You asked for speculation: I think these Italian mid 18thC instruments with string lengths in the high 50s to mid 60s are more likely to be the 18thC Italian continuation of the old 'liuto' (usually in an A tuning ie A d g b e' a' or even G tuning) rather than the larger Mandores/Gallichons (mid 60s to high 70s) in their D or E tuning with the third between the 3rd and 2nd course. I'm also not convinced that to name them large Mandolas (as Tyler does [Tyler & Sparks:The Early Mandolin 1989]- with no evidence as far as I can see) is accurate. - Besides string length, one other distinguishing feature may be neck length: the M/G generally allows 10 or 11 frets on the neck whereas, from the limited number of these Italian instruments I've seen, only 8 frets seem more common (but.........). Regarding early sources for tuning the Mandola, the Talbot MS (c.1700) gives c f bflat d' g' c' for the 6 course 'Mandole' but the instrument he measured was quite small with a string length c.43cm. Tyler also equates this sort of instrument with the larger 18thC ones with string length of 55 - 65cm but then suggests (no evidence is given) they were tuned as a guitar (ie in E). In my view an A or G tuning in lute intervals is more likely; indeed, I believe these instruments are simply the 18thC Italian continuation of the old lute /'liuto' (rather like Dalla Casa's instrument but without the 4 extra theorboed basses). There are a number of 18thC Italian paintings showing such instruments (some with one or two extra basses as a number of extant instruments) being played in domestic surroundings. Tyler also suggests that these instruments were the ones required by G F Giuliani (and Hoffmann) for the 'liuto' part in his quartets. However, again no evidence is given and since the parts go down to low C (ie below the bass clef), the relatively short string length makes this highly unlikely. Sparks mentions the Mandolone 'developed' by Ferrari in the mid 18thC and tuned as an old lute in A (with 2 extra basses) but strangely suggests that the instrument required by Giuliani and Hoffmann was the Mandola as described by Tyler (see above) which, with its relatively short string length, is highly unlikely to have been in a low C tuning. Having said this, I would welcome observations on what the instruments called for by Giuliani and Hoffmann actually were: Hladky (1970s) in his modern publication of these pieces suggests a sort of bass mandolin (like the modern Mandolone/Mandocello'?) but tuned as a 5 string cello (ie C G d a e') but gives no source for this suggestion. Certainly, the 'liuto' parts in the quartets look more like cello writing than any contemporary Mandora/Gallichon or Guitar writing (ie with their chords and arpeggios) and would be perfectly playable with a plectrum. MH EUGENE BRAIG IV <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: At 02:52 AM 7/24/2007, Martyn Hodgson wrote: > The Gallichon/Mandora had a number of common tunings: principally the > large continuo instrument (string length c.96cm) in A developed in the > late 17thC and the mostly amateur played instrument in D (c68-76cm string > length) . Later in the 18thC the E tuning is frequently required > (c.64/66cm); it is speculated that the Mandora gave rise to the extra > bass course (ie 6th) on the guitar at around this time.
I know of a fair amount written on Germanic mandora and gallichon, but there is a similar paradigm of which I am curious and of which I am aware of much less written. I asked about it in an active thread a couple years back, which immediately silenced all discussion and left me hanging. I thought it might be time to test the inquiry on any new blood. There are largish instruments that parallel diminutive mandolini from mid- to late-18th-c. Italian shops, complete with sickle-shaped pegboxes. The effort to directly parallel fixed-bridge mandolins is obvious, especially in a 1790s example by Milan's Presbler held by NYC's Met, that being a pair of instruments: a typical, 6-course, g-to-g" mandolino with a scale length around 31 cm and a larger 7-course instrument around 57-58 cm, the two obviously built as a deliberate pair in sharing rose and rosette, decorative fingerboard terminus, materials (bowls of rosewood ribs with pale spacers, fruitwood and parchment rose, etc.), bridge mustaches, pearl pegbox trim and finial, etc. There is another 7-course Presbler in Milan's Castello Sforzesco Museum (1797, 57 cm). They also hold a 7-course Monzino (58 cm, 1795). There is a similar 7-course instrument with a 63-cm scale in the Fiske collection that they call "Presbler school", but it looks to me much more like yet another 6 1-cm instrument by Radice (Milan, undated) held in Nuremberg. In essence, such 7-course instruments don't appear to me to have been uncommon. Morey (1993) catalogues another five similar instruments instruments with six (one with five) courses and scale lengths of 57-68 cm. He lists another five with scale lengths of 43-55 cm including an early 6-course, 53-cm piece by M. Sellas (1642). Carlo Cecconi hybridizes Presbler and Monzino for his reproductions of such things, and he names them "mandolino Milanese basso" (but naming a stringed instrument as a diminutive bass seems an odd concept to me). I'd probably opt to call it "mandola basso" or similar. Some authors have implied such things might have been referred to simply as "leuto" (e.g., our own Eric Liefeld in reference to Vivaldi or Tyler & Sparks in reference to early classical chamber works by the likes of Hoffmann or "the other" Giuliani for mandolin and "leuto", etc.). Does anybody know of period Italian sources for tuning 7-course (or even 6-course) mandola/leuto? Many of these instruments seem too short in scale for what is commonly cited as a Brescianello-like D to d' with an added diatonic bass. Might they use a guitar-like core of E to e', adding a diatonic D? ...Or even as an "octave mandolino", G to g' with an added F? Any speculation even? Thanks, Eugene To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html --------------------------------- Yahoo! Mail is the world's favourite email. Don't settle for less, sign up for your freeaccount today. --
