Your comment that we can't be certain that the body Strad's Chitarra
Atiorbata was of conventional guitar shape and may have been lute
shaped does, in fact, have a degree of historical justification.
If we take a late 17th century archlute with 6 double courses on the
fingerboard and 8 long single basses and remove the highest (the first)
course we are left with an instrument tuned in precisely the same
intervals as a Chitarra Atiorbata.
There is even a reason why this might be done: the string length of the
fingered strings of these late archlutes was usually in the high 60s
(67, 68, 69cm) and would struggle to be tuned up to the playing pitch
of other instruments (even taking a tone below modern pitch say).
Indeed, this problem was even mentioned by at least one contemporary
commentator: James Talbot in his description of contemporary
instruments c.1700 (Christ Church Library music MS 1187) mentions that
the archlute has difficulty in raising its trebles to the pitch
required by other consort instruments and the voice. His instrument was
in a nominal G tuning with fingered strings 68.5cm and basses 152.7cm -
note that the fingered strings are very much the same length as a
typical 'baroque' guitar.
Thus to avoid string breakages the removal of the first course (to a
'sans chanterelle' form)
could seem a sensible and reasonable move and would result in an
instrument with 5 fingered strings tuned in exactly the same intervals
as the guitar. Even more speculatively, this might require a name to
distinguish it from an archlute proper - thus the guitar tuning
connotations and the previous existence of theorboed guitars (allbeit
with a much smaller bass extension, if Granata's 1651 instrument
depiction is anything to go by) could result in such an instruments
being referred to as a chitarra atiorbata...........
Martyn
--- On Sat, 25/7/09, Monica Hall <mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
From: Monica Hall <mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Guitarre theorbe (Strad patterns and lute
shaped Cat)
To: "Alexander Batov" <alexander.ba...@vihuelademano.com>
Cc: "Vihuelalist" <vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Date: Saturday, 25 July, 2009, 8:33 AM
I am following this discussion with interest...but it is not entirely
relevant to my original question.
Before I jump in the car and drive off to the Cotswolds ...The theorbo,
chitarrone et al were well established instruments widely used for
different purposes - and came in different sizes and even with
different numbers of strings on the fingerboard.
What is the point in having an instrument which has a guitar shaped
body and extended bases? What advantages would this have over the
"standard" lute type. Why would it be more useful than the theorbe etc.
Can we be certain that Stadivarius's "chitarra atiorbata" was a guitar
rather than a lute? In the absence of a drawing of the body I don't
think we can. It is just an assumption.
It's fairly clear that Granata had such a guitar with extended basses
but this could have been something of his own invention - rather like
Carulli's decawhatever.
When it comes to Gallot's guitarre theorbee - this is obviously a
different instrument and any evidence from Stradivarius is irrelevant.
Monica
----- Original Message ----- From: "Alexander Batov"
<[1]alexander.ba...@vihuelademano.com>
To: "vihuela list" <[2]vihu...@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Saturday, July 25, 2009 2:43 AM
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Guitarre theorbe (Strad patterns and lute shaped
Cat)
> I thought we are discussing 'guitarre theorbe' aren't we? So what is
the point to talk about MS 375 that has nothing to do with the length
of the extended neck? MS 385, on the other side, gives the EXACT LENGTH
of the extended neck. By the way, the template or neck pattern is "what
you see is what you get" sort of thing. In other words it has the exact
physical dimensions as the actual extended neck, or, as it's inscribed
on it, "Measure of the length and width of the neck of the theorboed
guitar". So it is indeed a rather crucial and unique(!) piece of
evidence that is directly relevant to this discussion.
>
> I find it really puzzling why you can't still grasp what Stewart
Pollens is talking about ... Form MME 901d and paper template MS 374
indicate String Length to Neck Length ratios on 'normal' 5-course
guitars, not theorboed ones! (You can see them listed in the table 12.3
alongside of the other surviving forms and patterns.) Now, if you apply
these ratios to the pattern MS 375 (which represents the main
(fingerboard) neck length of one of Stradivari's theorboed guitars (but
not obligatory the one from which template MS 385 has survived) you get
the following: 318 mm X 2.12 = 674.16 mm, 318 mm x 2.30 = 731.4 mm
(rounded to 674 and 731 in Pollen's text). Add to these values the
length of the MS 385 template 921.5 mm and you'll get 1595 - 1653 mm
for diapason strings. There is no need to be so sceptical about it,
it's only down to earth arithmetic! Just try to break away from your
own logic for a moment which is purely speculative (nothing wrong about
it as far as it doesn't stop you from understanding other people's
ideas). Pollens is not working backwards or assuming or speculating
here, he simply deals with the real evidence that is there in the
templates and patterns.
>
> It's getting stranger and stranger towards the end ... You scale down
an instrument (or up, why not!), you'd have to tune it up higher, I
mean all the strings, or vice versa. I don't think anybody in the right
mind would tune fingerboard strings on a 58 cm SL instrument, for
example, to E B G D A nominals (whichever the pitch standard) but
rather to G D B-flat F C, and the diapasons accordingly. I don't really
understand your logic here. "Working backwards from expectations" ...
what on earth are you talking about?
>
> In the end it's entirely up to you whether the lower octave
disposition sounds right or not to you ear ... but then you'd have to
discard, for example, Piccinini's and Melij's music for archlute too.
Well, why not.
>
> Alexander
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Martyn Hodgson"
> Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 11:07 AM
> Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Guitarre theorbe (Strad patterns and lute
shaped Cat)
>>
>>
>> I've now found the book and Pollens' article so plse don't bother
>> copying it to me.
>>
>> Firstly, I see that we're speaking about two different paper
patterns:
>> one (MS 375, as said) 320mm long with the well known stringing
>> instructions which I mentioned earlier and one (MS 385) which is
921mm
>> long which you mentioned. NB these are the lengths of the paper
not of
>> the drawings.
>>
>> Secondly, I remember why I was sceptical about Stewart Pollens
>> conclusions: he uses other forms/patterns (E901, MS 374) and says
>> (without any explanation) that these "indicate" a bass string to
>> fingered string ratio of 2.12 to 2.3. I think he must have been
>> working backwards from an assumption, which is precisely what is
being
>> called into question, that the bass stringing was at the lower
octave
>> and therefore needed a long string length.
>>
>> Finally, having found Grammatica's painting showing the supposed
lute
>> shaped Cat and heard Rob MacKillop playing Granata on a
reconstruction
>> of it (by Wolfgang Emmerbach) with low basses, despite Rob's
excellent
>> playing I'm more than ever persauded that this low octave
disposition
>> does not serve the music at all well. Incidentally, the
reconstruction
>> looks to have been scaled up (maybe by 25/30%) from the size shown
in
>> the painting which was relatively petite (basses around 100cm).
Again
>> perhaps the modern maker worked backwards from expectations and
decided
>> to increase the string length to allow low octave basses.
>>
>> MH
>
>
>
> To get on or off this list see list information at
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--
References
1.
http://uk.mc263.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=alexander.ba...@vihuelademano.com
2. http://uk.mc263.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=vihu...@cs.dartmouth.edu
3. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
