Dear Martyn I am sorry to have denied you the opportunity to fully reply to my message of 31 Jan and its various inconsistencies and 'misrepresentations'.
I prefer to consider my inconsistencies and “misrepresentation”s as an attempt to keep an open mind and examine different ideas about what we find in this manuscript before arriving at any tentative conclusions. (Incidentally the correct RISM siglum for the manuscript is CZ-Bm D 189). In my final message I clearly stated – 1. It is clear from the chart on f.48r that the “Gytarra” is a 6- course instrument. It may be synonymous with the 6-course mandora which Martyn says was common at the time. It is also clear that the section between the first two double bar lines on f.48v is a tuning check for the 6- course “Gytarra” on f.48r; the last bar shows that the open bass is tuned to the same note as the third course. 2. The second section on the first stave shows the additional bass courses of the “Mandora” numbered 6-12 starting with G. 3. It seems to me that these two instruments may belong to a very broad genus of lute shaped instruments with added basses but their precise identity is uncertain. 4. The pieces from f.48v-f.59v are for the “Gytarra”; those from f.60r- f. 76r are for a 5-course “Mandora”; and those from f.76v-f.95r numbered 1-56 are probably for 5-course guitar. Your suggestion that we should now agree to disagree simply indicates that you are not willing to admit that anything you say is wrong. A number of things you have said are nonsensical. 1. The fact that the manuscript includes a piece by Losy does not indicate that it was copied during his life time. It could have been copied anytime in the 18th century, at least as late as the 1760s. 2. Your comment - “A multi-course theorboed mandora with twelve courses never existed in the period covered by the dating of D- 189.” You may not have come across another reference to such an instrument referred to as a “mandora” in another 18th century source but this does not prove that such an instrument didn’t exist in Rajhrad at the time the manuscript was copied. It may have been quite rare. 3. Your comment- “Accordingly, the most likely, and reasonable, identification of the couple of works for an instrument with seven extra basses is the arch/theorboed guitar”. It certainly is not a likely and reasonable identification – there are all sorts of other instruments which it might have been. It certainly doesn’t prove that it was figure-of-eight shaped. 4. Your comment - “Incidentally I don't know why the duet Boure (f. 69v) for Mandora 1 and 2 does not employ the sixth course: perhaps the composer preferred this particular piece with these instruments this way or maybe they didn't have two guitars available? “ No, you obviously don't know - The parts are labelled in that way to indicate that the two pieces are to be played as a duet rather than as separate pieces for a single mandora. Your suggestion that they didn’t have two guitars available is a fairy tale. You just don’t want to admit that that section of pieces is for a 5-course “mandora” not the 5- course guitar. 5. Your comment - “ the majority of pieces after F. 67 are in Keys where low G is at least as helpful as for the works on in the following keys of G, F. C and D - BUT the scribe writes the G at the upper octave:" "a distinctive feature of the guitar, but not of the period mandora, etc." Clearly it is a feature of the 5-course mandora for which these pieces were intended - unavoidable in the key of D major. All the pieces in D major exhibit this feature. Observations of this kind would not be acceptable even in undergraduate work. I think I have said on several occasions that I do not think the fact that this manuscript (or any other source) includes music for both mandora and 5-course guitar has any bearing on whether the low octave string(s) were placed on the thumb side of a course on the 5-course guitar in Germany or elsewhere. We simply don't know. I am sorry if you feel you are being bullied. At least I only send my messages to the Vihuela List. I don’t send them to other lists with the intention of discrediting someone with whom I happen to disagree, so that as many people as possible can read them. There is no justification for sending 600 words of unpleasant personal comments which have nothing to do with the mandora or gallicon to the Baroque Lute List. Because you persist in doing this means that I have no choice but to send my messages to both lists too to ensure that my views are fairly represented. As ever Monica Dear Monica, That's a shame since, due to all these baroque manoeuvrings around the mandora and gytarra, we've never actually got round to properly considering the original issue I raised! This, you may recall, was whether the widespread use in the seventeenth century of the high octave on the bass (thumb) side of a guitar octave pair actually continued to be the general practice in the eighteenth century - especially in German speaking and Nordic lands (for example, in works by Diesel, say, as well as pieces contained in D-189). Your earlier postings have been carefully perused but, unfortunately, are sometimes contradictory over theparticular central matter of what instruments you nowbelieve are required for the pieces in this MS. Accordingly I had thought that, because of these previous inconsistencies, you'd welcome an opportunity to make a final and unequivocal statement as to your latest position. Clearly, without knowing precisely what this now is, it's simply not possible to make further headway. So, perhaps, drawing a line may be appropriate - though I do feel rather denied the opportunity to fully reply to yours of 31 Jan and its various inconsistencies and 'misrepresentations'. Nevertheless, as I first suggested quite a few postings ago, let's therefore now agree to disagree............... Finally, I'm a bit taken aback about 'bullying' since, to be quite frank, I felt very much the one on the receiving end! Indeed, I've generally aimed to maintain polite exchanges where possible. Ah well, perhaps it's all in the eye of the beholder - others can be our judges. regards, Martyn PS. Sorry - but, to quickly pre-empt another red herring in the offing, I'm obliged to mention that the mandore and the mandora are actually two entirely different instruments....... To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
