Martin-
Yes, we know Dowland said the French lengthened the lute necks, but all
the 11 course lutes from later in the century that I have seen pictures
of or heard about show only 9 tied frets. Maybe some of these lutes-
like the necks of most bass viols- have the room for another fret but
their owners chose not to; or maybe we just don't have a proper sampling
of 9 - 10 course lutes left to check the evolution of the 17th century
lute neck. You mentioned the difficulty of maintaining proper neck to
body proportions in order to allow a workable 10th tied fret; so it's
still a possibility that the 10 fret neck was an ideal to strive for,
but somewhat as difficult to realize back then as it now is for you-
kind of like the ideal stringing including double 1st & unison down
to/including the 6th.
Funny, but the Italian Liuto Attiorbato managed to maintain this "ideal"
configuration- frets & stringing- while the 11 course French lute
reverted back to single first, mostly single 2nd, & 9 frets.
As to the "when" of 4th & 5th course conversion to unisons, you already
pointed out the Fabritio Dentice connection-
"Adrian le Roy's Instructions (English translation, 1574), in
discussing the intabulation of "De corps absent" on f.42(?) mentions
using the octave on the 5th course to solve a problem in the
intabulation, and in passing mentions that this ruse would not be
possible with a lute strung in the manner of Fabritio Dentice and
his followers (which is where we get the idea that Dentice was a
leading proponent of unison stringing)."
-So then sometime before le Roy's first edition? 1550's - 1560's?
Dan
On 1/17/2015 12:44 AM, Martin Shepherd wrote:
As far as the frets are concerned, Dowland says it was the French who
lengthened the necks of the lutes to allow ten tied frets, and now
(1610) that's what everybody wants. So I think there must have been
quite a consensus on this.
Martin
On 17/01/2015 00:29, Dan Winheld wrote:
To answer my own post and expand a bit- Tobias Hume may have been a
one-off; I never heard of any other viol player or viol tradition
using pairs of bowed strings in any form. This leads to another bit
of icon bashing- so many lutenists, historical and modern, have had
so much trouble with the 6 course unison (esp. with historic gut or
or good modern equivalents) that despite Dowland's admonition it
seems that most lutenists- even Baroque lutenists whose 6th course is
A- use (or used) the 8ve option. And the 10 tied fret neck option for
9 or 10 course lutes seems to be really a tough tweak for the
luthiers- so I have to wonder: Was Dowland himself a bit of a
"one-off" in regard to most common, standard practice among even
other elites of the lute world of his time- not to mention later?
Dan
On 1/16/2015 2:25 PM, Dan Winheld wrote:
And may I offer one off-the-wall bit of perspective on the matter of
8ve strings on 6,5, and 4th course?
Tobias Hume, in his Bass Viol/"Leero Viole" book published in 1605,
advises viol players thusly:
"If you will heare the Viol de Gambo in his true Majestie, to play
parts, and singing thereto, then string him with nine strings, your
three Basses double as the Lute, which is to be plaide on with as
much ease as your Violl of sixe stringes."
There we have it- play parts, singing with the instrument. We can
take it for granted he wasn't talking unison pairs on a bowed bass
instrument. And 1605! Granted, Hume was English; but in his
professional military career he was on the continent a lot- but not,
of course playing duets except with martial instruments.
I have NEVER seen or heard of a modern viol specialist playing an
early 17th century English viol set up this way, and viol players
are otherwise doing everything documentable & recoverable from the
past eras. Or have I missed anything? A viol so set up would be
something to hear & play.
Dan
On 1/16/2015 1:02 PM, howard posner wrote:
On Jan 16, 2015, at 12:49 PM, David van Ooijen
<[email protected]> wrote:
Dowland could have included the G on the fourth course without
making it difficult to play.A His not doing so means either
that he
didn't care that the bass line dropped a seventh for no good
reason,
or that he assumed octave stringing on the sixth course,
supplying
the middle G.
Or that the printer omitted the middle G. There are more
mistakes/misprints/omissions in the lute parts of Dowland's
lute songs.
Perhaps, but how many of those errors are omitted middle Gs in the
third measure of the lute part in the 19th song in the book?
To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
http://www.avast.com
