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: baroque-lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
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¤t=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
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