All this mandora/gallichon talk has me a little worked up. There is a marvelous matched ca. 1790 mandolino/mandola pair by Presbler in storage at the Met. Their decor is almost identical and they appear to have been built as a set. The mandolino is in six courses and I would assume intended for standard g to g" tuning. The mandola is in seven courses with a ca. 60 cm scale (maybe a touch more: I don't have measurements on hand). I know of at least one other 7-course mandola/mandora by Presbler. Anybody care to speculate on tuning?
Eugene At 02:01 PM 8/14/2005, Martyn Hodgson wrote: >The picture about Gallichon/Mandora tunings and sizes is not tidy (up to >60 different scodatura tunings are identified! - see Pietro Prosser's 1996 >paper), but very briefly: >various nominal pitches are known from 18thC documents commonly with the >top string at f' and d' (but others known). Note that late 17thC >instruments (not to be confused with the even earlier 17thC 3 string >colascione) were much bigger with one tuning having the first string at a >- as mentioned earlier the spread of overwound strings seems to have been >the principal factor in shrinkage (ie could still get a strong bass with >an easier to play shorter string length if overwound were used - tho' >large instruments may have continued in orchestras & opera). There were >earlier communications about this which will be in the archives. A good >recent overview has been published by the British Lute Soc (referred to >earlier); there's also Federico Marincola's ' LuteBot' (Winter 1999) >available on the web and earlier articles in various FoMRHI Quarterlies. P > >As Mathias has observed, what pitch Bresc. considered the instrument to be >at is made clear in the MS: it's the d tuning with three variants for the >6th course. > >It's been suggested that the mid 18thC Gallichon was the larger instrument >with open string length in the high 60/low 70cm range (in >d'/e'?), whereas the Mandora's string length in this period would have >been in the lower 60s (in f?). Another differentiating feature could be >the design of peghead with that of the larger instruments (Gallichons?) >often of the of the violin type, frequently ending in a plaque rather >than a scroll, whereas the smaller instruments most usually have bent back >lute type pegboxes (with a treble first string rider). But the picture is >not entirely consistent and this difference in style may be more a >reflection of regional tastes. > >A couple of things I forgot to mention in summarising major differences >betweem G/Ms and the early lute: -the position and size of the rose - this >is higher than in the classic lute and smaller too - in short, in line >with most 18thC 'baroque' lutes; also they started to add extra bass >courses (plus ca change) so that 7, 8 and even 9 course tunings are >known................ > >My view is that these instruments were strung at significantly higher >tensions than the earlier classical lute - around 50% higher but I have no >historical evidence for this speculation other than the bellies do not >seem thinner than 'baroque' lutes proper which had double the number of >courses. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
