Dear Monica, Some of what you say about Calvi's collection makes sense - that the intabulated pieces are different from anything else in the 5-course repertoire.
But I'm puzzled why you object to translating 'chitarra' as 'guitar' in the context of Calvi's collection which contains mostly Alfabeto pieces and not just those later intabulated Sounate. Or are you suggesting that if the qualifier 'alla Spagnola' is not attached to 'chitarra' then it's always a lute shaped instrument! This seems an extreme position to adopt. By this test the 'chitarra' specified by, for example Calvi, Valdambrini and Asioli (which don't have the qualifier 'alla Spagnola' or similar on their title pages) are all for the lute shaped instrument. Note that I left ' chitarriglia' alone since we don't know what it was/is..... From what you say (below) about Calvi's instruments it seems you believe both were lute shaped instruments but one 'standard' sized (whatever that) and one smaller. Is this really your position? regards Martyn PS Why would anyone suggest translating 'vihuela' as 'guitar' (or even 'guitarra', etc) - the etymology of the two are are quite distinct. But I recall at least one early English source (an inventory I think) calls them vialls (viols)...... M --- On Tue, 29/1/13, Monica Hall <[email protected]> wrote: From: Monica Hall <[email protected]> Subject: [LUTE] Re: 4 course guitar in Italy To: "William Samson" <[email protected]> Cc: "Lutelist" <[email protected]> Date: Tuesday, 29 January, 2013, 13:13 Well as regards the instrument illustrated - I'll set the cat among the pigeons and suggest that it might be tuned in the same way as the baroque guitar. It is very interesting that it is a lute-shaped 5-course instrument. As Martyn has pointed out, the second section of Calvi's "Intavolatura di chitarra e chitarriglia" has a number of pieces in Italian tablature. Calvi says of these 'Le seguente Suonate possono servire anche per la Chitarriglia, ma sono veramente per la Chitarra" . Martyn has translated this as 'The following Suonate can also serve for the Chitarriglia, but they are really for the Guitar" .But he is already reading his prejudices into what Calvi says by assuming that "chitarra" in Italian means the same thing as "guitar" in English and that it is appropriate to translate it in this way. It is untranslatable. This is the problem with translating things as anyone who has tried will know. There are many circumstances when it is not possible to find an exact equivalent for specialist terms. No-one would translate "vihuela" as "guitar". The question is "Why should Calvi differentiate between a small and a standard sized instrument when clearly both were capable of playing exactly the same music and often did"? The most important point is that the music in tablature is very different from anything else in the 5-course repertoire. Not only does it not use alfabeto; there are no five part chords at all and no suggestion that the four part ones should be strummed. The repertoire and the style of the music is also a bit old fashioned. It seems unlikely that the instrument that Calvi refers to is a 5-course guitar; more likely to be a 5-course lute. Foscarini of course also included arrangements of lute music in his great work - and these are similarly different from what was considered to be the appropriate style for the 5-course instrument. As ever Monica ----- Original Message ----- From: "William Samson" <[1][email protected]> To: "Davide Rebuffa" <[2][email protected]>; "Martyn Hodgson" <[3][email protected]> Cc: <[4][email protected]>; "Monica Hall" <[5][email protected]>; "Lutelist" <[6][email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2013 7:51 AM Subject: [LUTE] Re: 4 course guitar in Italy > Hi, > > [1][7]http://tinyurl.com/aped6x7 - on my Skydrive again. > > Not a 4c instrument this time, but one with 5 courses. Looks like a > small lute, nothing definite can be said about the pegbox shape. No > indication of octave stringing. The painting looks like first half of > the 17th century, but I've no idea who the painter is. The presence of > an archlute suggests Italian, but who knows? - Some musicians travelled > widely and were no doubt intrigued by the instruments they encountered > in other countries. They might even have brought examples home with > them. > > The question is - How was it tuned and used? > > Answers on a postcard please, . . . > > Bill > > PS There's a surviving 5c instrument, not unlike this one, shown on > page 91 of "The Lute in Europe 2". > > -- > > -- References 1. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected] 2. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to%c3%[email protected] 3. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected] 4. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected] 5. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected] 6. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected] 7. http://tinyurl.com/aped6x7 To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
