Journal

Lute Construction in the Renaissance and the Baroque
Author(s): Friedemann Hellwig

Source: The Galpin Society Journal, Vol. 27 (May, 1974), pp. 21-30
Published by: Galpin Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/841751
Accessed: 31-03-2017 03:17 UTC
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
Galpin Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Galpin Society
Journal
This content downloaded from 146.201.32.11 on Fri, 31 Mar 2017 03:17:26 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
FRIEDEMANN HELLWIG
Lute Construction in the

Renaissance and the Baroq
C ONSIDERING the rich musical sources, the great number of tutors,
and the many original instruments preserved one may be sur-
prised at the few contributions towards a systematic investigation into
the history of lute-making. In the renaissance of old music there is
obviously a more limited interest in this delicate instrument than in
harpsichords and wind instruments.
Despite Michael Prynne's constructive papers, and contributions
like Emanuel Winternitz's article 'Theorbe' in Die Musik in Geschichte
und Gegenwart many questions of importance remain open: the
transition of the lute from Islamic to Western music; the develop-
ment oftheorbo, chitarrone, and archlute; there is no reliable definition
of terms such as mandora, pandurina, liuto soprano, Milanese or
Genoese mandolina; there is no examination of the various sizes of
lutes and their appropriate tunings and pitches. This list could easily
be extended. With this in mind, I hope to be forgiven if in the follow-
ing many a question will remain without a satisfactory answer.
The present examination of the lute will be limited to the period
between the early i6th century and the second half of the 18th century,
comprising the span of time between the earliest lute surviving and the
latest instruments made for non-historical playing purposes. All lutes
of this period have in common a number of features, listed already by
Curt Sachs in 1913.1 They are:
vaulted back, consisting of several ribs;
flat soundboard with one or more roses;
separate neck with movable frets;
bent-back head with lateral pegs;
double strings to each course with possible exception of the
first or the first two courses;
strings fixed to a bridge;
gut or silk serving as material for strings.
*The article here presented is a translation of the paper read at the International
Lute Week held by the Eduard van Beinum-Stichtung at Queekhoven,
Breukelen, Holland, in June 1972.
21
Theorboes, chitarroni and archlutes differ from true lutes in these
characteristics only in the construction of their heads and the dis-
position and material of their strings.
Such characteristics are merely constructional. Another feature,
which largely determines the appearance of a lute, is that of the high
standard of craftsmanship applied. Lutes of crude and rustic appear-
ance will arouse our suspicion that they are either heavily altered or
complete falsifications. The fact that the instrument collections of
today preserve top-quality instruments only may be considered a
selection process over the past centuries. However, there seems to be
a direct relation between the standard of workmanship and the social
status of the players. In 1533 Giovanni Maria Lanfranco2 calls the
lute 'the most perfect instrument among all others'; Baron3 in 1727
makes mention 'of that musical instrument which by persons of
distinguished standing has been brought to high perfection' and which
is 'too high for the rabble'. These and many similar remarks make us
feel that the lute was the instrument neither of drinking peasants nor
of shouting soldiers. Even Mattheson's4 well-known mockery, that in
Paris the maintenance of a horse and a lute would require equal
expense, may serve to support our statement that the lute was largely
made to the requirements and pretentions of its players: musicians of
noble Kapellen and dilettanti from the nobility and the upper bour-
geoisie. These relations will have to be examined more closely in a
future investigation into the sociological aspects of musical instru-
ments. Meanwhile we may follow the development of each of the
characteristics of the lute mentioned above.
Back and belly together form the outline. Michael Prynne5 rightly
draws our attention to the fact that the outline survives undamaged
almost any repair or alteration of the instrument. This feature is
therefore especially fitted to indicate certain developments in the art
of lute making. The earliest surviving lutes bear the label of the
legendary Laux Maler, a German, active in Bologna until his death in
1552. Von Liitgendorff6 attributes to him the creation of the post-
gothic, slender lute shape-a statement for which there is neither
proof nor disproof. In any case an outline similar to Maler's (see fig. I)
was applied by his contemporary Hans Frei, its characteristic feature
being the long almond-like shape with its strikingly small shoulders.
This type appears to be typical for the lute making in the early 16th
century. In iconography we occasionally find different shapes which
we consider to be relics of an older tradition and which we therefore
omit from our considerations of this moment.
22
/ O
FIG. I. The outline of the lute body from the 15th to the 18th century. From
left to right-Top: Henri Arnault, c.145o; Laux Maler (d.1552); Magnus
Tieffenbrucker, Venice 16o9. Bottom: Giovanni Railich, Venice 1644;
Joachim Tielke, Hamburg 1696; Martin Hoffman, Leipzig 169-.
In the second half of the 16th century the Tieffenbrucker family

