Dear Howard, Matthew, Martin and Mimmo, thanks very much for your insightful comments. As we all know, lutes and theorboes were rebuilt- I ´d not use the word mangle here- throughout the history. Samuel Pepys gives us an example on the 25th of October 1661: [1]"Home on foot very discontented, in my way I calling at the Instrument maker, Hunt ´s, and there saw my lute, which is now almost done, it being to have a new neck to it and to be made to double strings." To me- what we here with Sellas, is a theorbo that was rebuilt, into what Howard is implying, an instrument that ought to be played. If the original neck was broken and thus remade, or remade for musical reasons, we may not know. I think we can exclude the thought of it being a German theorbo. All surviving instruments that could ´ve been used as German theorboes have single bass strings throughout. Also Baron tells us that the fingerboard strings are double, but the long basses single. So even though the bridge is German, the tuning could very well have been the old "standard" tuning in G or A. 1,3 m long basses would in my opinion not cut it with single strings (if we think of plain gut as the original string of choice) in terms of power- thus the necessity of octaves. If the theorbo would be tuned in 415hz, and in A, the first long string would give us a breaking index of 1.3 m x 185 hz = 240,5 m.hz. If tuned in 392 hz, 227,5 m.hz. How would this sound? I think (and hope!), majestic. Perhaps like the theorbo that the musician of Louis XIV holds in his hands, in the painting of François Puget... Best, Magnus â
-- References 1. http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclopedia/1023/ To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
