At a concert here in Boston many years ago, POD was on stage with his tiorbo and a guitarist was serenading the audience while dancing in the aisles. To end he wanted to be on stage, but Paul's tiorbo was blocking the steps. Paul did a double take and raised the instrument like a railroad crossing gate, and the dancer gained the stage to take his bows.
I had heard (can't recall where) that the term has some meaning with trees or branches. But I couldn't find a closely related word. What I heard was probably just modern speculation like "ti orbo." --Arthur I've been looking at PANs today, Andi -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Arto Wikla Sent: Friday, January 31, 2014 11:01 AM To: Arthur Ness; Martyn Hodgson; David Tayler; lute Subject: [LUTE] Re: archlute/theorbo in Corelli's Op. 1 Jakob Lindberg had a funny speculation: In the old Venice dialect "ti orba" meant "I'll blind you". Just think the problems with the long extension neck... Once I happened to hit the director of a choir, when he arrived to the front of the choir and me with the theorbo; tiny river of blood in his head did not harm his work, luckily... Arto On 31/01/14 23:45, Arthur Ness wrote: > What is the etymology of the word "tiorba"? > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On > Behalf Of Martyn Hodgson > Sent: Friday, January 31, 2014 12:03 AM > To: David Tayler; lute > Subject: [LUTE] Re: archlute/theorbo in Corelli's Op. 1 > > As already pointed out on a number of occasions, the point about > tablature sources, rather than staff notation, is that they oblige a > particular tuning from the named instrument. Thus, for example, the > archlute tablature sources require top courses at the higher octave (ie > non re-entrant) - and vice versa for the theorbo tablatures. Your > stated belief that the archlute and theorbo were simply different names > for the same instrument('The terms "arciliuto" and "tiorba" are > high-degree interchangeable.') is not therefore supported by any of the > tablature sources > MH > > __________________________________________________________________ > > From: David Tayler <[email protected]> > To: lute <[email protected]> > Sent: Friday, 31 January 2014, 6:19 > Subject: [LUTE] Re: archlute/theorbo in Corelli's Op. 1 > I don't see that staff notation is peculiar; it was a standard form > of > notation. It is elegant and descriptive, and the choice of brilliant > composers. There are even accounts in letters and diaries saying that > it is better than tablature, presumably because it is more efficient > in > showing the individual voices, or as part of the basso continuo > movement, or to parallel the viol, and so on. Many more reasons as > well, such as ornamentation. > Mersenne's quote: one can interpret all the square data that does not > fit into the round hole as errors, but because of the superfluity of > square data I think it makes more sense to consider the terms > "high-degree interchangeable". > Absence of viel ton: if music is written in mensural notation, there > is > no way to know if it is viel ton or not in many cases, so the > "absence" > is evidence only that ppl stopped using tab for some of the newer > styles of music. Certainly the tuning had some serious competition. > dt > __________________________________________________________________ > From: jean-michel Catherinot <[1][email protected]> > To: R. Mattes <[2][email protected]>; lute > <[3][email protected]>; Martyn > Hodgson <[4][email protected]> > Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2014 2:14 AM > Subject: [LUTE] Re: archlute/theorbo in Corelli's Op. 1 > Yes: Zamboni in tablature., but indeed you know that!. I consider > that > most of the arciliuto music is written in staff notation, may be > this > is a particularity of the instrument, and there is no doubt that > tuning > is not re-entrant (just have a look to Hasse's Cleofide, for > arciliuto > and compare with obligato parts for tiorba in Conti's Davide: > ambitus > and tessiture). . In staff notation, you mat consult, as I said, > obligato parts in Hasse's and Haendel's operas (and many others > it > seems, I'm trying to list them), and the "concerti" from Harrach > collection. It is not impossible that Zamboni was the composer of > the > solo sonata for arciliuto and the two aconcertinos' for arciliuto > with > two violins and organ (all anonymous and in staff notation) from > the > Harrach library formerly owned by Robert Spencer and now at the > Royal > Academy of Music, London; another similar anonymous concerto for > arciliuto is among the newly-discovered items of chamber music at > Rohrau. > Concerning Mersenne, it is quite clear in french that while > renaming > the picture untitled "tuorbe" in "archiluth", he corrects a mistake > he > has previously done (and he says explicitly that): and he gives > quite > clearly the tuning for thA(c)orbe (re-entrant, in A) and the two > tunings for archiluth in G and A. > Concerning the use of archiluth in France (this is not our subject, > but...): at first 2 points, I don't know any tablature evidence of > the > use of vieil ton after ca1640. If this type of lute would be used, > it's > very strange that there is no written music for it (not a note). > The > only strange book of Delair gives the impression that the tuning > could > be not re-entrant: but it's a quite basic book, which only gives > solution for chords, not to play a B.C., and also dedicated to the > harpsichord (did Delair even play the theorbo?). The others > (Grenerin, > Fleury,...) work with re-entrant tuning, even if the solutions > could > be > strange for us (but what about the guitar?). > I think the discontinuity you quote about the lines, with wide > laps, > is > inherent to the theorbo. In very clear solo theorbo pieces, with no > doubt on tuning as Saizenay, you find those strange laps, even in > de > VisA(c)e. It is also very common in guitar pieces, (have a look to > Monica Hall's site). And even changing the tuning doesn't solve > the > problem: you allways find those dicontinuities. This begins with > Piccinini from place to place, but the campanella parts prove that > his > tuning was completely re-entrant. > Le Mardi 28 janvier 2014 18h26, R. Mattes <[1][5][email protected]> > a > A(c)crit : > On Tue, 28 Jan 2014 17:10:18 +0000 (GMT), Martyn Hodgson wrote > > > > > > I'm sorry you find Bob Spencer's paper so very poor. > No need to be sorry, esp. since I don't find Spencer's paper "very > poor" > (where did I write > that?). I only tied to say that it a) shows it's age b) seems to be > an > "overview"-type of > publication and hence tends to over-generalize c) seems to often > prove > my > points more than yours. > > My point about the tablatures (rather than staff notation) is > that > > it is with these that we find an unequivocal indication of the > > tuning required for a particular named instrument. > And my point is that a lot of the tablatures I kow of and played > are much less unequivocal in indicating the required tuning - just > as an example there seem to be some rather equivocal places in the > Pittoni on my music stand ... > > I'm not aware of > > any tablature sources which require, for example, a re-entrant > > tuning for an archlute (or various cognates). Do you? > No, but there are hardly any archlute tablatures from the Corelli > time I know of. Please provide some - I'm really interested in this > topic. > And of course there is the case of "inverse" reentrantness (read: > excessive use of octave stringing) in the recently mentioned > Basso Continuo/Partimento manuscipt from Rome. > Cheers, Ralf Mattes > To get on or off this list see list information at > [1][2][6]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > -- > References > 1. [3][7]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > -- > References > 1. mailto:[8][email protected] > 2. [9]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > 3. [10]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > > -- > > References > > 1. mailto:[email protected] > 2. mailto:[email protected] > 3. mailto:[email protected] > 4. mailto:[email protected] > 5. mailto:[email protected] > 6. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > 7. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > 8. mailto:[email protected] > 9. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > 10. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > >
