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!

[Chris Despopoulos]

I know a lot of the discussion has looked into the physical differences in the sounds of the instruments. I imagine in a way, if you were to take strings of equal density and length, and give them the same tension on a lute, vihuela, and guitar, you might not find overwhelming differences in sound. One thing you have to consider is the voicings on these instruments. Because the guitar uses re-entrant tuning, you get some unique voicings. Sanz himself uses that as an argument against bordones, or base strings on the guitar.

You can look at guitar theory in almost any epoch to find emphasis on chord voicings. For example, to play rhythm in big-band jazz, you pretty much only hit the lower three strings on the guitar, setting up voicings that give you the chord extensions without adding all the notes. It's a distinctive *sound* for that style of music. I would claim there is a degree to which you can say voicing = sound. It's certainly true that guitarists talk about getting such and such a sound, and while shaping and filtering the waves gets a lot of attention, voicings are also very important.

Likewise, the baroque guitar imposes or at least encourages certain voicings that are different than what you would get on vihuela or lute. Because of the re-entrant tuning you might get some notes repeated in a chord, or a distinctive inversion. This leads directly into campanela effects, where you play scalar passages with arpeggios over these voicings. So that implies you can get "closer" intervals in baroque guitar chords than you would in other instruments. There's no doubt this has an impact on the "sound" of the instrument.

Back to Sanz, he actually says that the voicing with a bass note in a chord can be incorrect.
"...y a mas desto, que con bordones, si hazes la letra, o punto E, que es De lasolre, en la musica sale la quinta vacante en quarta baxa, y confunde el principal baxo, y le da algo de imperfeccion, conforme el contrapunto ensenya..." "...furthermore, with bordones, if you play a Dm (I'm not sure about the De lasolre), in the music you get the 5th string open in the 4th bass (not sure what the 4th means here, either), which confuses the principal bass (the tonic?), and gives something of imperfection according to teachings of counterpoint." My half-baked translation...

So Gaspar Sanz is saying that the tuning used by the Italians is better for various reasons, one of which is superior voicing.

For me as a player, re-entrant tuning introduces lots of possibilities, and sometimes difficulties. No doubt, I'm fascinated by it. It's hard to get used to the G string being the low note of the instrument. You have to adjust phrasing to accomodate -- where the tablature tells a modern guitarist that a phrase is rooted in the D or A string, it turns out you have to anchor the phrase in the G string. It transforms the music.

So when you ask me about the sound, you're asking about a lot of things. It's not just the physical sound of the instrument, it's a qualitative difference that comes out of voicings. I won't say they're superior, but I'll say they're unique -- I want to explore using them in modern music as well, I might add. Could you imagine the effect of an electric 12-string guitar that's strung like Sanz suggests? It would rival the likes of Keith Emmerson or Rick Wakeman. I've already played around with Roxy Music and Cindy Lauper on the unplugged instrument, and it's pretty interesting.

I digress... Another thing to consider apart from the sound is the actual sensation of playing the instrument. Each instrument imposes its own logic on performance. The tuning of the guitar, the voicings it emphasizes, campanela, rasgueado... There's a give and take whenever you pick up an instrument. You use the instrument, but the instrument guides and limits you. It's hard to put into words specifically how the baroque guitar affects me, but playing it has its own special sensation for me.

Hmmm... Nothing too specific, but maybe some impressions that open more questions for you?

[Monica Hall]

The correct translation is "If you play the chord represented by the letter E (in alfabeto) which is a D minor chord, in the music the open fifth course will sound a fourth below the principal bass (i.e. the root of the chord) obscuring it. This results in some imperfection in the music, as the rules of counterpoint show." Chord E is played with the 4th and 5th courses unstopped, the 1st course is stopped at the 1st fret, the 2nd at the 3rd fret and the 3rd at the 2nd fret so the notes top down are f / d/ a / d /a

In other words the chord will be a 6/4 chord.

What he says is a tad ambiguous - because there are also 6/4 chords with the re-entrant tuning.

[Chris Despopoulos]

About linear vs harmony for its own sake... I think the Craig Russell article talks in terms of horizontal vs vertical. Whatever... Anything I ever read about the Baroque tells me it signaled a change from counterpoint as the basis of composition to accompaniment and one melody. For example, this is what opened up the concept of the opera... You could have an aria where one character sings, and the rest of the music is subservient to that voice.

In earlier counterpoint (again, according to what I've read), each voice is of equal importance. No voice reigns supreme, no voice is subservient. And the music is composed of voices. The harmony of this music is determined by the voices, and contrapuntal writing followed specific rules that avoided certain problems and dissonances.

