Howard: To clarify, Bob Lundberg did indeed think of the circa 60 cm lute as an 'alto' lute. You are right in pointing out that his book was not quite left fully edited as far as consistent terminology, etc. But I think he would stand by his classification of lute sizes. When he passed away, Bob was in the middle of building a 62 cm Maler lute for me, which he deliberately (and provacatively) called an alto lute. His further contextual comments on the subject indicated that he felt lutenists today played small lutes because they are easier to play, and that larger lutes, circa 66 cm, were likely more common in the 16th century. Best wishes, Ron Andrico www.mignarda.com > Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2009 10:00:36 -0700 > To: [email protected] > From: [email protected] > Subject: [LUTE] Re: Alto lute help > > On Jul 19, 2009, at 9:29 AM, [email protected] wrote: > > > In Robert Lundberg's book "Historical Lute Construction" there is a > > photograph of 5 lutes (pp.8&9); small-octave, descant, alto, > > tenor and > > bass. He lists the tunings for them as being d", a', g', e' & d' > > respectively. > > > > While I always thought of the g' tuning as being a tenor lute, > > apparently it's an alto lute, and (I think?) the most commonly > > played. > > There's nothing authoritative about that book's terminology, and it's > occasionally at odds with what's commonly accepted. For example, it > calls the 64cm archlute on page 14 a "theorbo" and apparently > reserves the term "archlute" for smaller liuto attiorbato types that > have double-strung extension basses. It needs to be taken with a > grain of salt because the material for his book was generated over a > quarter of a century, during which time knowledge and terminology > changed, and Lundberg died leaving a draft instead of a finished > book. The editors chose to treat it as a sort of historical > document, and not "correct" it. > > Sometimes the book's terminology is internally inconsistent. Page 2 > defines the Transition period (between renaissance and baroque) as > 1620-1660, but the term is used on page 10 to mean beginning about > 1600 and lasting until nearly 1680, and on page 12 we read that the > one lute-family instrument being built during this period is the > theorbo, which Lundberg couldnt possibly have meant, no matter how > he was using the word "theorbo." > > Anyway, don't go around calling an A lute a tenor; it will just > create misunderstanding. > -- > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html __________________________________________________________________
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