[LUTE] Re: Swanneck + loaded strings

[Anthony Hind]

Jaroslaw

Now, one question pervades me: If there had been a technology  
allowing for
the thin close wound strings to be manufactured, wouldn't it have  
been used
by luthists in 18th century?

        First authenticity, in relation to the instrument, does not  
of course guarantee authenticity in performance; it is only one  
factor that may assist the performer attain that goal, if indeed that  
is their goal. There are many other contradictory tensions that may  
draw some performers in other directions, such as a desire to satisfy  
the tastes of a modern audience, who may not stand a performer  
retuning every ten minutes, and might prefer a good tune to any  
complex polyphony that you the performer would like to give them.  
Obviously, every one resolves this contradiction in their own way,  
and there is no one answer for all performers and all playing contexts.

Now if we limit ourselves to the subject of authenticity, this must  
always be a question of degree, and even of taste. It is impossible  
to reconstruct all the playing conditions of times gone by. We can't  
forget that we have heard Dowland played by Julian Bream. We can't  
forget that we know the sound of the modern guitar, and all types of  
modern and exotic musics that the historic performer/composer could  
not possibly know. On the other hand, from a very early age, they  
could have been steeped in a knowledge of lutes and strings, and the  
sounds of their time, that we can never hope to regain; all this must  
surely make up part of the aesthetics of the period that we can never  
hope to attain. Indeed one aspect of reconstruction is often much  
ridiculed, I think partly because it brings out how hopeless our  
attempts at reconstruction may be, that of wearing period clothes.  
Such performances always seem so dated just a few years later; but  
that should warn us that even in the reconstruction of musical  
instruments, there are bound to be fashions, and the reconstructed  
instrument of today will most probably be recognizably different from  
that same reconstructed instrument in fifty years time (shudders, as  
we think of the Pleyel harpsichord).

Taking all that for granted, nevertheless, as I said to Dan, for  
certain musician-composers, who were trying to extract and even go  
beyond the possibilities of the instrument they were playing, it is  
possible that by going back to a lute with "authentic" stringing can  
actually make us feel the limits they were stretching against, or  
trying to use to the maximum. Just removing the limit may actually  
eliminate some of the structural tensions in the music, and simply  
make it less interesting. However, the particular string types were  
not just limiting to the composer, they have specific qualities and  
timbre that the composer would have exploited. The texture of gut,  
loaded strings, demi-filé, and full wounds is quite different, the  
feel as well as the sound texture. As Ed; says it takes time to adapt  
to a gut bass, but the way you have to play these basses to release  
their power, has a completely different effect from the soft attack  
on a wire-wound in an attempt to damp their sustain.  Had the  
composer created music with these in mind, he surely would have  
exploited, in some way their ability to sustain. So much of the  
trills and flourishes are there on the contrary to compensate for  
that lack of sustain. In the hands of the good performer this then  
becomes a quality rather than a limit or defect.

However, as these open wound strings, as such are not on the market,  
who am I to say that they are an essential ingredient in the process  
of recreating this music. "Theoretically "  they may be, but the  
performer has to contend both with such laudable aims, and other  
necessities, which bring us all to make compromises. At present we  
must choose between two non-historic options (according to MP). We  
can go for an earlier technology: pure gut, Venice, or Pistoys, or a  
later technology: wirewounds, or we can side step and adopt Gimped  
Pistoys, which are in between gut Pistoys and open wound. In the  
first case we have far more sustain than with the Demifilé, in the  
case of the Pistoy far less, and perhaps with the Gimped, something a  
little closer, but still marginally less. Each performer has to make  
this choice, and you surely have the right to your particular solution.
I am not talking about the synthetic strings.
Copper wound on any natural core (silk or gut) is 100% natural too.
The only problem  could be the unwanted resonance, but this I  
believe can be
overcome with the proper playing technique.



I haven't myself used demi-filé, but the lutist who spent an hour and  
a half on MP's lute, with these strings, was so impressed he wants to  
give up wire-wounds altogether, and use pure gut Venice twine (as he  
can't have demi-filé). This is probably, just as historically  
incorrect as using full wirewounds, but after playing that lute, he  
feels wire-wounds are just not right, because of their full sustain,  
that the open just filé didn't have.
Modern lutists can learn to damp resonances (as you say), that is  
indeed part of the skills of the modern guitarist; but the early  
lutist had to contend with the opposite problem: lack of sustain, not  
with damping over resonant strings, and this has effected the music.  
Acknowledging this, some French lutists are using woven nylon (a non  
historic material) to recreate less sustain, but others complain  
about their plasticky sound quality. Some use very old tarnished worn  
copper full-wounds, I don't feel those have a very good sound.

