Dear Magnus,
Further to the below, I thought you might be interested in a discussion
about large double strung lutes with extended pegheads which took place
some 35 years ago in FoMRHI Quarterly.
Eph Segerman in Comm 456 had suggested that we should consider 'bass
archlutes' more seriously. I had some doubts at the time (Comm 464),
and still do, nevertheless it may be an area of interest to some. So,
for example, in the classification of 'bass archlutes', the Sellas E454
instrument could be considered a instrument in nominal C pitch (ie
highest course at middle c'). And accordingly the fingerboard strings
would be c' g d Bb F C. Pitch could perhaps just come up to
modern A440 at 890mm but be more comfortable at a semitone below.
Such an instrument could be used for continuo where a player didn't
wish for the re-entrant theorbo tuning (who?) and could, of course, be
used as a transposing instrument to accommodate lower pitched voices
and instruments - the transposing archlute (as also required and
suggested by Melli's collection - see Comm 464).
In my view, I still think such a very large 'bass' archlute is probably
a chimera - but others might wish to pursue this line.
The two links to paste into your browser are:
fomrhi.org/uploads/bulletins/Fomrhi-031.pdf
fomrhi.org/uploads/bulletins/Fomrhi-032.pdf
regards
Martyn
----- Forwarded Message -----
From:Martyn Hodgson <hodgsonmar...@cs.dartmouth.edu>
To:magnus andersson <maan7...@yahoo.com>; Lute Net
<lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, 2 May 2018, 8:13
Subject: [LUTE] Re: Experiences with double strung theorbo
Dear Magnus,
From the historical evidence and extant instruments, the double
strung
theorbo seemed at least as common as the single strung instrument.
However generally not with doubled basses but mostly (pace the fine
Puget painting) in the configuration of only the fingered strings
being double: the basses were generally single as on the instruments
with single fingered courses. How this was reflected by contemporary
professional theorbo players in, say, the opera house, who may have
favoured single stringing throughout to enable a robust tone is, I
suggest, an area still awaiting to be fully explored
Regarding your experiences with double stringing: yours are similar
to
mine in that the double fingered strung instrument sound is
penetrating
and 'seems' to be almost as loud as the single strung even with
fingered string tensions at around 60/70% of the single version. I
put
this phenomenon down to: - the presence of more upper partials with
thinner strings which produce ' brightness' ; - and also to some
extent
to the slight, but telling, difference in tuning of the double
courses
which, as on the lute, can give an edge to the sound (similarly,
piano
tuners can slightly put unisons out of tune to emphasise the beating
and thus the penetration).
Keep up the good work on the unjustly neglected double strung
instrument............
regards
Martyn
__________________________________________________________________
From: magnus andersson <maan7...@cs.dartmouth.edu>
To: Lute Net <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, 1 May 2018, 21:42
Subject: [LUTE] Experiences with double strung theorbo
Dear Lute netters,
as some of you might recall I recently decided to get a new
instrument.
My first idea was to have a copy made of the Sellas E 545 theorbo
in
Paris,
but since my principal aim with this instrument was to use it for
Basso
Continuo,
I discussed with my lute maker Lars Jà ¶nsson to use a bigger body
than
the Sellas original,
with less frets (8 tied gut frets + 2 body frets) but hopefully
more
sound. We went for one of the biggest bodies
out there, a Buechenberg model, but we kept the exact dimensions
and
string setups
from the E 545, i.e. 6x2 @ 890mm for the fingerboard, and 8x2
@1300mm
for the diapasons.
I ´ve only had it for a month, but already have had the opportunity
to
use it in concert a couple of times.
My experiences so far (these are all of course personal, and in
comparison with my previous theorbo, which was a Tiffenbrucker
870/1650
by the same maker), in these first steps in trying to learn to play
this new therbo, can be summarized:
It takes longer to tune it than a single strung instrument, but
when
tuned it is just as stable
It is not quieter because of the double courses
It has a very penetrating sound quality
One must be much more careful in hitting the strings vertically
with
the left hand to avoid inconsistencies in intonation
The ability to intonate a plucked note with alteration of the left
hand
pressure and l.h. horizontal movement is improved
Playing long slurred tirades is more tiring than on a single strung
theorbo
890 mm feels big with double courses, but even with my relatively
small
hands, is no problem.
The right hand thumb needs more than 4 weeks to find its way around
in
the basses...
To illustrate this, the Bavarian Cultural radio funnily enough
recorded
a concert 10 days ago, which can be viewed
here: [1]Die lange Nacht der Alten Musik: Ensemble CONTINUUM |
BR-Klassik
two examples (if you want to spare yourself Kà ¤ptn Peng, David
Foster
Wallace and Kate Tempest arrangements)
at 2:10 there is the second toccata from Kapsperger ´s first
chitarrone
print
at 29.15 the Crucifixion sonata by H I F Biber
Die lange Nacht der Alten Musik: Ensemble CONTINUUM |
BR-Klassik
Bayerischer Rundfunk
Best wishes,
Magnus Andersson
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