--- "Mathias Rösel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
 
> You mean, where are they being kept? 

No.


> To think, however, that
> the angelique must
> have been developed, rather than invented, is an
> unnessecary premise,
> IMHO.

It is extremely rare to find instruments that are
simply invented, especially one that is so similar to
other existing ones.  What about the lute itself?  We
all know of its older brother, the oud, even though
the outlines between the two become more and more
blurred as we go back in time..  In fact, nearly all
of our present day instruments have changed but little
since their invention.  Things like material, keys,
valves, frets, "accidents" of design, merely represent
technological modifications of an initial idea (the
"invention") that often stretched back somewhere in
pre-history.   

 
>The angelique
> considerably differs from the
> lute and the theorbo in two aspects, mainly: it is
> single strung (lutes
> are generally, theorbos more often than not, strung
> with courses, i. e.
> paired strings), and it's tuned like... - well: the
> harp
> (notwithstanding the fretboard of the angelique). No
> fourths or fifths,
> no re-entrant tuning either.

True, the practical tuning setup of the two
instruments is completely different, but the
angelique's tessitura is completely identical to that
of the 'theorbe de pieces.'  According to Talbot this
is from low C to high e (for 17-string instruments) -
_exactly_ the same range.  Could the angelique have
even played theorbo music (with, perhaps, a little
modification) then?  


>The bridge, pegbox, nut, must be
> changed anyway (the
> angelique bears 16 or 17 strings).

This is no evidence that the angelique was created out
of thin air.  (Who, as in the case of the archlute or
German swan neck, has been credited with its
invention?)  The same could be said of the development
of the 11-course lute from the 10-or-fewer-course
lute.  Like the angelique, what started with
experiments in tuning ended up with the invention of a
new kind of lute - NOT the new lute and new tuning
popping up together one day on a calendar.  

Why would anyone take an existing lute, add a new nut,
bridge and rider -  just for one more course?  Why not
just "invent" an 11-course as you propose happened
with the angelique?  The answer lies, of course, in
the fact that many people started experimenting with
tuning which eventually called for the structural
changes.  But we know that conversions were certainly
done.  As 11 courses became the norm, such instruments
began to be made in their own right, even as
conversions persisted to the days of the 13th course. 

So it must have been with the angelique.  First, it
was a plain theorbo with funky harp tuning, then an
altered theorbo (new bridge, etc.), then finally a
newly built dedicated instrument.

 
>The
> unique feature of the angelique certainly is its
> tuning which is neither
> devoloped nor taken over from the theorbo or lute.

Its tuning unique?  Not taken over from anything?  You
just mentioned that it is like a harp.  Its external
design is essentially a theorbo. 


> Swan necks are
> secondary features, I'd say.

Agreed!


Chris

> -- 
> Best,
> 
> Mathias
> 
> http://mathiasroesel.livejournal.com 
> http://www.myspace.com/mathiasroesel 
> http://de.geocities.com/mathiasroesel 
> --
> 
> To get on or off this list see list information at
>
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> 


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