On 31/01/2013 22:33, Monica Hall wrote:
I still don't understand that if this is a 'chitarra' and chitarra
relates to what other places called 'gittern' (with all the spelling
variants), how these things are this big?
Like Topsy - it just grew!
Well then, I wonder why the players of the time just didn't play an
ordinary lute. Nice and straightforward - just playing the top four or
five courses? Or do we have a precursor of the later mandora/gallichon
idea (as often suggested) of the mandora/gallichon as a simpler form of
lute. In the 18th century the Baroque lute was a bit of a monster and
(it is often suggested) the mandora/gallichon was just a bit more
straightforward to play.
And if the chitarra italiana was flourishing in the 1620s the same thing
was happening. The lute was then sprouting more bass strings and (I'm
not sure about the Italian states) experimenting with new tunings. So
the chitarra was a simpler option of the time?
However that may be, the chitarra in these images (found in these recent
posts: in Lute in Europe2, and by Bill and now Roman) is quite large,
lute-sized - a lot larger than any 15th century chitarra/gittern. And
the whole point of the chitarra italiana story is that the chitarra has
its origins in the small medieval instrument, not a lute. And... from
the point of view of the centuries-old chitarra/gittern, the chitarra of
the 1620s in these images is itself a chitarrone - a large chitarra. So
the actual chitarrone of the time is a quite gigantic mega-chitarrone!
Stuart
Monica
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