The low notes of 19th century instruments like Carulli's Decacorde
were, of course, only possible with a relatively short string length
because of the widespread use of overwound strings in this period.
Indeed the popular 'bass guitar' of the mid 19th C (a 6 string guitar
with extra unstopped extended basses - usually 1 to 4 [ie down to ,A]
but could be more) used by Mertz, Dubez, Makaroff, Legnani, Bayer,
Regondi and many others is only possible with such heavy overwound
stringing.
Regarding other options for guitarists wishing for an extended bass,
there are the few extant examples of pieces by composers who wrote for
the guitar and also for the theorbo but seemed to feel no inclination
to write for the Ca/Gt: Bartolotti, De Visee to name but two.
Incidentally whilst I can usually find concordances between theorbo and
guitar works by De Visee, I 've not identified any by Bartolotti in the
two theorbo sources I have where he's named (or rather I presume it is
he since his full name is not given): Wien 17706 ('Allemanda di Angelo
Michiele'); Goess theorbo book ('Allemande d'angelo Micheli', 'Sara
d'angelo', and similar).
Martyn
--- On Mon, 20/7/09, Monica Hall <mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
From: Monica Hall <mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Chitarra atiorbata/Guitarre theorbee
To: "Lex Eisenhardt" <eisenha...@planet.nl>
Cc: "Vihuelalist" <vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Date: Monday, 20 July, 2009, 5:46 PM
But there have always been these odd instruments - like the "two
guitars in
one" which Stephen Barber actually made and I had a go on. He was also
threatening to make a "diphone".
If you go round museums you will see all manner of oddities but they
usually
have a short shelf life because they really serve no useful purpose.
You can't really argue on that basis that most players were disatisfied
with
the 5-course guitar to the extent that they wanted an instrument with
extended bass strings. If they were - as I have already said - the
sensible cost effective option was to put on a 6th or even a 7th course
-
like the lute. Or they could have taken up the theorbo or whatever.
Monica
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lex Eisenhardt" <[1]eisenha...@planet.nl>
To: "Vihuelalist" <[2]vihu...@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Monday, July 20, 2009 3:28 PM
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Chitarra atiorbata/Guitarre theorbee
> Depends on who were the Old Ones.
> Adding strings to the guitar to make it more complete was done in all
> ages. Carulli used a decacorde, nowadays there is a Brahms-guitar.
> Probably a matter of compensation.
> The tessitura of he fingerboard plucked strings could range to a low
> bourdon A.
> Lex
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Martyn Hodgson" <[3]hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk>
> To: "Vihuelalist" <[4]vihu...@cs.dartmouth.edu>; "Lex Eisenhardt"
> <[5]eisenha...@planet.nl>
> Sent: Monday, July 20, 2009 4:02 PM
> Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Chitarra atiorbata/Guitarre theorbee
>
>
>>
>>
>> I said 'ordinary 5 course' guitar (see below) in affirmation of
another
>> communication from David Van O on the subject of guitar volume
>> generally.
>>
>> As far as I'm aware, like you, I believe the theorboed guitar was
only
>> ever plucked and probably mostly used for just exotic solo music.
Low
>> tension plain gut at the higher octave balance very well with
>> fingerboard plucked strings (more so than heavy thud low octave
basses)
>> and with the general tessitura of the instrument.
>>
>> As said before, since the evidence is not absolutely clear,
nothing is
>> certain but I do think the greatest danger is assuming the Old
Ones
>> were seeking for a 'complete' instrument - a sort of continuo
theorbo-
>> guitar manque which would give a full range of bass notes to allow
BC.
>> Surely the theorbo proper is better for this with the guitar
providing
>> its own idiomatic (ie mostly strummed) continuo acc.
>>
>> M.
>
>
>
>
> To get on or off this list see list information at
> [6]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
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