Wikipedia has much higher standard these days.
RT
----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Stetson" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 27, 2009 11:51 AM
Subject: [LUTE] Re: lute, the magic instrument
Dear Eugene,
Remember to breathe.
Of course, we all know of cases like this where our beloved instruments
are misrepresented. At least there's some awareness that there are, in
fact, different kinds of mandolin. For most of the world, the word now
means the f-holed, scrolled F-style, and that's all. What about the
poor pipa players who hear that they "share...double strings (and a)
vaulted body?"
I suspect the "bastard" part was translated without a full
understanding of the extended implications in English. I also suspect
that "Medieval" means "Renaissance" in this context. Perhaps the whole
paragraph is the result of a half-hour Wikipedia search?
And, just among ourselves, aren't they all (the instruments, that is!)
bastards, when you get right down to it?
Best to all, and keep playing,
Chris.
"Eugene C. Braig IV" <[email protected]> 5/27/2009 10:03 AM >>>
That is a truly horrible little essay. Of course, it's easier to argue
that
"the best known representative in Europe" is the renaissance lute
rather
than the "(medieval) lute."
WARNING: Mandolin-driven rant pending
I'm particularly perplexed by the statement "... whereas the baroque
mandoline was developed later as a bastard between a classical lute of
the
Baroque period and the Neapolitan mandoline of the time." This appears
to
reverse the development of things to have carried "mandolin"-like
names. I
suspect "Baroque mandoline" to be a translation from "barockmandoline"
which
is commonly used to designate a 5- to 6-course instrument with a
sickle-shaped pegbox tuned [g] b e' a' d'' g''. Ms. Prakopchyk does
play a
modern German, somewhat idealized version of such instruments. There
is no
reason to doubt the original forms of such instruments very
comfortably
predated the "Neapolitan mandolin of the time." There are no extant
instruments of the Neapolitan mandolin family until the 1740s at the
very
earliest and no dedicated repertoire until the 1760s. If anything,
the
Neapolitan mandolin, that which gave rise to all modern incarnations
of
mandoin, is a later "bastard" between the approximate range of the
older and
more lute-like "mandolino"/"mandola" of Vivaldi, Scarlatti, G.B.
Sammartini,
Arrigoni, Dalla Casa, etc. ("barockmandoline" or "baroque mandoline" if
you
will), construction features to support wire strings borrowed from
chitarra
battente, and a standard tuning scheme borrowed from violins.
In spite, Katsia is a very fine player of whatever mandolin type to
which
she lays hands:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1V2l45CD_4
Best,
Eugene
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
On
Behalf Of wolfgang wiehe
Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2009 5:22 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [LUTE] lute, the magic instrument
hi all,
a friend of mine send this festival-information to me:
http://www.tff-rudolstadt.de/english/e_htm/e_09/magic.htm
this years special: lutes
"Chordophones, string instruments, are usually divided in two
categories:
bowed and plucked instruments. The best known bowed chordophone is
the
violin; the family of lutes belongs to the plucked chordophones. Att
TFF09, we deal with the sub-family of short-neck lutes, i.e. those
instruments whose neck is decidedly shorter than the body. The best
known
representative in Europe is the (medieval) lute which * as its
relatives
in China (pi*pa), Japan (biwa), Greece (laouto) or Hungary
(mandora) * is
most likely a progeny of the Arabian *ud whereas the baroque
mandoline was
developed later as a bastard between a classical lute of the Baroque
period and the Neapolitan mandoline of the time. The Swedish mandora
is a
bass lute developed in the 1990s.
The majority of these instruments share the same features: double
strings,
vaulted body, and a pegbox at right angle to the neck. They ask for
virtuoso playing, and the visitors of TFF09 will get this from
Géza Fábri (HUN), kobza
Daniel Fredriksson (SWE), mandora
Katsia Prakopchyk (BLR), baroque mandoline
Adel Salameh (PAL), *ud
Dimitris Varelopoulos (GRE), laouto
Zhong YuFeng (TWN), pi*pa, moon guitar
special guests
Naziha Azzouz (ALG), vocals
Tünde Ivanovics (SER/HUN), vocals
Michael Metzler (DEU), percussion
To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