	I would just like to say, however, that it is not because a musician  
would have liked to have had access to new technology, that this  
means we can interpret their music better by making that  
technological jump for them.
Might they not have written something even more to the limits of the  
new technology (why would they be any more satisfied with the limits  
of our present technology)?  This is just a thought. I just want to  
take your argument and see how far we can go with it. Just what sort  
of technological jump can we make from the context of the performer/ 
composer before we all feel the result is unacceptable? Also what do  
we learn from a perfomance on an early period instrument that we  
don't from a modern counterpart. Beethoven on a modern piano is  
acceptable to most of us, but period instruments do give us a  
different insight.

In some cases most of us would probably agree about what isn't an  
acceptable historic compromise or technological jump.The problem  
becomes more delicate when we ask ourselves what IS an acceptable  
technological leap. In the case of the open-wounds, the jump,  
forwards, backwards, or to the side is just a question of personal  
taste. We all have to jump, at least for the moment.

However,  how far can this argument be taken?. A French lutist for  
example argued to me that  had Dowland heard synthetics, he would  
undoubtedly have preferred them.  Someone else suggested he would  
have preferred the classical guitar over the lute. He might have  
done, but he couldn't, and so he remains a composer constrained by  
the tastes and the technology that was available to him at the time;  
and certain musical choices would have ensued from that.
Dowland is perhaps a marginal case, however, because all his lute  
music was not composed directly on the lute, and much was transposed  
to other instruments. The music of certain composers does seem to  
allow a much larger technological jump before all is completely lost  
(Bach comes to mind). However, who is for a concert of Rameau on the  
modern piano (it was not so long ago that this was commonplace); and  
who could honestly listen to a concert of Charles Mouton on the guitar?
Now isn't this really the same problem, taken to a greater degree:  
that of  gut or demi-filé basses being replaced by wirewounds (where  
should the qualitative jump be situated)? Where do we place the limit?

The acceptable limit is surely constantly shifting, as few of us  
would even listen to Rameau on one of those heavy Pleyel  
harpsichords, today, even less perhaps, than on a piano. We are  
certainly having serious problems with heavy lutes.

My impression is that Mimmo Peruffo's research is just pushing at  
those limits, and forcing us to reevaluate them. I am not suggesting  
that we all take to demi-filé and loaded strings, Mimmo could not  
respond, in any case.
We do all have to make compromises, and at all periods, performers  
have probably played music from earlier times, on the "wrong"  
instruments, often with excellent success. German Baroque musicians  
playing French Baroque music for example (replacing loaded-strings  
with demifilé), so why not today replace demifilés with wirewounds?  
We certainly can and many of us do, and some of us very well. I  
certainly wouldn't stop you.
Regards
Anthony


Le 7 déc. 07 à 12:39, Jarosław Lipski a écrit :

Anthony,

Talking about the proper choice of strings for the lute can be very
difficult. It is a very personal thing. We try to find historical  
evidence,
but we struggle to make our instruments to sound best as well. As  
far as the
historical data is concerned we can come to some conclusions.  
However if we
talk about the tone quality , projection, balance, etc. we enter a  
very
personal territory. But it is even difficult to be a good  
archeologist. To
be 100% historically correct one would have to change strings for  
different
repertoires.
Now, this is what MP writes on his page about early 18th century bas
strings:
"In the 18th century, wound strings can be grouped into three  
categories,
all built around a gut core (at least up to the second half of the  
century -
the earliest mention of wound on silk known to date is after 1760):

    1. double wound (i.e. a first winding is covered by a second one)
    2. close wound
    3. open wound (called demifilé by the French).

    Type 1. was probably used for bowed instruments with  
particularly short
string length and low pitch (violoncello da spalla &c.).
    Type 2. would seem to be the right one for the 13 course lute:
but we would rather opt for type 3. upon an important  
consideration: from
what we know about the metallurgic technology of the time it seems  
that it
was not possible, at least in the common practice, to produce wires  
thinner
than about .12 mm (see for example James Grassineau 'A Musical  
Dictionary'
London, 1740 under the world 'wires'; see also the Cryselius's wire  
gauges
and the 18th Nuremberg's  wire gauge tables).
As a consequence we think that it was not possible to produce wound  
strings
for the 6th, 7th and 8th courses for the d-minor lute, even if we  
reduced
the gut core to the point of completely unbalancing the Index of  
Metallicity
and the mechanical stability of the string (faq 45).
 An open wound string was simple and efficient: by spacing the  
winding it
was possible to come around the wire diameter problem, with one  
limitaton:
here, too, it was the thinnest available wire that had to be  
employed in the
production of the 6th string.
 What we are saying here is that open wound strings were not a  
transitional
phenomenon, in the sense of bridging over the gap between all-gut  
and close
wound strings, they were a clever stratagem that made it possible  
to come
around the technological limitations of the wire manufacture of the  
time."