According to Graig Russell, the Baroque era changed the emphasis of composition, such that you could compose a piece as a chord progression, and follow that with a desired melody. For modern people, that's not such a big deal. But I'm led to believe that it was a big deal at the time.

I'm sure there are people on this site who can carry that idea much further for you. And I hope they correct me wherever I'm wrong. But if all this hangs together, then it makes sense that the guitar would have been new-fangled, and exciting in its own right. It would have been symbolic of this new emphasis on chordal composition. At least, there's a plausible story in that...

[Monica Hall]

Monteverdi did not use the guitar in any of his compositions but two of his arias were included in a collection of Italian songs compiled and published by Milanuzzi with alfabeto chords added.

[Chris Despopoulos]

Um... Thanks for keeping things honest! I guess I have never attended a performance of Monteverdi that didn't include a bevy of guitars. I jumped to conclusions... A dangerous kind of jumping to do.

[Alexander Batov]

A few good points, Andrew! As far as the vihuela and guitar is concerned there is indeed a lot of 'improvisation' going on among the luthiers today but I'm absolutely sure that those who are willing to know can easily find all the necessary information. Here is briefly how I see the situation: historically the guitar and the vihuela have evolved, from the point of view of their construction, as virtually identical instruments. The only 'noticeable' difference would be in the number of courses; four or five on the guitar, six on the vihuela (I believe seven-course vihuelas also existed). I don't want to go into the area of terminological discussion here, the social and musical context of the two instrument's use etc. This is completely different area and it is not related to the topic of this particular discussion which is, primarily, the SOUND! So even without a single surviving vihuela we would be fairly safe to reconstruct it by taking, as an example, surviving 17th century (what we now call 'baroque') guitars. There is still a good number of those that preserved most of their internal and external features intact. The conclusion, as you might have guessed, is fairly obvious - if the two instruments are constructionally identical they would sound very similar too. The lute is very much different instrument altogether, both acoustically (i.e. different body shape and, proportionally, larger body volume) and in terms of soundboard construction (thinner soundboard, with more complex barring structure) and so is the sound of it! A properly constructed guitar / vihuela would be quicker (than the lute) in response, with warm, even sound across the range. The lute, on the other hand, has a more harmonically rich sound which is also, what I would call, 'broader' towards the bass range. Perhaps this last quality made the lute an 'ideal' instrument for later conversions allowing to modify it by adding extra bass courses and so expanding its range (i.e. a 6-course, 16th century lute would often be 're-used' in 17th - 18th centuries as 11 - 13-course instrument, with only relatively minor modifications to its original soundboard).

[Jim Gallant]

You mention that the baroque guitar's "warmth," but you say the has a "more harmonically rich sound...toward the bass range." Hmm. At least where a modern guitar is concerned it's the bass range that makes it sound warmer than the lute. Well, we're in highly subjective territory here obviously!

I wonder if the most significant differences between the baroque guitar and the lute would have been in the relatively great variety of tonalities achievable on the former. I am not very well-informed about lute technique, but the tonal quality of that instrument seems generally pretty uniform.
Russell points out in the essay Chris mentioned that the guitar, on the other hand, is capable of a variety of subtle changes, depending on whether it is strummed (up or down, swiftly or in leisurely arpeggio, with or without the nails touching the strings), or plucked (and whether it is plucked with the pad of the finger or the nail. Anyone know how far back nail-plucking technique goes?) The guitar also sounds differently when played near the bridge, or at the hole. The guitar allows for campanella effects.

A preference for variety, even discordant variety, over smoothness and consistency is a characteristic of baroque sensibility generally. Might that not be a reason Corbetta would have preferred the guitar over the lute?

An aside: I've been playing recently pieces by Turina edited by Segovia. Turina isn't a baroque composer, obviously, but the abrupt shifts in mood and playing techniques within single pieces are reminders of what the instrument can do.

[Scot Tremblay]

Very intersting discussion here. I think a point touched on by Rocky might have some relevance in answering your question as to why Corbetta chose the guitar rather than another instrument. That is the notion of an early in life exposure to the guitar.

There is some evidence that he spent an unspecified length of time in Spain during his formative years. He would have been exposed to the guitar there much more than the lute. The lute having been mostly rejected by the Spanish. Ostensibly because of it's association the Islamic "occupiers" which had been removed from the Iberian Peninsula only a little more then a generation or two before Corbetta's birth.

If the dates are accurate that he was born in 1615 and published his first book/method on the instrument in 1639 then he would have been an accomplished young man at 24 years. I would suggest that he also discovered that he could make a quite good living with the instrument. Playing and teaching in the courts of Europe, being the 17th century equivalent of our modern rock star. Up to his time and possibly not until F. Sors or M. Giuliani did a guitarist tour as extensively as Corbetta.

