I'm old (in my 70's) & I no longer play, but a long time ago I got my friend Robert Lundberg (who died of cancer in 2001) to build me a theorbo which he did & it was strung with double strings, but I very early on I put only single strings on it--to those who speak as Luca Manassero does of the historical basis of instruments I retort back the many many theorbos with single strings--superbly played--this means very little in the gross (in)significance of things. Oh it's something to argue about, granted, while many superb players do what they do...superbly well... Timothy Swain
On Wed, Aug 19, 2015 at 2:40 AM, Martyn Hodgson <[1][email protected]> wrote: Dear Luca, You're generally right: leaving aside 'French' large theorbos and modern fashionable affectations, very few extant large instruments (ie those actually requiring a double re-entrant arrangement) have other than the usual configuration of 6 stopped courses (more often double) with 8 single basses. Nevertheless, there is indeed some iconographic and other evidence to suggest that seven fingered courses were occasionally found (eg Mace for the 'English theorbo - though Talbot only notes six fingered courses in his reports) and other rare examples include Puget's famous (French) 1687 painting showing one single and six double fingered courses (with octave strung doubled long basses!). The Schelle of 1728 has a bridge (original I think) for seven courses (all double except for the first) and seven single basses - however the lower peghead has fourteen pegholes and the upper has eight! It's possible that the relatively shortish fingered string length (85cm) of this large theorbo allowed for the Weiss/Baron Dm 'German' theorbo tuning (ie first course at non-rentrant nominal d' at low pitch) - if so, hardly a typical theorbo. Other than Campion's suggested arrangement (was it ever actually employed?), perhaps the closest to the 8 fingered course instrument you mention as being increasingly used by some these days, is Praetorius' (1619) Paduanische Theorbo which he shows with eight fingered and eight basses. None of these are now known and I can see no trace of other early evidence for them (note the very short open basses on P's engraving - one feature certainly not copied these days.....) Finally, as I'm sure you'll know, many early theorbo intabulations show octave jumps where chromatic semitones are found in the bass (most common is the fingered F or F# on the fifth course and the same an octave lower on the eighth course) - so clearly numerous 'Old Ones' faced the same issue and didn't respond by adding one or two fingered course in the bass. regards, Martyn PS. Having said all the above let me express a mea culpa - like you (and, I find, so many others) I also have a seventh fingered course for the very useful low G# on my large (93cm) single strung theorbo. However, for my largeish (89cm) double strung fingered course instrument, the seventh (single) course is on the long peghead. This seems to work well: I think because a double strung fifth course gives an added depth and bite to the f (or f#). MH __________________________________________________________________ From: Luca Manassero <[2][email protected]> To: Lute List <[3][email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, 19 August 2015, 8:59 Subject: [LUTE] Theorboes and their stringing Dear List, I really do not mean to start some sort of "war", but I noticed that more and more theorboes in YouTube videos and/or pictures (and concerts...) are built with eight single strings + six basses. While I certainly understand that an f# can happen (at least to us) apparently out of nowhere, I do not know of any historically surviving theorbo with that configuration. To get even worse, I am not sure to be aware of surviving instruments in a 7 single courses + 7 basses setup, are you? (I play a 7 + 7, anyway) Talking about the Chitarrone / XVII c. Theorbo (therefore keeping aside the French theorbo or the "thA(c)orbe A la Maltot" with 8 courses + 6 basses, as mentioned by FranAS:ois Campion in 1716 / 1730) I know the iconographical evidence for 6 single courses or 6 double courses, but honestly I couldn't find ANY painting showing a seven single courses theorbo like mine, not to mention an eight single courses instrument. Any hint, suggestion and/or direction to follow? Thank you in advance, Luca -- To get on or off this list see list information at [1][4]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. [5]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. mailto:[email protected] 2. mailto:[email protected] 3. mailto:[email protected] 4. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html 5. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