and their pupils commenced their activity from which a great number
of lutes has been preserved. All their instruments display uniform
outlines, especially powerful and in their upper parts rather full (fig. I).
To me their model seems to be extraordinarily artistic and highly
pleasing to the eye-the true expression of perhaps the greatest period
of lute making.
A new type of outline of special width developed in the 1630s in
the north of Italy. In the examples mentioned so far the ratio of body
width to body length was about o.6:I, while with the newly-styled
instruments the ratio comes up to almost o.9:I.7 These instruments,
made in the workshops of the Sellas family, Pietro or Giovanni
Railich (fig. I), Christofolo Koch and other Venetian makers, appear
so novel that their development on the basis of the Tieffenbrucker-type
23
lutes seems unlikely, More likely seems the assumption that the wide
body was inspired by much older examples. Henri Arnault of Zwolle
delineates such an apple-shaped lute in his treatise on some of the
musical instruments of his days, dated to about 1450.8 Similar, some-
times even wider lutes can be found in great numbers in the paintings
of the Late Gothic and Early Renaissance (fig. I). Such archaic-looking
instruments were not made much after the middle of the I7th century.
Soon the slim, narrow outline of the early I6th century is preferred
again. Instruments with bodies modelled after the Tieffenbruckers
were made too. No new body-shapes were developed until the final
death of the lute in the second half of the I8th century. To sum up:
The outline of the lute body does not present itself as a continuous
development through the centuries; from the middle of the I7th cen-
tury the lute is shaped after earlier models of the I5th and I6th cen-
turies. (Fig. I demonstrates the different models.)
The lute back, with consideration to the selection of materials and

