I have never actually played in a baroque orchestra, even though I make my living exclusively by doing so. There is so much work I can only take half of what is offered. But from the lute point of view we are the most sensitive instrument to historical stringing. If the violins, cellos and double basses all used historical bridges, which act like mutes, historical bass bars, all unvarnished gut strings, and so on, there would be two big changes in the sound: 1. The volume would be less than half. 2. The bass register would get SOFTER instead of louder the lower you go. The is the exact opposite of the current sound. We are listening to the opposite of baroque bass.
The result? The lute would be between two to three times as loud, and the orchestra would have an extraordinary transparency as well as a silvery, warm tone. Also, you would hear the tone of the lute as opposed to just the pluck. There are orchestras just now experimenting with historical stringing and winds, I'm sure it will take some time to get it to work, but I have no doubt that is what I would like to do on some level. In our ensemble we are converting one string at a time. Unfortunately, professionals can't change their strings and bridges and bass bars, so realistically one is looking at bankrolling the hardware, which is where we were in the 70s. dt At 05:01 AM 12/19/2009, you wrote: >On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 1:22 PM, Franz Mechsner ><[email protected]> wrote: > > > your answer hurts. > >I am sorry it did. It was not intended, I can assure you. I think a >'normal' theorbo is loud enough in any orchestra, just plucking >basses, so for me the liuto (or theorbo) forte is not necessary. But >if it is to someone else, let him/her be happy with it. > > > Liuto Forte seems to be THE bad and heretic word here > >Indeed. ;-) But obviously there's nothing wrong with playing nice >music on any instrument, even on the unmentionable ones. ;-) > > > and to even utter it > > seems to disguise=A0one as an ignorant to be excluded from every respectf= >ul > > discussion > >Not at all, just from the one dealing with whether a b-guitar is >appropriate in Monteverdi's Vespers. But I'm sure there are some >listers eager to start a discussion on the liuto forte (again). > > > if people are getting dogmatic > >I hope nobody is dogmatic here, although some stances in this >discussion, as in many others, seem to be taken rather strongly. >Consider it part of the rhetorics. > >David > >--=20 >******************************* >David van Ooijen >[email protected] >www.davidvanooijen.nl >******************************* > > > >To get on or off this list see list information at >http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
