As far as renaissance goes, the Mueller harpsichord has many of the qualities of a lute, tone transposition and a crank that moves the plucking point closer to the bridge and closer to the center. I can imagine that most players would vary their plucking points, though some would prefer to stay planted until the divot burnishes through. dt
At 10:55 AM 1/20/2010, you wrote: >Agricola wrote: > >"... heard a 'Lautenclavicymbel' in Leipzig in about 1740, designed >by Mr. Johann Sebastian Bach and made by Mr. Zacharias Hildebrand, >which was smaller in size than a normal harpsichord but in all other >respects similar. It had two choirs of gut strings, and a so-called >little octave of brass strings. It is true that in its normal setting >(that is, when only one stop was drawn) it sounded more like a >theorbo than a lute. But if one drew the lute-stop (such as is found >on a harpsichord) together with the cornet stop, one could almost >deceive professional lutenists." > >I think we have to take this with a large pinch of salt - like you >say, modern reconstructions of lautenwerks sound exactly as you would >expect - like a gut-strung harpsichord with leather plectra. > >Andrew > >On 20 Jan 2010, at 18:37, <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Yes. Also compelling are the contemporary descriptions of the > > lautenwerk as being nearly sonically indistinguishable from the > > lute. There are even reports that professional lute players could > > be fooled if the instruments were played behind a screen. From > > the sound of the modern lautenwerks I've heard, I have never once > > feared that I might make the same mistake! > > > > Chris > > >-- > >To get on or off this list see list information at >http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