the number of ribs, does not show such distinct periods. Precious ivory
or rare kinds of wood like ebony, snake wood and rose wood were
constantly used besides the more common maple or yew. The yew
tree has a narrow white sapwood round the brown heart, a peculiarity
of which lutemakers from the end of the I6th century to the middle
of the next made special use: they cut their trees so that each rib
consisted of half sapwood, half heartwood; each rib thus shows a
white and brown shade in one piece. For reasons of symmetry the
narrow white sap part requires an equally narrow brown section,
resulting in a relatively small total width. Therefore, the number of
ribs necessary to make a lute back is rather large, between twenty-five
and more than fifty. This number appears even doubled to somebody
looking only superficially at the double-shaded ribs. Perhaps these
products of refined craftsmanship are an expression of the period of
mannerism which was just coming to its end in art history. With the
introduction of the wide-shaped lute body the number of ribs is
reduced to about I5. At the same time the instruments preserved
display a certain preference to the use of rare woods and ivory; in
fact, their use is almost characteristic of lutes from the middle of the
I7th century, most of them originating from Venice.
Also, the round outline is combined with a flattened back, the
cross-section of which previously approximated to a semi-circle.
The inside of a lute back is rather simple. The ribs are held together
by a block at the upper end and by a kind of liner at the lower. The
joint between each rib is secured by a strip of parchment or paper
24
glued on. On the outside the lower end of the back is furnished with
another piece of wood called the end-clasp.
Let us now examine the belly, the part which is most important to
the sound quality of the lute. The belly is made of spruce or fir, as
with resonating boards of other instruments. The rose is cut into the
upper part, the bridge glued onto the lower. The inside is supported
by a number of bars which serve two functions: they protect the
belly from the tension of the strings and they divide the belly into
separate vibrating sections which largely determine the sound proper-
ties of our instrument. I need not give a detailed description of the
various systems of barring, since these have been discussed earlier in
this JOURNAL.9 The precise geometrical construction of the barring
appears to be a characteristic of earlier lute barring up to the middle of
the I7th century. From the second half most makers rely more on
empirical data than on strict geometry. I do not know whether this
phenomenon should be considered a sympton of decay in the part of
lute-making or whether it is a result of a struggle for still better lutes.
Taking into account the high praise of old lutes in the I7th and I8th
centuries, it would seem that the abandoning of strict geometry did
not add to the development of the lute.
The most decorative part of the lute is the rose. As everybody knows,
the lute is no European invention but was taken over from the Arabs
as a fully-developed instrument; the ornamentation of the rose
likewise survived the transition from Islam to the Christian Occident.
At first sight we observe an enormous number of different patterns
which, however, can be reduced to a few basic ornaments. The most
frequent of these is the Jewish Star, which is mostly explained as
the permeation of the visible and the invisible world, represented by
two triangles fitted into each other. It is often found in depictions of
lutes in Moorish manuscripts. In Spain, a territory of constant exchange
of thoughts between Christianity and Islam, the Jewish Star developed
from its originally strict geometry to a more decorative ornamentation.
This developed ornamentation can be found not only in musical
instruments but in various fields of the artistic production of those
days, a most impressive example being the ceramics of the Alhambra,
near Granada. A characteristic feature is the use of straight and angled
lines only. A good example is the rose of a large octave bass lute by
Michael Hartung of 1602,lO which possesses a stylistic similarity to
certain details from the Alhambra. The basic element is the Jewish
Star with its two triangles placed into each other, further developed
25
into tightly plaited wickerwork. With use of the Jewish Star this
ornament is confined to the area within the points of the triangles; it
can therefore not be indefinitely extended. The large variety of rose
ornaments observed in European instruments is achieved by the
insertion of additional floral elements into the basically Arabic orna-
ments. With the beginning of the I7th century purely floral roses
appear more frequently until for a short period they were used almost
exclusively. This type of rose is obviously derived from older patterns
by merely abandoning the Arabic geometrical skeleton.
Constant use of almost all the rose ornaments can be observed
through several centuries. The basic Arabic designs expecially can be
found in the earliest and latest instruments preserved. At the same time
there is no preference for specific ornaments in the various countries;
the ornamentation seems independent of place and time. This has led
to the assumption that lute roses were not cut by the individual
instrument-maker but by the merchants of resonance timber. This
would indeed explain the use of identical ornaments in various coun-
tries at the same time, expecially if assuming a single centre of supply.
This could above all be the town of Fiissen in the Allgaiu, South
Germany. To such an assumption the following has to be objected:
The lute makers obviously aimed at certain relations between certain
measurements of the lute body and the size. There are two ways of
