A very interesting thread. Just expressing a few doubts here!
The Moravian Archives in Betlehem, PA. They have a c. 1750 book with
chorales in tablature for that tuning and also a lute-cittern from the
same time period. Andrew Rutherford posted a message about it on this
group about a month ago and he and Lanie Graf have added quite a bit
of information about the Moravian cittern tradition at the ning,
including pictures of the instrument mentioned and photos of a
painting that includes two ladies playing lute-citterns.
It would be really interesting to see some scans of the chorales form
the Moravian Archives. I wonder if Lanie Graf can be persuaded?
I don't see this...yet. Certainly the instrument has 11 pegs but is
there any reason to think that the strings were arranged in four
doubles and 3 singles?
Sorry, that was a typo. It should be the other way round: four double
courses and three single basses. It's fairly clear if you look at the
nut on the large photo.
Maybe...?. Do we even know if the nut is original?
From what can be seen in the Krafft painting, this instrument
doesn't really look anything like a cithrinchen?
The painting doesn't show the most distinctive part of the instrument
- the tail end - but the shape of the part we do see is consistent
with the preserved Bellman cittern and with the only Hamburger
citrinchen at the Studia-Instromentorum site:
http://www.studia-instrumentorum.de/MUSEUM/ZISTER/0639.htm
However, now that you mention it, the *details* in the painting does
fit the surviving Bellman instrument! The fretboard, the lining and
the rosette are all very different and the cleaner scan I posted first:
http://hem.passagen.se/iblis/bellman.jpg
seems to show twelve tuning pegs!
But a cithrinchen is a small instrument with a thin body (like other
seventeenth century citterns). The thing that Bellman holds in the
painting is much, much bigger with a really deep body. I'm ready to be
convinced, but it doesn't look anything like a cithrinchen to me.
This is really strange. It is commonly accepted knowledge among
Bellman experts that he only played two instruments throughout his
lifetime (the other one was a theorbised cittern with extended bass
strings) and that the cittern in the Krafft painting is the one
preserved at the Stockholm museum.
What does this mean? Is the Stockholm cittern a fake? Is the painting
*that* inexact? Did Bellman actually own more than the two citterns we
know of? Did he just borrow somebidy else's cittern when he posed for
the painting? Looks like we have to challenge a century-old well
established historical fact here.
All things considered, I think we can be 99.9 percent certain that
it was common during the 18th C. to fingerpick the Hamburger
citrinchen.
Even if it was tiny?
Good point.
First, I wasn't thinking only of the common small Hamburger
citrincehnn but also this still hypothetical larger bell cittern. I
should have been more precise there.
But let's see:
We know of other small historical stringed instruments (renaissance
citterns and 17th C. mandolins/mandolas) being played fingerstyle so
the suggestion may not be quite as drastic as it may seem at first sight.
At the moment it seems as if the Storm ms. was written for - if not a
Hamburger citrinchen - at least a cittern of the same size and tuning.
I think we all agree the music there has to be played fingerstyle.
Frank, I don't know about this. Which cithrinchen tuning? I've seen
references (Groves, I'm pretty sure) to the maj7 tuning in C and F and
now, thanks to Rocky, to Bb. And you mentioned another weird one. So: do
we really know what size the Storm cittern would have been?
Bellman learned to play on the cittern his grandfather had bought in
Hamburg - I think we can be fairly certain of that. Even if he did
switch to a different instrument later, it's not very likely he'd
change his playing style.
Then again, what *did* grandpa get in Hamburg? How likely is it that a
18th C. singer/singwriter would perform only accompanied with
something roughly equivalent to a modern mandolin in pitch and size?
The 'Moravian' lute-bellied cittern isn't a cithrinchen.
No but the lute-cittern was designed around 1700 as a hybrid between a
cittern and a lute.
Any more details on this? This 'lute-cittern' concept is completely new
to me. I know of lots of lute-bellied citterns (English guitars and some
French cistres) but these are from much later (1750s and onwards).
Here's a picture from the 19th century.Perhaps a lute-cittern, in duet
with an alpine horn!?
http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/cyster.jpg
Stuart
It was almost certainly based on a specific existing cittern tradition
and the evidence so far indicates that this was the Hamburger
citrinchen (or at least a close relative). The Moravian info suggests
the two shared the same tuning and, according to Michel, Gdansk - a
city with strong connections to Hamburg - was the geographical center
of the lute-cittern.
Frank Nordberg
http://www.musicaviva.com
http://stores.ebay.com/Nordbergs-Music-Store?refid=store
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