On May 26, 2008, at 7:22 AM, Martyn Hodgson wrote:
Howard,
Without going back to square one and repeating subsequent postings,
Much to the relief of the entire list, I'm sure.
what I was hoping to say in my last email was that, despite his
'critique', all the theorboes offered on Barber's website (other
than his singular 'own design') supported my views on theorbo sizes.
Your meaning was clear. I disagree that Barber's choice of which
theorbos to copy bears on the point. He's making instruments, not
history.
Praetorius in the scaled drawings of Paduan and Roman theorbos (c.
99 and 93cm) indicates only a small(around 6%) difference between
the two.
But this is silly verging on weird, since we know 1) the actual range
of sizes of surviving instruments is much larger; 2) 99 cm is
extremely large by any standard, and 3) Praetorius never got within
400 km of Padua, let alone Rome.
Further, the variations in the very few reported pitches in 17thC
Italy does not exclude local variations, not to mention
transposition and the general uniformity of vocal ranges tending
towards a degree of standardisation.
It seems to me that much of the problem about pitches , especially
in the 17thC and especially in Italy, is the heavy, if
understandable, reliance on church organ pitches and, to some
extent, statements by such as those by Doni (eg relating these
pitches at Naples, Rome. Lombardy/Florence and Venice in discrete
semitone steps).
Domestic music making, especially with lutes, might well have not
reflected such a significant and discrete variation
--- On Sun, 25/5/08, howard posner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
From: howard posner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [LUTE] Re: Choosing Strings
To: "LUTELIST List" <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Date: Sunday, 25 May, 2008, 7:02 PM
On May 25, 2008, at 12:46 AM, Martyn Hodgson wrote:
Very good mt dear Howard - but really not at all. I
very much
welcomed your informed contributions as testing the
envelope of
knowledge by citing early sources and organological
data rather
than assertions based simply on personal preference.
Sorry if you
thought it at all wrathful!
However, my complaint about Barber goes back many
years (when I had
the temerity to first question his identification of
the 'Chambure
vihuela' as a typical instrument for the early
16thC repertoire and
his continuing failure to mention organolgical work
undertaken by
many others), and more recently (pasted below) when I
pointed out
that, despite his most recent criticism (and personal
abuse)of me
for advocating large theorbos, in fact his own website
supported my
position!
You have an expansive view of what supports your position.
I suppose
this is because your view is essentially an answer without
a real
question, and thus meaningless, or at least nonsensical.
Making a
blanket statement about the historical size of theorbos
without
factoring in the question of absolute pitch is like making
a blanket
statement about how long a piece of rope should be.
--
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