Whenever I decide to play Caccini on 7-course lute or on my (essentially French kind-of) theorbo, I ponder the matter of Caccini's theorbo and things like the fingered g#. First, I really wish I could justify the expense of a bass lute with theorbo tuning. It would make me whole, in a way.
The Bottegari lute book (1570s) contains at least one tune by Caccini, and considering the sense of portentousness that Nuove Musiche (1600something) exudes, I'm inclined to think that versions of the other tunes contained in it had also been kicking around Caccini's desk for a while, since a time, maybe, when his songs would have been accompanied on lute. Even if he says the music is 'Nuove.' And since it seems like leaping around octaves in the theorbo bass line is just a fact of life and can be perfectly euphonious (on A theorbo I always start 'Amarilli' on the 7th course and finger the following f# on the 4th course; no complaints yet) I reckon that whatever instrument he originally intended the songs to be accompanied by, the bass lines would be written in a way that was sensible enough for keyboardists to play them as written (maybe also taking pains to ensure that nothing figured '11' would be played as a mere '4') but that lutenists and theorbo players were no more octave-bound in 1600 than they were when Delair authorized playing inconvenient or difficult notes at 16' in 1690. > Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 08:49:07 -0800 > To: Lute@cs.dartmouth.edu; davidvanooi...@gmail.com > From: chriswi...@yahoo.com > Subject: [LUTE] Re: Caccini's theorbo > > David, > > My guess is that is not what we would call a theorbo at all, but rather a bass lute probably tuned theorbo-like. All the strings would therefore be on one neck and those chromatic basses could be fingered. Whether the tuning was in A, G or something else and whether one or both of the upper courses were down the octave is anyone's guess. > > This is almost certainly the same type of instrument Kapsperger used for his first chitarrone book. I seem to remember that HK doesn't use more than 11 courses in this book and he also requires an apparently fingered G# bass note as well as the open G-natural in Toccata VI. > > Chris > > --- On Fri, 3/5/10, David van Ooijen <davidvanooi...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > From: David van Ooijen <davidvanooi...@gmail.com> > > Subject: [LUTE] Caccini's theorbo > > To: "lutelist Net" <Lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> > > Date: Friday, March 5, 2010, 9:19 AM > > Do we know anything about the > > instrument(s) Caccini played? His bass > > lines sometimes need G as well as G#, (and I believe F as > > well as F#) > > in one piece, which is impossible on a 'standard' (...) > > theorbo in a > > with 6 strings/courses on the fingerboard. If Caccini were > > just > > another composer, and I'd transpose the bass at will, but > > knowing he > > was a theorbo player, I'm a wondering about his setup: how > > many > > strings on the fingerboard and what nominal pitch? There > > are many > > practical solutions, but did somebody make a study into > > Caccini's > > lute, perhaps? > > > > David > > > > -- > > ******************************* > > David van Ooijen > > davidvanooi...@gmail.com > > www.davidvanooijen.nl > > ******************************* > > > > > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > > > > > > > __________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Powerful Free email with security by Microsoft. [1]Get it now. -- References 1. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/201469230/direct/01/
