Differences in sound qualities of lutes, as opposed to vihuelas and 5-course guitars?

[Jim Gallant]

I'm a fiction writer working on a novel one of whose characters will be the seventeenth century Francesco Corbetta, one of the early Italian masters of the 5-course guitar, and a teacher of Gaspar Sanz.

My experience of the old instruments is not very great; but listening to people playing  modern recreations of vihuelas and the 5-course guitar on You Tube, I don't hear much difference between the way they sound, and the sound of the lute. Which raises the question, in connection with my project, why someone talented as Corbetta would have chosen to devote himself to the 5-course rather than the lute, especially when the guitar at leastr outside Spain still seems to have been regarded as an instrument to be strummed in taverns and barber shops.

What I'm looking for are educated guesses, and guesses from people knowledgeable in these matters would be appreciated!

[Rocky Mjos]

Jim, is your question really about why Corbetta may have chosen guitar as his main instrument, and perhaps jumped to the idea (in your discussion title) that the _sound_ was the primary reason?

I played lute for many years before buying a Baroque guitar. Even before the lute, I was fascinated by the transcriptions of early music in very old issues of the Guitar Review. Pellegrini, Foscarini, etc. in the transcriptions by Alexander Bellow were excitingly different than the classical pieces I was reading on the classical guitar. So it was the music, more than the sound that attracted me. I also thought it would be very useful for playing figured bass and as an ensemble instrument.

I am, admittedly, attracted to these old instruments with odd tunings -- Baroque guitar, theorbo, and cittern. They create very different sonorities and have different possibilities. There's a pleasure I take in the different finger formations (compared to the lute or modern guitar) and use of the right hand. The campanella effect is fun, and creates such a different effect than a scalar run played with the fingers (even when slurred) and faster, too.

The guitar has a broad and interesting solo music. What Baroque lute solos are there from Spain, for example? (We have Sanz, Murcia, Guerau, Santa Cruz) Or mid and late 17th century Italian lute solos? (Corbetta, Roncalli).

Plus, the guitar is easier to carry around and has fewer strings to pay for. -- R

[Jim Gallant]

"Jim, is your question really about why Corbetta may have chosen guitar as his main instrument, and perhaps jumped to the idea (in your discussion title) that the _sound_ was the primary reason?"

Something like that, originally. What troubled me was the seeming similarity of the sound of the lutes I have heard played, and that of baroque guitars--at least those modern reconstructions played on YouTube which are the only ones I have heard. Since the guitar was in such disrepute, why would a serious fellow like Corbetta take it up instead of the lute, or maybe the vihuela.

You guys have complicated the issue in interesting ways by suggesting there were probably considerable differences in the way they could be made to sound. You can't strum the the lute smoothly or maniacally, and you can't play campanella. Apropos, McDull said a while back, "Myself I'd choose baroque guitar over baroque lute because I think it's more fun, it can be serious enough when it wants, but I find the baroque lute always seems very serious, even when dealing with light-hearted pieces." Serious, yes, and refined, and a bit ethereal--an absolutely perfect match for "doleful Dowland."

I think I'll assume that that the guitar was appealing for its natural versatility--which Corbetta expanded further by combining the rasgueado and punteado techniques in his compositions.

By the way, I asked in one of my notes earlier today how far back plucking with the fingernails went. To answer my own question: at least as far back as Corbetta. This afternoon I ran across a reference to a performance that he had to postpone because he had broken a nail! (I am correct in assuming that the lute was never plucked with the nails? Another difference in technque.

One small correction: I said that Sanz had studied under Corbetta, and had remarked that Corbetta was the greatest of them all. Sanz did say that, but it was de Visee who studied with Corbetta.

[Monica Hall]

Again - there is no documentary evidence that de Visee actually studied with Corbetta although he probably knew him personally and wrote a Tombeau in memory of him after his death. The only person that Corbetta himself claims to have taught is Granata.