achieving this: the rose can be reduced to a smaller size by making
use of only a concentric section of the total ornament; on the other
hand, the rose can be enlarged by adding one or two ornamental
rings around it, either carved into the surface of the belly or cut
through. The pattern to be used is, in this process, not drawn onto
each belly but is marked onto its inside by block-printing. A chitarrone
by Magno Graill, Rome 1627, forms a splendid example of this
thesis." It is discussed in an earlier number of this JOURNAL.'2
The assumption of a central supply, unjustified as we think, is
probably based on a passage from an inventory of Laux Maler's house
and workshops prepared on the occasion of his death.'" In it there are
mentioned piles offondi intagliati, bellies cut in. Bellies with their roses
pre-cut? Reading further in the inventory one finds liuti inverniciati,
lutes varnished in. This makes no sense at all. The prefix in- obviously
has another meaning; in fact, in many languages it is used together
with technical expressions like sawing, cutting, even varnishing,
without meaning into. The corresponding English term would perhaps
be cut up, sawn up, etc. Thus, this passage in Laux Maler's inventory
would mean that trunks of wood have been intagliati, sawn up to
make bellies. All these observations make us reject the idea of bellies
26
traded with their roses already carved. I would rather prefer the thought
that every lutemaker's workshop possessed, say, half a dozen blocks
for the printing of ornaments. These blocks were easily passed on to
assistants and apprentices simply by making a print onto another piece
of wood which is then cut out to make a new block. This would also
explain the use of identical ornaments over long periods.
Prior to gluing the belly onto the back, the neck is fastened to the
upper block. The neck consists of a piece of oak, lime, maple or beech,
usually veneered with ebony at the rear side. Neck and block are glued
without dovetails or the like, being merely secured by an iron nail.
The front of the neck carries the fingerboard, which consists of a piece
of ebony about 2 mm thick. In early lutes it is always flat; starting with
the I7th century it becomes slightly rounded to help the player's
hand with the augmented number of strings.
Neck and fingerboard end in the pegbox or head. Through the
course of the centuries there were always different constructions,
which also determine whether our instrument is a lute, an archlute, a
theorbo or a chitarrone. The pegbox bent back at nearly a right angle
is the earliest type. It is glued and nailed to the neck. The cheeks (sides)
consist of maple or beech, either stained or veneered. Near the nut
they are cut out to give space for top and bottom strings. This basic
type of head was used until the end of the I8th century, though from
the middle of the I7th century mostly with an additional rider for the
chanterelle.
Already in the second half of the I6th century there were attempts
to lengthen the lowest strings in favour of a better sound. In 1566 a
lute with two heads (eine fischbeinene Laute mit zwei Kriigen) is men-
tioned in the inventory of Raimund Fugger's instrument collection.14
This instrument apparently possessed extra long bass strings fixed to a
separate head. In the following centuries various constructional
solutions of the technical problems developed; they will be briefly
discussed according to the lengths of the bass strings.
Riders on the bass cheek of the lute head add only one or two inches
to the string length; they were frequently used in the late 17th and the
18th centuries. A true second pegbox is found in the theorboed lute
which, next to the bent-back head, carries another head in the elonga-
tion of the fingerboard. Four or five courses are fixed to it, each one
having a separate nut according to the corresponding string length.
This type is often found in paintings from the Netherlands dating
from the I7th century. Both constructions are variations of the true
lute, since the bent-back pegbox is retained.
27
In other constructions the additional head is mounted in the elonga-
tion of the first, connected by a long neck. Three terms are applied to
these instruments: theorbo, chitarrone, and archlute. Normally,
theorbo indicates the smaller instrument, chitarrone the bigger, while
archlute-according to Kinsky-is a general term for instruments
with two heads. In my opinion this is an over-simplification which is
not confirmed by organological sources. Moreover, a distinction
between theorbo and chitarrone appears hardly possible. A detailed
discussion of these questions is in the course of preparation. Only the
following will be mentioned here: in Italy the terms theorbo and
chitarrone are used synonymously up to the middle of the I7th century.
Obviously with the construction of more distinct instrument sizes the
term chitarrone disappears in favour of arciliuto, referring to the larger
instrument; theorbo then means a small instrument. In France the use
of the terms seems to be similar to that in Italy, with archiluthe the
equivalent of arciliuto. In earlier French sources the term chitarrone
seems unknown; thiorbe refers to all sizes. England largely follows the
French nomenclature. In Germany the term chitarrone can be found in
sources of the early I7th century which are obviously influenced by
the Italian style; otherwise there seems no distinction of instrument
sizes as all instruments with extra long bass strings are called theorboes.
A further distinction might prove possible by the tuning and dis-
position of strings.
In order to make myself understood, I would like to use the current
terminology despite what I have just said: a theorbo is a lute, the two
heads of which are mounted in one line in elongation of the neck. The
