On Feb 17, 2009, at 3:42 PM, Stewart McCoy wrote: > There are various 17^th-century sources which tell us things about > theorboes, but it is futile to dismiss them all out of hand, just > because they don't happen to have exactly the wording we want, or > because what they say doesn't apply to all circumstances.
Nobody suggested doing anything of the sort. I was responding to a categorical statement that "what they did back then" was tune "to the highest pitch that is possible with the thinnest useable string." If I read a statement like that, I immediately ask: 1. Who was THEY? There were players all over Europe, and we know that there were drastic differences in the sound of their instruments; e.g. Mersenne's comment that archlutes in Italy were louder than French theorbos (a suspicious statement, I know, since I doubt he heard them side by side, but still in line with what we know of Italian and French style of the day). 2. When was THEN? 1603? 1712? Was the the theorbo player in Handel's Giulio Cesare in London in 1724 stringing and playing his instrument the same way as the third theorbo player in Monteverdi's Orfeo in 1610? 3. What is the "thinnest useable string"? Is "thinnest useable" a valid concept? Assuming it is, what does it mean? The thinnest string that won't break as soon as you put it on and tune it up? Not likely. More likely the thinnest string that will give you a sound you like, which is to say, the criterion is not maximum thinness (which has been scientifically proven to equal minimum thickness) but the optimum thickness, which is to say the thickness the player likes, which is to say the whole concept of "thinnest useable string" is meaningless. This is one reason I was curious to know if any historical source says "highest pitch possible with the thinnest useable string." > "By Reason of the Largeness of It, we are constrain'd to make > use of an > Octave Treble-String, that is, of a Thick String, which stands > Eight > Notes Lower, than the String of a Smaller Lute, (for no Strings > can be > made so Strong, that will stand to the Pitch of Consort, upon such > Large Sciz'd Lutes) and for want of a Small Treble-String, the > Life and > Spruceness of such Ayrey Lessons, is quite lost, and the Ayre much > altered. Nay, I have known, (and It cannot be otherwise) that > upon some > Theorboes, they have been forc'd to put an Octave String in the 2d. > String's Place; by reason of the very long Scize of the > Theorboe, which > would not bear a Small String to Its True pitch; because of Its so > great Length, and the Necessity of setting the Lute at such a High > Pitch, which must Agree with the rest of the Instruments." > > This concurs with the points Martyn made earlier, that the > tuning of > the theorbo is determined by the size of the instrument. No it doesn't. It says that at some unknown size and unknown pitch an English theorbo, which was normally single re-entrant, needed to be double re-entrant. It does not say that double re-entrant tuning (or single re-entrant, for that matter) is invariably limited to instruments of a certain size. It tells us nothing about Castaldi or Pittoni. It does not explain the tiorbino. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
