Alexander Batov wrote: >Following the lines of the resent discussion of large-size vihuelas and >guitars here is a late 15th - early 16th century Catalan picture (which >isn't very often reproduced) that shows what appears to be a sort of "double >bass" size vihuela or viola da mano: > >http://www.vihuelademano.com/current/pages/vihuela-grande.htm > >Alexander > > >
Crawford Young gives some references for possible tunings for lutes in the late 15th century. One is from a Venetian MS: D-G- c-f-a-d1. Young says: ...'the instrument depicted in this source is a very large one, the largest of any of our late 15th century lutes.' I think there is just a chart in the MS, not an actual picture of the instrument and Young says that it might not be for lute but for viola, plucked or bowed. Nevertheless Young is obviously thinking of a big instrument - like the one Alexander shows(?) An instrument with a low D could, I suppose, be correspondingly larger than a standard one in the way that a discant lute a fourth higher would be a lot smaller. (But why couldn't they have just put a seventh course on a standard G instrument?) Crawford Young also gives a specifically viola da mano tuning from Bologna (mentioned in David Fallow's LSJ article) for a 7 course instrument tuned to A but with a low E string. But the vihuela grande in Alexander's picture doesn't appear to be even a six course instrument. The player seems to be playing a chord - rather than a bass line? I wonder how low the bass line went in the late 15th century. I've only looked at a very few pieces but in those pieces even a low F is rare. I'm fascinated by the idea of plucked ensembles reading from mensural notation rather than tab. There appears to masses of evidence for plucked duos (large and small lutes or lute and gittern and, perhaps viola/vihuela equivalents). But Jon Banks reckons there are trios too - the evidence being 'instrumental' textless chansons in 3 parts. So maybe the trio of instruments would be: a 'standard' lute or viola/vihuela in G (or A), and an instrument a fourth higher and - like the vihuela grande in Alexander's picture - a fourth lower. Maybe a larger instrument would project the line better than a standard instrument with an added seventh course. (Martin Shepherd implied this in an earlier discussion of Jon Banks' suggestions) The small violas in the picture are interesting too ( fourth higher than 'standard'?). They are the first ones I've seen where you can actually see the bridge. I can't make out whether it's floating or fixed. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
