Anton, Great perspective- my 13 course B-lute is indeed almost all gut (some low fundamental compromises, solid silver wound La Bella guitar strings- two "d's" and one A for fundamentals on C-11, B-12, and A-13). I follow Toyohiko Satoh's low tension specs. While not a "virtuoso" on Baroque lute, I don't find the tension any hindrance at all to any tempi I might launch into. My viel ton instruments are at slightly higher tensions- about midway Satoh's specs and the tension charts like, say, Dan Larson's- no matter gut or synthetics- no hindrance at all to tempo, and I think the lower tension makes ornamentation a bit more forgiving on the synthetics. Dan
Speaking of tempi, have you heard the Ensemble 415's Opus 6 Corelli? >What I can say is - my experience is only Baroque lute. >Gut strings are very stiff and it makes it possible to manage >certain things on low tension around 2,2 - 2,5 kilos which would >never be possible on nylon. Therefore many people play very low >tensioned lutes, saying this sounds better. I think as for the tone >itself it does sound a bit better but important is to be able to >express oneself ad here the problem comes. I never heard anyone to >perform a Weiss from Dresden let us say F sharpMinor n 23 or G minor >nr 30 or any piece of this scale with trebles having low tension. I >am also talking about real tempo. >I do think that Presto is FAST! and not a baroque word which means >expression etc. Weiss met Corelly and people were well aware of real >virtuoso music. So my point is the lute is just an instrument as any >other. It has to be playable, tempos fast and it must be in tune. >My wife Anna and concentrate on Bach and Weiss mostly pieces that >are very technically demanding and there is absolutely no way to >push them to the right limit on the slopy stringing. >I do think that gut enables you to articulate better and when needed >play faster and indeed produce better contrasts. The lute with gut >is just a different instrument. Very different... It feels correct:) -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
