jdowning - 12-18-2012 at 01:22 PM
I am currently planning and researching my next instrument build project - a large lute known in 17th C Italy as a tiorba (or chitarrone) for which a
lot of music survives in tablature format. The tiorba is essentially a bass lute used both for accompaniment of voice and other instruments as well as
solo performance.
The attached images show some historical examples. They are characterised by having a long extended neck carrying bass strings (played unstopped like
the strings of a harp and tuned diatonically - like the white notes on a piano) as well as six or seven courses stopped on a fretted fingerboard.
These instruments were usually very large (around 2 metres in height) - stopped string length around 90 cm and basses around 170 cm in length - all
gut strung. The stopped courses could be either double or single.
Note the triple - oud like - soundhole of the larger instruments.
The sound of the tiorba was powerful and loud - particularly in the bass. The attached (much compressed) audio clip of a piece by Bellerofonte
Castaldi played by lutenist Jakob Lindberg from CD " Virtuoso Lute Music from Italy and England" currently posted on YouTube (better quality audio
track starts at time 30:50) - gives some idea of the sonorities of a tiorba.
Although the lute probably developed from the oud, they had parted company by the late 16th C when the tiorba was invented. I am not aware of any
similar development of the oud but am curious to know if a large tiorba (without frets) might have an application as a bass oud - the open bass
strings being played as drones - a loud instrument with bass sonorities?
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jdowning - 12-18-2012 at 05:05 PM
More detailed information about the theorbo can be found here
http://www.theorbo.com
jdowning - 12-22-2012 at 07:16 AM
Interestingly Lynda Sayce does briefly discuss the playing of non Western music on the theorbo - see "Composing for the Theorbo", page 4, 'Non Western
Scale Systems' on her website. She writes:
"Modes with western interval sizes but with non-tonal intervallic patterns can be very successful. Modes with non-western interval sizes, such as many
Arabic modes which require three-quarter tones are less successful .... because the interval patterns do not always repeat at the intervals between
the open strings".
Of course these remarks refer to a theorbo with tied frets on the fingerboard so presumably removing the frets would also remove the problem of
playing Arabic modes?
One possible model for a theorboed oud might be that shown in the previously posted image of the single soundhole lute. It is a tiorba by Wendelio
Venere (Tieffenbrücker), Padua, Italy, 1611 (Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum # SAM 43). Stopped string length is 75.7 cm (six courses) with eight
unstopped basses measuring 121.2 cm. This size would likely still be very manageable for solo work.