At 01:06 PM 10/12/2006, Howard Posner wrote: >On Thursday, Oct 12, 2006, at 07:51 America/Los_Angeles, David Rastall >wrote: > > Okay, here's what we have so far in a nutshell to account for the > > demise of the lute: > > > > The lute died: > > > > 1. Because it wasn't able to maintain its primary function as an > > accompaniment instrument due to the decline of continuo > >I don't think the decline of continuo had much to do with it. Continuo >was doing fine in the second half of the 18th century; lutes weren't.
I agree, Howard. I really believe it was more a function of the passing of the Doctrine of the Affections and the rising taste for development and modulation to remote keys (which keyboards can do in continuo); unfrettable diatonically tuned strings (as many lute types had) just couldn't cope across their full range in modulation. If you can't use the full range of an instrument, why have it? The simple symmetry through contrast of the rising classical aesthetic was also better complimented by the clearer, more linear note separation of the new single-strung guitar (i.e., that timbre thing again). A side line, I think the modern mandolin deserves a little more credit for keeping lute kin alive. The first incarnations to carry the name were very much a type of soprano lute, even tuned wholly or mostly in fourths. A bit simplified, but the Neapolitan mandolin type came to be in the mid 18th-c. when violin tuning was applied to a lute-like sound box (borrowed from existing mandolini) and a chitarra battente-like soundboard and stringing arrangement. Its derivatives persist today. Eugene To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