It is just one of those speculative notions that get repeated over and over again as if they were proven facts.

Musicology is largely a work of fiction!

[Alexander Batov]

The vihuela would have disappeared from use by the time Corbetta was born, not to say when he reached his youth ... I'm not helping you do I? And at this point I don't even know what this discussion is all about, just a perfect time to quit.

[Jim Gallant]

Well, OK, if the vihuela was that far gone by the time Corbetta was around, let's say in Madrid he was studying the lute. See, you helped!

(Unless in Madrid Corbetta as a student fell into the clutches of a dated old vihuela teacher nostalgic for the heyday of the Empire.)

[Jim Gallant]

I know that's why I'M "carrying on"!

I've run across references in various sources to Corbetta having been in Spain , but nobody seems to know when or why. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that Spanish rule in parts of Italy lasted through the seventeenth century, and the the mutual influence of the two regions was no doubt extensive.

Given my hobby-horse here (and my ignorance and willingness to flip-flop) I've probably worn out those of you better educated in these matters, but I'm grateful for your information and your indulgence.

[Jim Gallant]

To complicate the discussion of how the baroque guitar sounded:

Harvey Turnbull in THE GUITAR FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO THE PRESENT DAY writes of the French scientist, philosopher, and musicologist Mercenne having commented in 1636 on the "thinness" of the 4- and 5-course guitar's sound. "Its sounds are related to the kettle [tea-kettle?] and it always seems to whine."

Hmm.

[Chris Despopoulos]

Not unlike the opinion of a contemporary friend of mine. You can't possibly be surprised that a detractor would pick on the relatively small pitch range for the guitar? Funny, why not lodge the same complaint against the violin? Because it was already accepted in all of the Catholic world? (And Protestant as well, I suppose.)

On the other hand, proponents of the baroque guitar might claim that the sound can be as large as that of an organ, even if it suffers from a smaller range of notes. The right player in the right setting can certainly achieve grandeur to rival any other instrument of the time.

I don't think this complicates the discussion of the guitar's sound. I think it complicates the instrument's arrival at court, and indicates social undercurrents. So it adds life to the appearance of the guitar on the scene.

[Andrew Hartig]

It would be interesting to know what Mersenne meant by "thinness" (and what the untranslated word was, including its connotations). Could he have meant the "depth" of the sound? With a thicker soundboard and minimal bracing, he could be referring to the "attack" and treble aspects of the sound as opposed to the "deeper" sound of the lute with its complex harmonics.

Just a thought.

[Jim Gallant]

In my current version of the story, Corbetta was already a master strummer as a boy in Pavia, his hometown, when a professor at the university there told him that if he really wanted to be a musician he must, of course, study the lute. Ambitious, he would have a crack at it. According to Batov, Madrid might have been a place to study the lute in the seventeenth century--so he goes there, studies the lute, but misses the more various sounds he can produce on his native instrument. Returning to the guitar, he incorporates what he has learned of the lute's courtly elegance into his composing.

There's a lot else going on in the story as I conceive it, but since the guitar is to be of central importance, so I want the history to be at least plausible. (There will be other linked stories i of historical guitarists, composers, and luthiers coming right down to our own time, as I conceive this work I am starting, with common themes and concerns running through the whole)

[Chris Despopoulos]

In this context, as a reader I'd be tickled if I saw two things... Some description of strumming amongst the general populace of Pavia -- what it means to be a master strummer, what people would recognize such a thing, and in what context. Are we talking impromptu dances in the local tavern? Hootenannies on the porch at the homestead? Some child actor wandering with a grizzled blues-man through a guitar-based redo of the Karate Kid?

Secondly, I'd dearly love to read about the positioning of the guitar in Spanish society -- how did our protagonist get called back to the guitar? What did he see in Spain -- Baroque gadflies providing interludes for street theater? A lady in court who had an affinity for the guitar?

This could be a great vehicle for positioning the guitar in society, and that's a very interesting topic, IMHO.

Good luck to you!