smallest possible in order to have basses as thin as possible. At the
time it was impossible to make strings thinner that 0.40mm that means a
tension for the other courses of ~2.7N. My opinion is that the single
chantarelle was due to the need to have a higher tension for it while
keeping the same feeling under the fingers of the other course, double
stringed but with lower tension. Lower tension for the lower strings means
thinner basses and a lower possible low pitch. Renaissance lute remained
with 6c until a new string technology, whatever it was, gave the possibility
to have bass strings brilliant enough at lower pitches, only then a 7th
course was added. Moving to 10c or 11c didn't change the lowest pitch that
was determined by the string technology. Actually the lowest note of an 7c
is D while on a 10c or a French Baroque 11c is C. To go one tone below (or
to say better a minor third as the pitch was now at 415Hz) was possible
because both 10c and 11c have a longer diapason. ~64cm minus ~59cm is a
little more the space of a fret, i.e. between a semitone and a tone lower,
and ~68cm is something more than a whole tone below a Renaissance lute,
which keeps the thickness of the lowest bass more or less the same. This of
course forced to research different tunings in order to have the possibility
to lower the pitch of the chantarelle, because at those lengths it lasts too
much less than on a Renaissance lute or even breaks at once. In fact the
first accordes nouveaux changed only the higher part of the old tuning and
always in the direction of lowering the highest pitch. 10c lute is a very
problematic instrument because it's too long for having a long lasting
chantarelle in old tuning and too short to have a good sounding low C. It
din't survived too much indeed. The D minor tuning was the winning solution
but it didn't affected the pitch of the lowest string that remained C (on an
11c) just because thicker strings wouldn't have worked well enough. 13c was
possible because the bass rider adds ~6cm to the vibrating length and
actually the low A has the same thickness of the C on the fingerboard: again
all things corresponds.
Ornamentation is not a problem with a tension of ~3N because the
longer diapason makes it a lot more easier that on a Renaissance lute with a
10cm shorter neck. It is very comfortable indeed, much more than on a
Renaissance lute. It isn't a chance that extensive use of the strascino
(i.e. slurs) is reserved to theorbos, baroque guitars and baroque lutes,
that is instruments with long diapasons.
Francesco
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