Dear All,
Yes indeed, the Desmoulins is only interesting for its oddly-shaped
back, well described in M. Burwell's tutor. Unfortunately all the rest
is gone ... My purpose when building an instrument after it was to see
how this back would work. But I had to redesign completely the
soundboard after what I had as period informations, mostly Mersenne for
the barring pattern, and Mouton for bridge and rose design. It turned
out to be one of the best instrument I made, acoustically speaking and
according to the owner. But whether it is mostly due to the back shape,
the barring I guessed, or a combination of both, is beyond my knowledge
so far. I wanted to write someting about what I found interesting but
never took the time ...
Anyway, I remember asking several times the Brussels Museum for the
Allard, and there is nothing about internal construction. No drawing, no
X-rays, and they really don't want to make any. I guess we'll have to
wait to eventually know if the soundboard is original and what an
original 17th c lute barring could be, if any.
Good luck,
Julien
Le 2015-08-16 12:48, David Van Edwards a écrit :
Dear Both,
Alas the Des Moulins has a more recent soundboard, bridge, neck and
pegbox so only the back is definitely original. Nonetheless Julian
Stryjak has pointed out how similar the outline is to the famous
Mouton painting by François de Troy in Paris and indeed he has built
nice copies.
The Allard is indeed interesting in spite of its later conversion to a
mandora because it may have the original soundboard (and barring?) so
I would love to make a drawing when I next visit Brussels.
However no plans to do so as yet! X-rays which would be of the
greatest interest may be more difficult in these days of shortage of
money.
Best wishes,
David
Hi,
the most famous French lute maker in the period you're coveting
seems
to have been Jean Desmoulins: his only surviving lute is at the
CitA(c) de la Musique in Paris (E.979.2.69) and pictures are
available
on line (I guess plans should be available from the CitA(c)).
I just notived that the search functionality of the CitA(c) seems
to be
down, so you can see the lute here as well:
[1]http://www.europeana.eu/portal/record/09102/_CM_0161079.html
In any case the French luthier Julien Stryjak (once in Strasbourg,
now
in Saint Germain lA"s Buxy) builds a copy, so he probably has plans
as
well. See
[2]http://www.julienstryjak.com/en/les-instruments-instruments/luth-bar
oque-baroque-lute/
All the best,
Luca
Il sabato 15 agosto 2015, Lutherien <[3]luther...@t-online.de> ha
scritto:
There's an important lute by C. Allard in Brussels (see
[4]http://carmentis.kmkg-mrah.be/eMuseumPlus?service=direct/1/Result
Lightb
oxView/result.t1.collection_lightbox.$TspTitleImageLink.link&sp=10&s
p=S
collection&sp=SfieldValue&sp=0&sp=0&sp=3&sp=Slightbox_3x4&sp=0&sp=Sd
eta
il&sp=0&sp=F&sp=T&sp=0) . The instrument was originally very
probably
an 11-course lute and is also in the book by R. Lundberg. It
seems that
it is the only still extant lute by a (late) 17th c. French
lute
builder which still has the original belly. A Canadian lute
builder
told me that he has a drawing and x ray and that he thinks
that
the
lute or parts of it may even be from the 16th c. and then have
been
turned into an 11-course by Allard. The museum says that there
is
no
drawing nor x ray. I am confused - it would be very important
to
have
at least a drawing of this important instrument. I specialize
on
French
baroque lute music and would love to have a good 11-course
based
on
this lute, preferably with rather old belly wood and a kind of
warm and
delicate tone. All lute builders who happen to travel to
Brussels
-
please try to make a drawing of the Allard and make it
available
to the
community of lute builders.
Thank you!
C. D.
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References
1. http://www.europeana.eu/portal/record/09102/_CM_0161079.html
2.
http://www.julienstryjak.com/en/les-instruments-instruments/luth-baroque-baroque-lute/
3. mailto:luther...@t-online.de
4.
http://carmentis.kmkg-mrah.be/eMuseumPlus?service=direct/1/ResultLightb
5. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.telekom.mail
6. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
