Hi,
very nice list. Let me put them in a slightly different order:
1. sound (very subjective, but when you hear it, you know you found it)
2. playability (again very subjective. Most of present lutemakers
dogmata are rather funny, especially when supported by arguments like
"this respects the original instrument in the collection ABC". Fine,
what if that istrument had been built for an 11 years old girl?)
3. Aesthetic. A lute si suppose to be beautiful. Sometimes it happens
to see really ugly instruments. With all the research involved in XVI
and XVII (and XVIII) century lutemaking, an ugly instrument is
"unauthentic" ;-)
3. quality of craftmanship (it's sad when you get a nice sound out of a
lute a bit too toughly built, if you get what I mean...)
4. authenticity of design / construction (again we need to be very
careful: there are TWO 6 course lutes survived which tells us not much
about the variety of 6 course instruments available to XVI century
players)
5. materials (I'd dare say that if it's nicely playable and have a good
sound and looks beautiful, well, materials must have been selected the
right way...)
I don't care about the maker's reputation. If it's an investment, OK.
If it's a music instrument, then the maker is not the first point on my
list either.
Very exciting conversation: I look forward to read other opinions :-)
Thanks!
Luca
William Samson on 07/04/12 15.25 wrote:
I haven't really got much to add to the subject line. I've been
chatting with Rob about this and various points have emerged I'd be
interested in hearing what priorities you might put on the various
characteristics of a lute in deciding if it's 'good' or otherwise.
The kinds of things that have come up are (in no particular order):
* playability (action, string spacing etc)
* sound (which I can't easily define)
* authenticity of design/construction
* materials used
* quality of craftsmanship
* reputation of maker
Of course these are rather broad headings and might easily be refined,
clarified or broken down.
Thoughts, please?
Bill
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