It seemed that he was "doing alright", there would be no impetus to persue the more popular lute.

Anyways, feel free to refute any of the above, it's just some thoughts gleaned from what little I have read about his life.

[Alexander Batov]

Scot, the lute was as much popular (if not even more so!) and widespread in Spain in the late 16th - early 17th centuries as the vihuela and / or guitar. I don't know where the idea of its 'evil' association with the "occupies" and subsequent removal from the Iberian Peninsula comes from; it does seen totally unsubstantiated for me. You can read, for example, from the article "An Inventory of Musical Instruments at the Royal Palace, Madrid, in 1602" (Galpin Society Journal, Vol. 21, March 1968, pp. 108 - 128) that lists eleven lutes but no one single vihuela or guitar!

[Jim Gallant]

Scot--Thanks for the guess. In what I have sketched of the piece I am writing. As a matter of fact, I have him in Madrid as a youth in what I have sketched for the piece. Maybe someone in authority has told him that if he's going to be a serious musician, he really needs to study the vihuela. Courtly Spanish were as contemptuous of the guitar as a folk instrument as people elsewhere were. So Corbetta IS studying the vihuela--but loves the guitar he hears in the streets. Torn between the two types of music, he invents a combination the street rasqueado and punteado?

Not sure how he got to Madrid! But yes, he is said to have been in Spain at some point, and because the Spanish had ruled parts of Italy, there would probably have been a deal of coming and going between the two countries.

[Monica Hall]

This is pure crap! Here is a brief historically accurate biography of Corbetta. He was born in Pavia in about 1615. His parents apparently didn't want him to become a musician and he was largely self taught. His first guitar book was printed in Bologna in 1639 and it seems he was active in Bologna as a teacher for a while and taught the guitarist Giovanni Battista Granata. He was subsequently in the service of the Duke of Mantua to whom his second guitar book, printed in 1643, is dedicated. He spent a lot of time in Venice and there was some question of his marrying the singer and composer Antonia Bembo but this came to nothing. He certainly visited Spain where he apparently played at court in Madrid, but he also visited Austria and the Netherlands - his 1648 book is dedicated to the Archduke Leopold William who ruled the Spanish Netherlands at that time. By the mid 1650s he was in Paris where he came to the attention of Charles II and accompanied him to England at the Restoration in 1660. The last 20 years of his life were spent mainly in England with frequent visits to Paris. He was guitar teacher to Princess Anne who later became Queen Anne and took part in various musical events during his time in England. He was also involved in running a lottery for gain during the 1660s. He died in Paris in 1681.
The vihuela is completely irrelevant as it it had fallen into disuse by the early years of the 17th century. There is no reason at all why Corbetta should have wanted to study it and no need for him to go to Spain to study at all. It is highly unlikely that he and Sanz ever came into contact with one another. Sanz was a native of Zaragoza in the kingdom of Aragon - in the 17th century Spain wasn't really a united country. Sanz studied musical theory with Caresana in Naples and the guitar with Lelio Colista in Rome in the late 1660s.

The baroque guitar is completely different from the lute and the vihuela. It has only 5 courses of strings and usually a re-entrant tuning. The best music i.e. that of Corbetta - combines strumming with lute style counterpoint.

If you must write a historical novel about a real person I think this should have some basis in the facts.

[Jim Gallant]

Hi Monica--Thanks for the contribution. I'm not sure what is all of this is "pure crap"--could be a lot of things! It's pure crap (or at least pure make-believe) that Corbetta was in Madrid doing what I have him doing. I'm writing fiction, though, not The Life of Corbetta; and the way I'm setting him up in Madrid gives me a way to focus the period issue between the lute and the lowly guitar.

Most of the biographical details you mention I am aware of, and I am incorporating some iof them, especially the events in Venice involving the Padoanis. From what I can gather though, what you're related here is about the extent of what IS known about the life. If there's a lot else stashed away in some obscure source let me know!

What I am writing about Corbetta is one in a series of historical sketches. My concentration is on his experiences in the Restoration court of Charles II of England. The rest is only background to this. I don't want to make errors of fact of an egregious kind about his life, even so.

From the standpoint of a biographer, knowing no more than what appears to be known about Corbetta would be disastrous. From the standpoint of someone writing fiction, it's an invitation to invention. In taking up a subject in fiction, one's motives are--or may be--very different from those of a biographer trying to deal faithfully with a historical subject, I'm dealing with "my" Corbetta at a depth-psychological level where no biographer would be likely to venture without becoming a novelist.