Dear Gabor, dar all, thank you very much for many most interesting answers!
Let me just ask two more question: 1. Does somebody happen to be aware of a recording of an instrument, such as Gabors (bigger theorbo with double choruses)? 2. Do you think, Kapsberger, Piccinini or Castaldi used really huge instruments for their solos – but also for all the demanding passages and cadences, which I suppose to be part of their continuo play? I am asking this, because I just had a closer look on this famous print of Castaldi (Capricci a due stromenti). The instrument being shown there has six stopped choruses. It seems to be a smaller one and may be what he calls a theorbino or even an arciliuto, but amazingly it’s stringle-stringed, which confuses me a bit. Jörg Am 01.06.2011 um 21:06 schrieb Domján Gábor: > Dear Jörg > > Yes, I have a double stringed huge theorbo. It is a copy of Tieffenbrucker > RCM 26 in the Royal College of Music, London. I have it built a year ago > being inspired by Lynda Sayce's thought provoking articles on her homepage. I > wanted to hear how the originals might have sounded so 'sound reconstruction' > is what was on my mind. For this reason I asked my luthier Friend, Tihamér > Romanek, to follow the original's plan and Xray photo as close as possible > and use the same materials as far as possible, too. The instrument is ~205 cm > long, 93 cm mensure for the 6 courses and 170 cm for the basses. > > When only the body with the 'shorter' neck was ready, I experimented with > fretguts (cheeper material) for the tensions of the would be strings before > ordering them and interestingly found that relatively low tension strings > give so much better sound on this instrument. So now it is tuned in G with > Kürschner gut strings, the smallest gauge (3rd course A) being 042 mm and the > tension of the strings around 2.9-3 kg-s. Some extra benefit I found: the > tuning keeps very stabile at this tension (sometimes I don't even have to > retune most of the strings after many days of not playing <of course, only > when the instrument is kept in roughly the same humidity and temperature>) > and I didn't have to change but one string still after a year. > > In my opinion, it has a very rich, colourful sound, though not as loud as a > single strung instrument with higher tension strings perhaps, but still it > cuts through the ensamble with its special timber I believe. (Never heard > myself from outside). > > I don't have problems with strings rattling, though the 2 strings in the > courses, just as in the original, are quite close. Slurs and the like sound > also good sometimes - I mean when not, it's rather my own fault. It took some > time to find out how to hold such a huge thing comfortably, but by now I have > no back or arm pain any longer when I play it. Even the wide spacing of the > frets can be get accoustomed to in a few days time. (I only wish I had more > time to practice.) > > All in all, I love this instrument though I might be biased of course. > > All the best, > > Gabor Domjan > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Hilbert Jörg" <hilbert.jo...@t-online.de> > To: "lute List" <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> > Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2011 9:27 AM > Subject: [LUTE] Double stringed on a theorbo? > > >> Dear collected wisdom, >> >> as the old italian theorbos seemed to be quite huge and double stringed (for >> 1-6), I am not aware of anyone to play such an instrument in my >> neighborhood. I recently had the possibility to test an instrument of about >> 90 cm, which was amazing but single stringed. Does anybody know such a >> double stringed instrument? Does it really make sense for continuo? Are >> there other experiences in terms of power, playability, slurs, comfort etc.? >> >> Thank you very much, >> Jörg >> >> >> >> To get on or off this list see list information at >> http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > >
