Marina - 1-10-2007 at 10:17 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bknU07g6e_0&mode=related&sea...
Well, when I saw those two lutes in the front row... 
zalzal - 1-10-2007 at 11:47 AM
ZZZZZZZ, i almost got aslep.
The big one, is it a theorbe ??
Once i saw a concert in a Temple with one lute and this big thing and other instruments ....and it was more "lively".
Hopefully arabic lute did not evolved like this...
jdowning - 1-10-2007 at 01:52 PM
Difficult to see exactly from the clip but there appear to be two "tenor" (normal sized) lutes being played together with a Chitarrone or Archlute -
that is the one with the long neck. (There is another of these to the right side of the frame). These large bass lutes, dating from the late 16th C,
could stand up to 61/2 feet (about 2 metres) in length and were used mostly for continuo playing (back up) although solo works do survive. The long
neck carried bass strings that were played 'open' (like the strings of a harp) and the strings were long in order to sound well with good sustain
(because they were made from sheeps gut). The strings over the fretted fingerboard were played in the usual manner but because they were usually much
longer than those of the 'standard' tenor lute - string length could be nearly a metre (quite a finger stretch!) - the treble strings had to be tuned
down in pitch to avoid string breakage.
Some Chitarrone were also strung with wire rather than gut strings.
Many of the surviving Chitarrone have a triple rose arrangement on the soundboard but grouped closely together unlike the three rose arrangement of a
typical oud.
The theorbe is a lute also with extended bass strings on a secondary pegbox - but that is a whole different story!
I agree that it was not a particularly 'lively' performance and I also almost went to sleep - so, as I live in an area without high speed internet
services I did not download the complete clip.
No, the oud did not evolve like the lute did!
jdowning - 1-11-2007 at 06:22 AM
I should add that the naming of these large members of the lute family - with a second pegbox on an extended neck and multiple string courses, up to
14 in number - was confusing even to writers of the period (late 16th to 18th C). These instruments all had a similar outward appearance but there
were differences in size, tuning, stringing, use etc. They had names such as chitarrone, tiorba, theorbo, theorba, arciliuto, archlute, tiorbino and
so on. Other lutes with shorter extended necks had names such as liuto attiorbato, theorbata, theorbo and more!
The theorbe was a version of the lute introduced around the mid 17th C in France for continuo playing.
The ground breaking research in the 1970's by the late Robert Spencer does much to clarify matters. For those interested, his article "Chitarrone,
Theorbo and Archlute" published in "Early Music", Oxford University Press, October 1976 is essential reading.
The lutenists life is not an easy one!
zalzal - 1-11-2007 at 07:15 AM
I appreciate these very precise infos....thanks to a "sleepy" clip, now we waked up with knowledge.
jdowning - 1-12-2007 at 06:57 AM
A pleasure to be able to answer your questions.
zalzal - 1-19-2007 at 06:40 AM
On this link there is very nice interesting information on Bach harpsichord and solo lute.
http://prrueda.multiply.com/music/item/2660