These are good points, and good inquiries, Ed. The entire topic of tension of baroque lute stringing is fascinating, and we really do not have all the answers at this point & time.
Yes, the renaissance lutes were highly esteemed, and as you know, many were converted into 11 and or 13 course lutes. Not being a builder, I do not have a clue as to the intricacies that would be involved, but I have had experience with this topic. In the 90's, I bought a new lute by Dan Larson; it was a 63 cm. 7 course Frei. At the time, I was not playing a great deal of renaissance music, so I had an idea............ I have a wonderful 13 course Burkholtzer, but I pondered at the idea of converting this 7 course 63 cm. Frei into a 67.5 cm. 11 course French / German baroque lute. In consulting Dan Larson, he thought it was a great idea, and as there is precedence for doing this, he did it. He had to: 1. Make a new neck & peg box 2. Make a new bridge 3. Open the instrument & brace it differently, so it could accommodate a wider bridge. The results are magnificent. I do not know what he did to change the braces, but it worked. When I decided to do this project, Toyohiko had actually been in town, and he concurred it would be a great idea, but said that the braces needed to be modified (Dan already knew that). It does not look like a hacked conversion job.... it looks as though it was born to be a "Mouton" lute. In terms of tensions, look at the iconography. Almost each & every painting of a baroque lutenist shows the hand position almost right on the bridge. Look at Mouton. He is not "that" far back on the bridge, but very close. The evidence is absolutely overwhelming that this is the "usual" practice at the time. If one tries to do this on a baroque lute strung conventionally as we string them in our modern times, the results are a harsh, brittle sound, because playing way back on the bridge, gives us entirely too much tension. What Toyohiko has done is to make the tension much less, where he is actually about only 1/2 to 2/3 of the usual tension. We all know that if we play close to the rose in this manner, the strings will be very "wimpy" with such a light tension. But when the strings are much more slack, they work well when playing close to the bridge. Also, back to the theory of loaded gut.......... the surviving baroque lutes do not have largely bored holes to accomodate thick strings. This perhaps has less to do with "densifying" strings than it has to do with using conventional strings using a smaller diameter, with resulting lower tension! I have not seen Toyohiko do this, but judging from the sound of this Weichenbreger CD, the results are very, very clear and beautiful. I have not personally tried this approach, as : 1. It would cost a lot of money to buy an entire new set of strings in low tension, and 2. I have avoided the time it would take to develop a new technique. This topic has the potential to revolutionize the way we approach baroque lute, just as much as "thumb under" did for the renaissance lute back in the 70's. Any more comments or observations? ed At 02:06 AM 11/21/2004 +0900, Ed Durbrow wrote: >I'm really curious to hear the new recording by Satoh after reading >your review in the Quarterly, Ed. > >Reading the Lundberg article in the Journal makes me wonder whether >low tension on a converted Renaissance lute was perhaps a necessity >and whether that set the 'tone' for lutes of the Baroque. Lundberg >states that the tops on originally made Baroque lutes are thicker >than Ren lute tops, especially in certain places. If Ren lutes were >so sought after to be converted, yet were designed with thin tops to >accommodate 6-8 courses, it seems only logical to compensate with >less tension over more strings. I would like to ask the makers >reading this to what extent re-bracing was done to accommodate >increased tension. Of course, you could put a bar every inch, but >there must be a downside to that. If 150 year old lutes were so >sought after, as they apparently were, they must have prized them for >their sound and not wanted to completely negate it by barring it >completely differently, I would think. > >If this makes sense, the picture that emerges is one of Ren lutes >having basically higher tension than Baroque lutes. This has far >reaching implications concerning slurs, volume and who knows what >else? What do you all think? It also begs the question of the tension >on archlutes and theorbos. What was the tension like on continuo >instuments? > >cheers, > > > >To get on or off this list see list information at >http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html Edward Martin 2817 East 2nd Street Duluth, Minnesota 55812 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] voice: (218) 728-1202
