At 04:32 PM 8/3/2006, you wrote: >Dear List: > >In a previous post, David van Ooijen provided the passage in Italian, which >I paste below. He also provided us with a link to the following > >Sono ancor armoniosi tutti gli instrumenti da tasti, perche hanno le >consonanzie molto perfette e con facilit=E0 vi si possono far molte cose >che empiono l'animo di musicale dolcezza. (Second Book, XIII) > >The troublesome word is "tasti," which both Mathias and Bernd have already >pointed out means either keys or frets in Italian. This double duty is >also found in other languages...take for example the word "tecla" in >Spanish. > >Although there is a tendency for us to want to believe that Castiglione >meant the lute, we must also consider the importance of other instruments >with =B3tasti,=B2 most notably, viols and keyboards.
I thought that the clue to resolving this was Castiglione's mention of "consonanzie molto perfette." I have taken this to mean the perfect consonances which can be achieved on the lute by adjusting the frets in meantone tuning, whereas keyboard instruments are stuck with the pitch a given string or pipe was tuned to. The lutenist (or viol player) has more than one option for producing a given pitch, and can choose the one that is more in tune. It's not an original idea of mine, I just can't remember where I heard it. Caroline **************************************** Caroline Usher DCMB Administrative Coordinator 613-8155, Room B343 LSRC Mailing address: Box 91000, Duke University, Durham NC 27708 To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
