Dear Arthur,
Thanks very much for your reply! And sorry for the corrections - the
Trafficante system is neither made for splitted octave strings nor for octave
transpositions... and I realized my mistake too late...
> Thank you very much for your comments. I have a vague recollection that
> German tablature was discussed somewhere in the Allgemeine musikalische
> Zeitung early in the 19th century, but exactly when, I cannot recall. And
> of course Baron mentions German
> tablature, apparently the first mention for over a century. He even
> reproduces the Newsidler Lautenkragen.
Of course there exist older citations of the old treatises with the
"Lautenkragen" - but the Pearsall transcriptions were the first - as far I know
- for practical use. Joachim Lüdtke and me made a list of all (we hope)
tablature transcriptions from Kiesewetter (I think that's you meant, it's in
AMZ 1831, nr. 3, col. 33-38; nr. 5, col. 65-74 and Beilage 1, p. 2-4; nr. 9,
col. 133-145 and Beilage 3, p. 1-8; nr. 12, col. 181-186; nr. 16, col. 249-259;
nr. 17, col. 272-276; nr. 23, col. 365-376 and Beilage 4, p.1-4) up to the
beginning of the 20th century. We will publish this list on
www.accordsnouveaux.ch under "book - The Lute in Europe 2" - "material" - but
first only in German. It's one of the lists who had no place in the book...
>
> Thank you for reminding me about Podolski's article. I re-read it again
> early this morning. I had forgotten about it. I think he may misread the
> German when he sets
> forth his idea of a split course. The instructions say to tune the
> "Kleinsaitte die Newen dem mitl Brumer stet, der zieffer fuern, gleich als
> da 4" (the octave string [Kleinsaite] next to the fifth string) to the
> second course ("4"
> in German tablature), not to the fourth fret of the second course. Ziffer
> means a number or cipher, and a fret would be Bund or Gryff (as HN spells
> it). To spell it out as Fuern (Vier?) and then as a number ("4") is just
> the kind of redundancy one finds in writigs back then. Anyway, that's my
> take on it. What do you think? How does he get fret out of that?
It's really a very tricky text - even for a native speaker. So I have to ask a
specialist for this language to work together on that. I will inform when it's
done.
But I think Podolski has not misread. There's a last sentence after your
citation: "unn die Ebrer quint saitten muß man dem t (= 2nd course 4th fret)
gleich ziehen/ so ist der zug recht." The question is: What's the "Ebrer quint
saitten"? Is it the octave string of the 4th course (perhaps really the same
string type as the Quint saitten alias 1st course)? I will ask the specialist
and inform you and the list.
>
> Incidentally, it seems that Newsidler might have
> a special name for the first course when tuned to that fourth fret (cipher
> "t"). See part 2.
>
> Otherwise it's a rather detailed and complicated discussion of the various
> Judentänze and much derives from Heckel's Judentanz of 1556. He seems to
> want to apply the Heckel tuning to the Newsidler piece, and really doesn';t
> address the scordatura tuning as spelled out by HN..
>
> Did you go to Gijon? I hear it was a wonderful conference, and wish so much
> that I could have attended.
Unfortunately, I had no chance to go to Gijon, but Joachim Lüdtke was there.
All the best,
Andreas
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