I am glad you agree with me!
Monica
----- Original Message -----
From: [1]Antonio Corona
To: [2]Monica Hall ; [3]Dan Winheld
Cc: [4]Lutelist
Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2015 5:52 PM
Subject: Re: [LUTE] Re: Vihuela Stringing
Dear Monica
I could not agree more. Bermudo should not be quoted from translations,
and even in Spanish it should be approached with care: the literal
interpretation is often misleading.
By the way, Bermudo does mention an incompetent vihuelist who managed
to publish his book, Ward, Griffiths and I agree that it must have been
Pisador; therefore I wouldn't take his instructions as a statement of
general practice (I use octaves on 4, 5 and 6).
Best wishes
Antonio.
__________________________________________________________________
From: Monica Hall <mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk>
To: Dan Winheld <dwinh...@lmi.net>
Cc: Lutelist <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, 12 May 2015, 8:21
Subject: [LUTE] Re: Vihuela Stringing
Some of this seems to me to be a bit muddled.
In particular ...
"Pisador (1552), talking about the 4th course, made it clear it ought
to be
strung in unison:
Such a statement could imply that the use of octaves was standard but
he did
not like it,
or it was not appropriate for his music. Hence the necessity to write
down
something that was outside the musicians' common practice"
This is nonsense.
Without going in to too much detail ...at the beginning of his
introduction
Pisador has given what are fairly common instructions for tuning the
vihuela
and the lute in unisons and octaves - not unlike those found in many
Italian baroque guitar books which don't specify whether any of the
courses
are octave strung.
"Fuenllana (1554) prescribes playing only one of the two strings in the
course in some passages (as does Dalza - does he?)"
As far as I am aware this is not what Fuenllana does. What he does do
is
play two different notes on the same course - stopping one string of a
course and leaving the other unstopped.
"Bermudo also says that if you wish to turn a vihuela into a guitar
(4th
with octave, all
other courses in unison) you simply have to take off the 1st and 6th
courses. This would suggest that the vihuela had a unison 4th (but
sometimes
also a paired octave etc. etc".
This is reading far too much into what Bermuda says - all he is saying
is
that the intervals between the courses on the guitar are the same as
those
between the 4th through 2nd on the vihuela.
I am afraid this is what happens when people refer to sources which
they
haven't studied or understood in depth.
Monica
as implied
> by Pisador - see above 3.), i.e. guitar 3rd, and
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Winheld" <[5]dwinh...@lmi.net>
To: "lutelist Net" <[6]Lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2015 12:34 PM
Subject: [LUTE] Vihuela Stringing
> Here's Mimmo's researched opinion:
>
> "The lute in its historical reality"
> by Mimmo Peruffo
>
> p.22- The vihuela case: unisons or octaves?
>
> 1. Italian and German string making technology before 1570 ca. (the
best
> of that time)
> was not so advanced as to grant the production of efficient enough
bass
> strings (octaves
> were needed to provide the harmonics), as made clear by Virdung and
> Tinctoris.
> 2. Spain, in the 16th century, ruled over large parts of Italy and,
> indeed, the Viola da mano
> enjoyed a certain popularity: hard to believe that they could possess
any
> `secret'
> technology for the production of bass strings without Italian and
German
> string makers,
> the most renowned in Europe, knowing anything about it. We also know
that
> Spain
> imported large quantities of strings - from Munich, to be precise -
and,
> had they had
> bass strings of a superior quality themselves, it would be fair to
expect
> an intensive
> exporting activity to the rest of Europe, as was later the case with
Rome
> in the 16th
> and17th century, for example.
> 3. Pisador (1552), talking about the 4th course, made it clear it
ought to
> be strung in
> unison:
> Such a statement could imply that the use of octaves was standard but
he
> did not like it,
> or it was not appropriate for his music. Hence the necessity to write
down
> something
> that was outside the musicians' common practice.
> 4. Fuenllana (1554) prescribes playing only one of the two strings in
the
> course in some
> passages (as does Dalza): this artifice is only limited to the 2nd,
3rd
> and 4th course, though,
> another hint that at least the 4th would be strung with unisons. We
know
> nothing about
> the 5th and 6th.
> 5. Bermudo (1555) states that the guitar's 4th course has an octave,
like
> the fourth of the
> lute, or Flemish vihuela. Here can be inferred that the 4th of the
vihuela
> was a unison
> while the lute wasn't, since he needs to refer to the lute, an
instrument
> less familiar to
> him, while it would have been natural to refer to the vihuela. Again,
we
> know nothing
> about the 5th and 6th.
> 6. Bermudo also says that if you wish to turn a vihuela into a guitar
(4th
> with octave, all
> other courses in unison) you simply have to take off the 1st and 6th
> courses. This would
> suggest that the vihuela had a unison 4th (but sometimes also a
paired
> octave, as implied
> by Pisador - see above 3.), i.e. guitar 3rd, and the 5th, i.e. guitar
4th,
> with octave. It follows
> that the 6th must also have had an octave.
> 7. On top of that Bermudo also discusses slanting the bridge (ch.
LXXXV),
> in order to
> compensate for the amount of space taken by the large knot of the 6th
> string, which is
> always referred to in the singular, never in the plural. So the
course
> must have had a paired
> octave. The larger amount of space taken by the knot (not by the
knots!)
> and the resulting
> need to slant the bridge in order to keep the length of all strings
equal,
> clearly indicate
> that the string must have been pretty thick.
> If the basses were that thick, they could not, owing to their high
> Inharmonicity Index,
> have had such a good acoustical performance. The stringent
consequence is
> that it
> needed an octave.
> 8. The only source clearly mentioning unison stringing on the vihuela
> dates back to
> 1611, a fairly long time after the instrument had fallen into disuse.
This
> source (Sebastian
> de Covarrubia's Tesoro de la lengua castellana, 1611) does not
> specifically treat musical
> matters. It is a dictionary compiled at a time where the progress
made in
> the string
> making technology already allowed to dispose of octave strings on the
> lute. So it is an
> anachronism to apply a piece of information from the early 17th
century to
> an instrument
> that was in use in the mid 16th century. Applying the same principle
we
> could assume,
> reading Dowland, that Francesco da Milano's lute was strung with all
> unisons!
> 9. Double treble and unison courses: the fact that the vihuela was
> generally (but not
> always) strung with a double treble led some scholars to take that as
> evidence in favour
> of all courses having been strung with unisons. We fail to grasp the
logic
> of it. There is,
> on the other hand, evidence proving that the vihuela could have a
single
> treble, whereas
> most Renaissance lutes where strung with double trebles.
> Conclusions
> In the light of all the information we have so far, we suggest
> that the Spanish Vihuela de mano was not strung with unison
> courses throughout.
>
>
>
> To get on or off this list see list information at
> [7]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
--
References
1. mailto:abcor...@yahoo.com
2. mailto:mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
3. mailto:dwinh...@lmi.net
4. mailto:lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
5. mailto:dwinh...@lmi.net
6. mailto:Lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
7. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
