Dear Stuart, From our modest first forays into reading this rep. I've found that different size lutes help in the following ways:
a) They put the 'voice range' of the line in the center of the lute fingerboard. When we consider that they probably didn't have roped or great strings for the bass 6th course (this is official conjecture, mind you) it makes more sense to lengthen the lute get it into the inner courses. Remember the instructions in Capirola and the pieces in Spinacino that only barely use the 6th course. The outside courses may have had more intonation issues, too. b) A descant lute puts the general plectrum usage over more strings which would wear on the chanterelle less. This would have been good string husbandry. c) All instruments playing in the middle fingerboard simply sound more homogenous. Of course, we modern luters are blessed w/ workarounds for some of these issues. Except sightreading on unfamiliar sizes! :^)# I'm glad you're working on these. Any chance we'll meet up at the LSA seminar this summer? Sean [ps, I sent this to the lutelist earlier but it 'didn't take' for some reason] On Feb 20, 2006, at 11:06 AM, Stuart Walsh wrote: > >> >> Either we accept Jon Banks' arguments (as I do), and are happy to >> refer to these pieces as music for "lute trio" or "lute consort", or >> we can opt for Michal's more cautious "playable on lutes". Either >> way, the music is there to be enjoyed by us all, and as Sean says, >> it is great fun. >> >> Best wishes, >> >> Stewart. >> >> >> >> >> > In his 'performance notes' Jon Banks says; ' This music would > originally > have been performed on lutes of different sizes, varying from large > bass > instruments to the smaller quintern.' I've got an idea of what a > quintern/gittern is (I think). But what would the large bass > instruments have been like? Do any survive from this period? > The bass part whizzes about just as much as the quintern part in this > music, so the instrument couldn't have been too unwieldy. > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