So, MP suggests that close wound strings were in use at that time, but
because of the manufacturing problems the open wound strings were  
preferred
for lutes. Apparently we can see that the lute players were looking  
for
heavier bas, but they probably couldn't use close wound strings as  
other
instrumentalists  for technological reasons.
Now, one question pervades me: If there had been a technology  
allowing for
the thin close wound strings to be manufactured, wouldn't it have  
been used
by luthists in 18th century? I am not talking about the synthetic  
strings.
Copper wound on any natural core (silk or gut) is 100% natural too.
The only problem  could be the unwanted resonance, but this I  
believe can be
overcome with the proper playing technique.
Regards

Jaroslaw


-----Original Message-----
From: Anthony Hind [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 1:04 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [BAROQUE-LUTE] Rép : [LUTE] Re: Swanneck + loaded strings

I just remembered that this should have been addressed to Baroque
lute, sorry about that
AH

Le 2 dec. 07 =E0 18:29, Daniel Winheld a ecrit :
Looking forward to these strings. Thanks for the report.  Dan

Dan
        Following my message to you about loaded strings in the context of
the problem of controlling the resonance of the basses on 13c swan-
necks, it suddenly dawned on me that I had given a false impression,
by mentioning this string type in the context of an 18th century lute
model. After rereading Mimmo Peruffo's text closely, I noticed that
according to his findings this technology had been completely
abandoned and could not have appeared on an 18th century 13c swan
neck lute, nor even probably on a 13c rider lute, see the
explanations at
http://www.aquilacorde.com/lutes.htm
http://tinyurl.com/2hj2sh
Textual and iconographic evidence is given in this text/article above
to confirm the hypothesis that Loaded strings could have appeared
around 1570 and been used on 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th, course of
lutes, and even on 12th courses of certain 12c lutes. See the red
bass strings on this Dutch 12c lute by an anonymous Dutch painter,
2nd half of the 17th Century :
http://www.aquilacorde.com/File0102.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/yweurd
(Indeed Mace refers to the use of Lyons and deep red gut Pistoys on
the 12 course lute)

However, from  about the beginning of the 18th century, the German 13
course lutes could have been strung with the new open wound strings,
such as those found on the 12c double headed Mest lute.
http://www.aquilacorde.com/Liuti_file/image019.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/yq7aho
Probably, loaded strings were soon abandoned, and completely replaced
by open-wound strings. So loaded strings would certainly not have
been available for 18th century swan neck lutes, and indeed the
rather large oval or rather small round bridge holes would tend to
prove this point (see below).

In fact, I was trying to report, as objectively as possible, what my
lutist neighbour had told me about Mimmo Peruffo's lute at Greenwich,
which did have loaded basses from 7c down to the 11c, and open-wound
strings on those of 12c and 13c. I was concentrating on this;
although, in the back of my mind, I  think I already felt that that
MP was probably using his 13c lute, for his demonstration, as two
lutes: an 11c lute with loaded basses, and a 13c lute with open-wound
strings; but this remained in "the mists" of my mind. It was only
when I reread his text that I realized that must indeed have been the
case; so I sent Mimmo a message, and he confirmed that he had
intended to bring two lutes, an 11c, and a 13c, but finally found
that it would be too complicated, as he was going both to Oxford as
well as Greenwich, and decided he could only bring the one.

Nevertheless this raises an interesting question, because my lutist
neighbour found the combination excellent; so if both string types do
eventually become available, would anything prevent players from
mixing their strings in a non historical manner. It is certain that
both Jakob Lindberg and Paul Beier did that sort of thing on their
respective 11c Weiss records, as they combined the original loaded
strings with Dan Larson Gimped Pistoys (Gimped Pistoys are a sort of
mixture between loaded strings and open wound. They differ from open
wound in having the wire twisted-in with the Pistoy tress).

