Many individual issues in this longstanding debate. I do agree that for the professional, money should not be the over-riding issue. Otherwise why not just buy a Pakistani "lute" on ebay because it is cheaper than an Andy Rutherford or Grant Tomlinson for several thousand more? There is still a practical issue of live performance vs recording. An "authentic" sounding gut strung lute in a centraly heated concert hall that goes out of tune every 10 bars, while possibly quite HIP, is no fun to listen to.
Unlike some on this list, I am not a physicist or physical chemist and cannot comment on the physical properties of currently manufactured gut strings. It was my impression from conversations with professionals however that we still truly don't know the composition and tensile strength of gut strings in the Ren and Baroque times and therefore don't know the sound they achieved. Our current gut attempts may be as anachronistic as nylon. Ultimately, the reason we play the lute and not lute music on another instrument (like classical guitar) is for the sound. But a HIP sound includes more variables than string composition; there is interpretation, style, consistent tone production, clever improvisation and ornamentation, etc. There are gut players, professional and amatuer, that in my opinion have horrible sound and uninteresting interpretations. I will take any recording by POD or Hoppy done on synthetics over these other performers in a second. DS PS. And I DO like Coke (diet, not that Coca Cola light crap they peddle in Europe) and breast implants are OK in my book (are artifical hip implants HIP?) On Thursday, October 27, 2005, at 07:17AM, danyel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Ariel, >I have thought about it for many years. I am surrounded by people who like >nylon, some like it better than gut. Many people like coca cola and some >people like breast implants. Many people, including some big names, voted >for Bush. Many people 1914 supported WWI, including many celebrities and >allegedly intelligent people. They have all been terribly wrong. Some of the >players you mention and maybe yourself come from a period where it was the >standard argument to refuse gut because the quality wasn't great and nylon >supposedly what Dowland had used, would it been available. But I think we >are beyond that now. People like Baldock, NRI, Larson, Peruffo, Kuerschner >and several others make splendid gut strings and nylons are out, because >they are a very crude anachronism. I also don't like the sound, but even if >I would it would still be an anachronism. >I don't know these people you mentioned in person, hence I won't tell them. >But I can't listen to O'dette's and Smith's records, because I don't think >it sounds like a renaissance lute (as opposed to Paul Beier, or J. Lindberg, >f. Ex.). Sure, shelling out money on gut strings doesn't automatically >render you a great player, and of cause you can also waste money on bad gut >strings. But really it irritates me that lutanists are so obsessed about >saving a buck; I don't think with violinists you would find this kind of >argument. If they use steel strings they do it for aesthetical reasons. But >would you tolerate a baroque violin with steel strings? > >Best wishes, >danyel To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
