Nigel,
I wonder about this too based on my own
experiences with big and small theorbos. As I stated
on a earlier post on a related subject, its probable
that Pittoni and Melli (Melli, definately, Pittoni is
a little less definative) wrote for an instrument with
an octave second course. This meant that they had to
have an instrument with a neck short enough for a high
(AND low) E, yet long enough to tune in A. (In this
case, Pittoni is definately in A because of the part
in mensual notation. Melli - presumably in A, but who
knows?) At any rate, I've found sections of a lot of
Italian solo music to be quite technically challening
even on my small theorbo (76cm) which I currently have
"inauthentically" tuned in A. And then there's always
the tiorbino tuned an octave higher than the regular
theorbo...
Only Castaldi published for this, but I suppose it
could have been in wider use for solo music in Italy
than we now know. (Is that smallish instrument he's
holding in the engraving a theorbo or tiorbino?) This
is not definative, either, I'm afraid. Castaldi's
pieces specifying the tiorbino are all deuts with a
full-sized theorbo. Since the part for "standard"
theorbo in these duets is of equal difficulty as the
part for tiorbino, the big guy has to do all the same
acrobatics as the small fry. This doesn't help us
much in figuring out which tiorba is the more
practical solo instrument.
Maybe if David Dolata is lurking out there, he could
help us out...
Chris
--- Nigel Solomon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Just out of interest, what size chitaronne do you
> think Piccinini was
> playing when he wrote his pieces? I used to have a
> 92cm chitaronne and I
> can tell you not many of those pieces are playable
> on a monster like
> that. The theorbo I have now measures 85 cm and even
> then a lot of the
> pieces are only just playable, particularly the
> slurred passages and
> leaps from one end of the fingerboard to another.
> May be the Italians,
> like the French, had two basic sizes of chitaronne:
> one for solo pieces
> and one for accompanying. I don't know, I'm just
> wondering...
>
> Nigel
>
>
>
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