The fact that we see the two headed 12 string lutes (above), using
the two different technologies, would presumably mean that the Mest
was later restrung according to the new fashion; but I just wonder
whether, even for a short time, the two technologies (open-wound and
loaded) coexisted, and perhaps players might have mixed and matched,
which would give some historic authenticity to such a technique. In
any case, many modern lutists may just perhaps choose for the best
sound, without too much concern for resulting authenticity. Indeed,
there are many differing views in relation to this issue, which have
often been aired on this list.

However, this is not the point I want to develop, here. I am just
looking at MP's findings, as one would the research of an
archeologist, trying to reconstruct the technology of a certain
period. This could simply be viewed as "pure" research aimed at
broadening our knowledge of the conditions in which musicians played
at a particular period and leave it at that (as for example when
archeologists managed to revive the technology of flint knapping,
which has no obvious immediate modern use). However, MP is also
clearly hoping that adopting instruments and strings, closest to
those used at a particular time, will give us a better understanding
of the musical aesthetics of the period, claiming that the limits
induced by the available technology would at least have been a
contributing factor in this. Players, for example with loaded
strings, would have been forced to play closer to the bridge, and
with the sort of thumb down technique described by Ed. in a recent
message.

Personally, I have always had a passion for archeology, and I love
the texture and sound of gut strings, so I take pleasure in both
aspects of this research.

MP's articles show that his reconstructions are the result of
hypotheses developed on evidence drawn from textual and iconographic
data, confronted with the clues from the size of lute holes, and the
winding technology and chemical knowledge available at each period.
As I would do in my phonetic research, Mimmo formulates his
hypotheses so as to be able to validate, or invalidate them when
encountering future data, new iconographic evidence, more lute
holes,  etc. I find much enjoyment in this approach, and I do
apologize to those who feel I get a little carried away. I do also
assure you that any other research of this kind would receive my
interest. Indeed, I am briefly involved in an experiment with
Titanium-Nylon, about which I may talk, later, if anything conclusive
comes out of it (I am not completely "hermetic to synthetics"). I
would also be glad to talk about any experimentation by any other
string maker, but I have found no web page so open as those of
Mimmo's. There are those old articles by Ephraim Segerman, but most
of these I do not have access to at the moment.
(http://www.nrinstruments.demon.co.uk/LuSt.html). There would also be
the research by Charles Besnaiou of the CNRS.
http://tinyurl.com/2xvko8

In conclusion, 13c rider lutes from about 1710 would probably just
have had open-wound basses. (This may not prevent lutists from
experimenting with mixing string types, as perhaps there might have
been an overlap, between string technologies). Swan necked lutes
could be a special case. It is certain that they did not employ high
twist ropes as these would have been too dull. They could not have
used loaded strings, as these had been abandoned, and the size of the
bridge holes are far too large. Another argument against the use of
plain gut is the relatively short length of the extension (about 1m),
when 1m 20 would give a superior thinner basses in pure gut.

It is far more likely that they employed open wound strings and the
size and shape of the bridge holes militate in favour of this
possibility. On a number of 13c lutes there is "A strong vertical
ovalization of bass bridge holes and signs of abrasion on the upper
plate edges"  that could be due to the effect of demi-file strings. A
very good example of this could be the Leopold Widhalm 1755 (GNM MI
51)13c swan neck lute that was used by Hoppy in his early Weiss LP,
Reflexe 1978 EMI 065-30 944, of which I  have a copy (the record,
not  the lute, unfortunately). The largest hole on the 13th diapason
is 2,05.
http://s105.photobucket.com/albums/m215/ag-no3phile/lute%20playing/
Lute%20type/?action=view&current=DSCF0490.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2z6jtb

An interesting question remains, the holes on some swan neck lutes
are rather big and oval shaped (because of the shape, this could be
due to the tendency of demi-file to "file" the hole. For example, the
Leopold Widhalm, shown above, has a 13th diapason of 2.05 mm); while
on other lutes, such as the "J.Tielke swan neck (Hamburg 1713)", the
13c holes are very small but regular, down to 1,40mm. Such a small
size would be far too small for any pure gut bass; but would be big
enough for a demi-file.
Thus the use of open-wound strings seems the most plausible
explanation, with the variation in size (quite wide and oval on some
lutes), possibly being due, at least in part, to the filing action of
these strings.

Open-wound strings, as my neighbour did testify, do not in fact, have
the sustain of full-wound strings, even if they might be slightly
brighter than loaded strings, and they could work well in this
situation. They certainly did on a 13c rider lute, the one Mimmo
Peruffo brought for his demonstration.
Regards
Anthony








To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html