Yes but.. The "but" for me hinges on the words "professional virtuosi" - as someone who does not earn his bread playing music (thereby enforcing literal "amateur" status) I have only the time left over from a job that eats 50 hours weekly. So I don't have time to keep even one instrument up to a standard I would respect. Sometimes the Baroque lute sits around unplayed for weeks. These days it's the vihuela. Can't even remember the last time I even tuned the poor old viola da gamba- and at one point it had more professional importance for me than the lutes. The steel-string guitar (my "stealth" opharion/bandora) sits in the same corner keeping the viol company. I see them making sad faces at me, bored out of their minds.
At one time, it was the noble amateur who was esteemed as being the most learned sort of well-rounded human being; for only he (living off the labor of others, not even burdened by maintaining his own home & personal chores) who could play a number of expensive plucked strings, bowed strings, perhaps also a keyboard and wind instrument or two, AND had time for poetry, tennis, riding and even hunting! One of the criticisms leveled at the violoncello in the 18th century, I believe in "The Defense of the Viol against the pretensions of the Violoncello" (unsure of proper French spelling, amateur that I am) was that it required a single purpose fanatical training just to play the fretless instrument in tune, and still too much time to maintain proficiency, whereas the cultured, well-rounded, educated gentleman could retain enough ability to stay well practiced enough on the viol and still have time for a full life, including of course other instruments. The real professional, then as now, had- and has- more time, (even if still insufficient for all things) by virtue of it being his profession. Dan, grudgingly dilettante to the end. > > Isn't it possible that playing several plucked instruments can be >> mutually reinforcing? If I spend all day playing the vihuela, won't >> that improve my lute playing? If I work on achieving perfect, >> pearl-like tones on my six-course, won't that improve my tone on >> the >> ten-course? If I learn to play the bass strings on my baroque lute, >> won't that help me on the theorbo basses? If I learn to play >> continuo > > on the theorbo, won't that make me a better all-round musician? > >The lute world consists of a diversity of instruments, and off-hand I >can't think of any professional virtuosi who have confined themselves >to just one of them. My point is that I don't think their virtuosity >has been diminished by the variety of instruments they have recorded on. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
