Dear Are, There are six different tunings in the Thynne manuscript. Five of them are so-called transitional tunings, and require no more than 10 courses; one of them is the standard renaissance tuning with diapasons, and requires 14 courses. The 10-course music is French, and the 14-course music Italian. Lady Isabella would have been able to play the 10-course music on her 12-course lute, and she maybe fudged the 14-course music, as we all do, when we don't have quite enough strings to do the job properly.
According to Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, it appears that the Thynne Lute Book was acquired by James Thynne, when he went to Italy. This would account for the Italian pieces in the book. James married Isabella Rich, daughter of the Earl of Holland, who was well known as a lute-player. Apparently this marriage led to the expression, "You can never be too rich or too thin." Best wishes, Stewart. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Are Vidar Boye Hansen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Stewart McCoy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: "Lute Net" <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> Sent: Sunday, December 10, 2006 10:56 PM Subject: [LUTE] Re: How has lute music survived? > Thank you for this information Stewart! > > > The Thynne Lute Book was discovered by Daniel Leech-Wilkinson at > > Longleat House in Wiltshire. He wrote an article about his discovery > > in _The Lute_, vol. 33 (1993), pp. 1-11. He stumbled across the > > manuscript in 1979, while searching through other more recent > > musical documents at the house. The official reference to the book > > is Longleat, Old Library, Recess VI, Music MS 7. The music dates > > from the 1630s, and is notated in French and Italian tablature. > > Leech-Wilkinson gives a complete list of the pieces in his article. > > There are many sarabandes and courantes - the sort of music you > > would expect in a lute book from that period. The book was > > presumably owned by Lady Isabella Thynne, whose portrait holding a > > 12-course lute may be seen at Longleat. > > Is the music in this book for 12-course lute as well? > > > mvh > Are Vidar Hansen > > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html >