ratio of the lengths of the bass strings to that of the upper stopped
strings is about 1.5:1. This results in a rather small distance between
the two heads. Instruments of this type still exist in large numbers,
especially from the Sellas workshop. A characteristic is the straight
connection of the two heads; viewed from the side the upper head
forms an elongation of the lower, bent forward of the connecting
section. This construction is also typical of the chitarrone and can
still be found in the large types up to the end of the I8th century. In
Germany the instrument-makers at the end of the I7th century
introduced what I would like to call the baroque theorbo head. In it
the upper head is no longer the bent elongation of the lower; it is
placed directly on top of the lower, connected only by a short curved
between-section. In addition there are several other constructions,
one of which I shall mention here. It is a theorbo by Matteo Sellas
preserved in the Brussels collection (No. I565) which possesses three
flat pegboxes situated on top of each other in an oblique line. A
28
similar instrument with even five pegboxes is the property of the Paris
Conservatoire (No. 234).
At the beginning we called the double stringing of the courses a
characteristic of the lute. In fact, theorboes, chitarroni, and archlutes
sometimes show single stringing, especially in the early instruments
made in Rome.
I do not want to discuss the many tunings applied to lutes in the
course of the centuries, but we have to keep in mind that more than
just two did exist. It is certainly questionable to use the renaissance and
the baroque tuning as a distinguishing feature between various types of
lutes. It is especially the large number of tunings in the 17th century
that should warn us against assuming a sudden transition of the lute
from the renaissance to the baroque, whatever the musical meaning
of these terms may be. In the larger instruments the renaissance type
of tuning is retained until the second half of the I8th century.15
Furthermore, the constructional details discussed above do not permit
a separation of a renaissance and a baroque lute type. We have to
recognize that the lute in the course of its long existence in Europe
did not jump from one type to a second, but that it developed con-
tinuously. Also, the lute did not grow from a simple to a more com-
licated instrument, from a crude to a beautiful, from a soft to a loud.
We noticed already how the outline of the body in the I7th century
was oriented towards earlier types. Similarly, the number of strings of
many I8th-century lutes was radically reduced to five or six courses
with an additional chanterelle. Perhaps the lute was pressed hard
by the guitar which was easier to play, a phenomenon paralleled when
the harpsichord came under pressure from the pianoforte with its
great dynamic range. Late lutes are simple in their appearance and can
sometimes be mistaken for a particularly early instrument. This
development is in contrast to that of the harpsichord, which in com-
petition to the pianoforte showed an increasingly complicated con-
struction to enlarge its expressive possibilities.
It is the construction that determines the tonal properties of our
instrument; we, therefore, have to include this point in our discussion.
Contemporary complaints or praise of certain instruments are by
their nature rather personal judgements. Perhaps more detailed than
others, Gottlieb Baron'6 discusses the tonal qualities of lutes which he
relates to shape and depth of body and the size of the roses, without
however saying which results the differences gave. In fact, it seems
hardly possible to learn from contemporary literature what consider-
ations and motives led to the manifold alterations in the art of lute
making. In addition, few original instruments have up to date been
29
played, and perhaps none of them regularly. Therefore, there is
perhaps nobody capable of judging the sound-qualities of the various
lute models. Perhaps today's situation is similar to that of the harpsi-
chordist of, say, fifty years ago: he played the instrument without
proceeding to a more intimate knowledge of the originals.
NOTES
i Reallexikon, Berlin, 1913.
2 Scintille di musica, Brescia, 1533, P. 140.
3 Ernst Gottlieb Baron, Untersuchung des Instruments der Lauten, N
1727. Preface, fol. 4 b.
4 Johann Mattheson, Neuernffnetes Orchestre, Hamburg, 1713.
5 In J. Jacquot, Le luth et sa musique, Paris 1958, p. 240.
6 Die Lauten- und Geigenmacher, Frankfurt am Main, 5, 6, 1922.
7 E.g. theorbo, Matteo Sellas, Mus6e Instrumental, Brussels, No.
8 G. Le Cerf (ed.), Instruments de Musique du XVe siecle, les Trait
de Zwolle .. ., Paris, 1932, pl. XV.
9 F. Hellwig, 'On the Construction of the Lute Belly', GSJ XXI, p
10 Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Niirnberg, MI 44.
11 Florence, Museo Bardini, No. 143.
12 GSJ XXI, p. 142.
13 L. Frati, 'Liutisti e Liutai di Bologna', RMI XIX, 1918, p. 1
thereafter: Michael Prynne, 'The Old Bologna Lute Makers', Lu
Journal.
14 J. Stockbaur, 'Die Kunstbestrebungen am Bayerischen Hofe', Quellen-
schriftenfiir Kunstgeschichte und Kunsttechnik .. ., Vienna, 1874, VIII, p. 81-84.
I5 (Diderot et d'Alembert), Receuil de Planches de l'Encyclopidie, Paris and
Liege, 1784, III, Luthier P1. 21.
16 vide note 3, pp. 9o, 91.
30

Journal

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Originalbeschreibung:

Originaltitel

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Journal

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Lute Construction in the Renaissance and the Baroque

Author(s): Friedemann Hellwig

Lute Construction in the

In the second half of the 16th century the Tieffenbrucker family

The lute back, with consideration to the selection of materials and

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen