[VIHUELA] Re: Guitar octaves shown out

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 10:01:16 -0800

Only part of this message seems to have got through. Here is the whole of it since it took me some time to compose. 


I fear that what I have may be incomplete, because I can see no picture
of a guitar showing the placing of high and low octave strings, and I
can find no mention of de Visée. All the strings of the guitar seem to
be of the same thickness.



The entry in the standard version of Diderot's dictionary in well known, 
shows the stringing and mentions De Visee.  I can't say more than that.

.
Do we all agree with the following

potted history gleaned from our discussion so far?


Not entirely.    (Some people wont agree with it at all).


Guitars in the first half of the 17th century had bourdons, with the 4th
and 5th courses strung in octaves.



They didn't always have bordons on the 4th and 5th courses.   Brizeno 
didn't.   Doisi de Velasco indicates that they didn't.   Mersenne says 
that the lowest course was the 3rd - this being a peculiarity of the 
guitar. Costanza's instructions imply the re-entrant tuning.   There are 
other manuscript sources which indicate the re-entrant tuning and one that 
even implies the "French" tuning.



In the first half of the 17th century the guitar could be strung with or 
without bordones and without may have been more common.


In the second half of the century

composers treated the guitar more as a melodic instrument (like a violin
with double stops) and less of a contrapuntal one sustaining melodic
bass lines (like a lute).


Valdambrini (1646/7)  says the guitar has no basses.

This led to some players removing bourdons

from the fifth course (Corbetta), and from the fourth and fifth courses
(Sanz).



I would say that this lead to a preference for re-entrant stringing of one 
sort or another. Whether they removed the bordones, or had never had them 
in the first place is a bit speculative.


An extra refinement to lessen the impact of the bourdons was

reverse stringing of the unison pairs (Ribayaz).



You mean the treble string was  placed on the thumb side of a course. 
Possibly.


The French tuning (no

bourdon on the fifth) persisted into the first half of the 18th century
(Campion).


That's my opinion but it's not shared by others.

The guitar returned to its original tuning with bourdons by

the second half of the 18th century (Diderot).


But Castillion mentions using bordones in 1730.

It is possible that some

guitars continued to have bourdons throughout this period, but how far
that extended to serious art music is up for grabs.



Some people would like to think so - but they are only mantioned in 
Spanish sources - and Nassarre (1724) says that the "French" tuning is the 
commonest.


I don't know why we have to go over this endlessly.

Why don't you all read the booklet which I wrote and which is published by 
the Lute Society.   It does at least give the basic facts and sets out all 
the important information in full with accurate translations and you can 
read a summary of these on my web page.   www.monicahall.co.uk .


Regards

Monica


PS for Monica: Please could you distinguish between Stewart McCoy (me)
and Stuart Walsh. You have been writing to me as Stuart, and referring
to Stuart as Stewart. I really don't mind the misspelling, but it could
be confusing for people trying to follow the discussion. :-)



Humblest apologies - I thought I had got it the right way round.   Why can 
we not have standardised spelling for all our names.   I have seen my name 
spelt as Monnica somewhere and I know someone whose name is spelt 
Jonathon - which is contrary to the Hebrew and Latin I believe..



-----Original Message-----
From: lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu [mailto:lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On
Behalf Of Monica Hall
Sent: 07 February 2011 13:53
To: Martyn Hodgson
Cc: Vihuelalist
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Guitar octaves shown out

This illustration is originally from the article by Rousseau in
Diderot's
Dictionary which apparently it was re-printed.

However - if my notes are correct, Corrette does include a similar
illustration.

There has never been a facsimile of this but there  is a copy in the
British
Library which I have read.   They wont let you copy it of course.

Monica
M

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Martyn Hodgson" <hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk>

To: "Vihuela Dmth" <vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Monday, February 07, 2011 1:34 PM
Subject: [VIHUELA] Guitar octaves shown out




  --- On Mon, 7/2/11, Martyn Hodgson <hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk>

wrote:


    From: Martyn Hodgson <hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk>
    Subject: Guitar octaves shown out
    To: "Stuart Walsh" <s.wa...@ntlworld.com>
    Date: Monday, 7 February, 2011, 13:32





  In the Encyclopedie methodique, arts et metiers mechanique (Paris,
  Liege 1788) there is a picture of a guitar that makes it clear that

the

  bourdons are placed in the inner positions. The article also

mentions

  that de Visee did not use the A bourdon.



  Is this it Stuart? Presumably it's lifted from an earlier edition of
  the Encyclopedia
   Martyn

  --


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