David and All, The article by Narvey is excellent, scholarly and, given that it is factual and not opinion, definitive. After 1680 the tuning nuveau in Dm spread with the "Enlightenment" movement to include lutes and theorbos played in northern Europe. Only the Italians and those under their influence - aka Vienna - are reported to have stuck with the renaissance tuning. Very large theorbos and chittarone handled the problems of string length - 89cm on the fingerboard not unusual - by either adopting a mock reentrant tuning and lowering the first or first and second course an octave or, more inventively, just dropping out the first course tuning and opting for d,a,f,D,A,G, etc.
Having played continuo in Dm tuning on my 76/120 "theorbo" lute, I can say that it falls readily to hand and many chords (in keys popular with the bowed instruments, barokflaute and recorders, like F,C & G, are easier in the Dm tuned lute. All this is my opinion, I could be wrong. Best, Rob Dorsey http://RobDorsey.com -----Original Message----- From: Nancy Carlin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2006 6:46 PM To: David Rastall; lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Subject: [LUTE] Re: Another Theorbo Question The Lute Society of America just published a nice article on this subject written by Benjamin Narvey. Some of you who are not members might not have seen it. Anyone who thinks they might want to join the LSA can email me off the list and will send them a copy of this issue. Nancy Carlin LSA Administrator To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
