Hi Julien, I should start by saying this is just hearsay and speculation. The times of transitional tuning seem to have been quite chaotic and although almost all of Vieux Gaultier's output was set down many years after his death in Dm tuning, it would be surprising if he was using that tuning when he was at the height of his powers in the early decades of the 17th century.
It's clear that Mezangeau normally used transitional tuning on a 10-course lute. I have heard it said that he was Gaultier's mentor. One possible way that the 11th course first appeared was as a single string (the octave). By making the second course single (as in most later 11-course lutes) a peg was freed up for the single string 11th course, so with a new nut and a bit of bridge drilling the 19-stringed 10-course lute becomes an 11-course lute. The treble rider appeared at about this time, adding a 20th string to existing lutes, and so a double 11th course was made possible, which pretty much settled matters for the 11-course lute. It's hard to know when transitional tunings were replaced by the more standardised Dminor (and to a lesser extent Dmajor) tunings and it's tempting to assume that this was when the 20 stringed 11-course lute appeared. I doubt if that's the case, though, because there's a fair bit of repertoire for the 12-course double headed lute (which seems to have developed in parallel with the single headed 11-course) that uses transitional tunings. It wouldn't be surprising if transitional tunings were also used on early 11-course lutes too. All very confusing, and I don't think it's possible to pin down exactly what lutes were used in what tunings - There seems to have been a range of possibilities and people used the lute they happened to have already to play the music in the new tunings as well as they could. I think we're all confused! Bill From: Julien Stryjak <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, 28 September 2011, 8:43 Subject: [LUTE-BUILDER] 10 to 11c hello everybody, As a non-baroque lute player, I couldn't determine the precise moment of transition between 10c and 11c, in 17th c France. Are there sources (printed tablatures, manuscripts..) that could give a precise time when the 11th course became adopted ? And what about for the "D-minor" tuning adoption ? The books I looked in were fairly vague about the date itself. Best regards, julien -- Julien Stryjak - Luthier Luths et instruments `a cordes anciens 17 rue Sleidan - 67000 Strasbourg 00 33 (0)3 88 45 05 87 www.julienstryjak.com To get on or off this list see list information at [1]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
