Mark rightly wrote: > your use of gut strings is very idealistic, but using a renaissance lute > for > Bach and an archlute for the Trauerode ? > Maybe if you used the historically correct instruments you wouldn't have > had > the g-string blues, but the f (baroque lute) and e (mandore) string > blues.
It was about time for the HIPolice to catch me, as I already left some clues earlier on. ;-) Of course, you are entirely correct. I play Bach on a 10-course because I was asked to play a suite in a very nice series (amongst some others Sigiswald Kuyken plays cello suites on his 'new' authetic shoulder cello) by a very nice man for a very nice salary. I am for sale, I know, and it is so much fun to study Bach! I don't play d-minor lute and given the instruments I do play I think the best choice was my Van der Waals 10-course: sufficiently close to an 11-course baroque lute with a very free and resonant sound. I transposed BWV995 to c-minor to make full use of the range of the instrument: lots of low Cs, and up to 10th fret on first course. It's not perfect for Bach, but it's not too bad either, I think. Trauerode on an archlute is quite all right, I should think? For such continuo any large continuo lute would do, wouldn't it? Perhaps some choices of lutes are more historically correct than others, and an 'Italian' archlute is not on top of the list, but it's still on the list in my book. David To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
