Diego and all,
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> Anyway, most of the survived instruments (and also
> my theorbo) can mount
> double strings.
> From this I can assume that we all play
> unhistorically single mounted
> theorbos...
Actually, there's quite clear iconographic evidence to
support single strings in both Italy and France. Just
two important ones that I've got at hand at the
moment: (Diego, perhaps you were saying this tongue
in cheek? I know you must be very familiar with the
following source from your excellent recording of it.)
Castaldi's 'Capricci a due stromenti' features
engravings of seven theorbos. Of these, four have
obstructed views of the fingerboard headstocks, but we
can make out three. (The numbers of strings vary. It
seems that the artist just dashed off a random number
of lines to give the impression.) The engraving
showing two theorbo players is unclear, but it seems
as though the instrument on the left has three or four
pegs on the top side of the pegbox. However, both the
(left) theorbo on the title page and the one that
Castaldi holds in his portrait obviously only have six
pegs on the fingerboard. What's more, they were both
_made_ to hold only six pegs, judging from the short
length of the well carved into the neck extension.
Gaultier's "La Rhetorique des dieux" includes
illustrations of four theorbos, all of which can
unambiguosly be seen to carry six pegs on the lower
pegbox. It is important to note that the artist chose
to include this detail because the carved wells of all
of the pegboxs are twice as long, the unoccupied upper
portion no doubt originally meant to hold more,
absent, pegs. Here's an example of single-stringing
by choice rather than design.
As for the physics of double-stringing (no doubt this
was done, too) - we're leaving out the single biggest
factor: the strings. Although many folks have made
valiant efforts, our modern gut is simply not the same
stuff. Again, just to use these two sources...
'Capricci' has a cherub stringing a lute, holding the
string up to test its trueness. The extra, unheld
portion gently falls to the ground like over-cooked
pasta. Every string instrument in 'La Rhetorique' has
excess string at the pegs which curls up almost enough
to make an afro wig. We all know there are many,
many, many more such examples.
However, if I was to try to force my - very expensive
- modern gut string to curl up into such a tight curve
by, say, wrapping it around my finger or a
candlestick, I'd end up with a nicely segmented
polygon instead. So, how can we be so sure that our
modern gut is "close enough" or "at least closer than
sythetics" to be making pronouncements about what type
of instruments we should or should not be playing?
Not enough for my money. (But, please, keep trying!)
Chris
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