A baroque- or classical-era lute.
Lute can generally refer to any plucked string instrument with a neck (either
fretted or unfretted) and a deep round back, or a specific instrument from the family of European lutes.
The European lute and the Near-Eastern oud both descend from a common ancestor,
with diverging evolutionary paths. The lute is used in a great variety of instrumental music from the early renaissance to the late baroque eras. It is also an accompanying
instrument, especially in vocal works, often realizing a basso continuo or playing a
written-out accompaniment.
The player of a lute is called a lutenist, lutanist, or lutist, and a maker of lutes (or any string
instrument) is called a luthier.
Etymology
The words "lute" and "oud" may have derived from Arabic al‘ud, "the wood",
though recent research by Eckhard Neubauer suggests that ‘ud may simply be an Arabized version of the Persian name
rud, which meant string, stringed instrument, or lute. Gianfranco Lotti suggests that the "wood" appellation originally
carried derogatory connotations, because of proscriptions of all instrumental music in early Islam.
There are also possibilities of derivations from Greek haleut meaning "fishing boat", Frankish lleut and
Slavonic ладья, both meaning "a ship".
Description of the instrument
Renaissance lute (holding position).
Lutes are made almost entirely of wood. The soundboard is a teardrop-shaped thin flat
plate of resonant wood (usually spruce). In all lutes the soundboard has a single (sometimes
triple) decorated soundhole under the strings, called the rose. The soundhole is not open, but rather covered with a
grille in the form of an intertwining vine or a decorative knot, carved directly out of the wood of the soundboard.
The back or the shell is assembled from thin strips of hardwood (maple, cherry, ebony, rosewood or other tonewoods)
called ribs joined (with glue) edge to edge to form a deep rounded body for the instrument. There are braces inside on the
soundboard to give it strength; see the photo among the external links below.
The neck is made of light wood, with a veneer of hardwood (usually ebony) to
provide durability for the fretboard beneath the strings. Unlike most modern stringed
instruments, the lute's fretboard is mounted flush with the top. The pegbox for lutes
before the Baroque era was angled back from the neck at almost 90° (see image), presumably
to help hold the low-tension strings firmly against the nut, which is not traditionally glued in place, but is held in
place by string pressure only. The tuning pegs are simple pegs of hardwood, somewhat
tapered, that are held in place by friction in holes drilled through the pegbox. As with other instruments using friction pegs,
the choice of wood used to make pegs is crucial. As the wood suffers dimensional changes through age and loss of humidity, it
must as closely as possible retain a circular cross-section in order to function properly, as there are no gears or other
mechanical aids for tuning the instrument. Often pegs were made from suitable fruitwoods such as European pearwood, or equally
dimensionally stable analogues. Matheson, ca 1720, stated if a lute-player has lived eighty years, he has surely spent sixty
years tuning.
The geometry of the lute belly is relatively complex, involving a system of barring in which braces are placed perpendicular
to the strings at specific lengths along the overall length of the belly, the ends of which are angled quite precisely to abut
the ribs on either side for structural reasons. Robert Lundberg, in his book "Historical Lute Construction," suggests that
ancient builders placed bars according to whole-number ratios of the scale length and belly length. He further suggests that the
inward bend of the soundboard (the 'belly scoop') is a deliberate adaptation by ancient builders to afford the lutenist's right
hand a bit more space between the strings and soundboard. The belly thickness is somewhat variable, but hovers between 1.5 and 2
millimeters in general. Some luthiers tune the belly as they build, removing mass and adapting bracing to ensure proper sonic
results. The lute belly is almost never finished, though in some cases the luthier may size the top with a very thin coat of
shellac or glair in order to help keep it clean. The belly is joined directly to the rib, without a lining glued to the sides,
although a cap and counter cap are glued to the inside and outside of the bottom end of the bowl to provide rigidity and
increased gluing surface.
After joining the top to the sides, a half binding is usually installed around the edge of the belly. The half-binding is
approximately half the thickness of the belly and is usually made of a contrasting color wood. The rebate for the half-binding
must be extremely precise to avoid compromising structural integrity.
The bridge, usually made of a fruitwood, is attached to the soundboard usually at 1/5 to 1/7 the belly length. It does not
have a separate saddle but has holes bored into it to which the strings attach directly. Typically the bridge is made such that
it tapers in height and length, with the small end holding the trebles and the higher and wider end carrying the basses. Bridges
are often colored black with carbon black in a binder, often shellac, and often have inscribed decoration. The scrolls or other
decoration on the ends of lute bridges are usually integral to the bridge, and are not added afterwards as on some Renaissance
guitars (cf Joachim Tielke's guitars).
The frets are made of loops of gut (or, on some modern instruments, nylon monofilament) tied
around the neck. They fray with use, and must be replaced from time to time. A few additional partial frets of wood are usually
glued to the body of the instrument, to allow stopping the highest-pitched courses up to a full octave higher than the open
string (see image), though these are anachronistic and do not appear on original instruments. Given the choice between nylon and
gut, many luthiers prefer to use gut, as it conforms more readily to the sharp angle at the edge of the fingerboard.
Strings were historically made of gut (or sometimes in combination with metal), and are still made of gut or a synthetic
substitute, with metal windings on the lower-pitched strings. Modern manufacturers make both gut and nylon strings, and both are
in common use. Gut is more authentic, though it is also more susceptible to irregularity and pitch instability due to changes in
humidity. Nylon, less authentic, offers greater tuning stability but is of course anachronistic.
Of note are the "catlines" used as basses on historical instruments. Catlines are several gut strings wound together and
soaked in heavy metal solutions which increase the mass of the strings. Catlines can be quite large in diameter by comparison
with wound nylon strings for the same pitch. They produce a bass which is somewhat different in timbre from nylon basses.
The lute's strings are arranged in courses, usually of two strings each, though
the highest-pitched course usually consists of only a single string, called the chanterelle. In later Baroque lutes 2
upper courses are single. The courses are numbered sequentially, counting from the highest pitched, so that the
chanterelle is the first course, the next pair of strings is the second course, etc. Thus an 8-course
Renaissance lute will usually have 15 strings, and a 13-course Baroque lute will have 24.
The courses are tuned in unison for high and intermediate pitches, but for lower pitches one of the two strings is tuned an
octave higher. (The course at which this split starts changed over the history of the lute.) The two strings of a course are
virtually always stopped and plucked together, as if a single string, but in extremely rare cases a piece calls for the two
strings of a course to be stopped and/or plucked separately. The tuning of a lute is a somewhat complicated issue, and is
described in a separate section of its own, below. The result of the lute's design is an instrument
extremely light for its size.
History and evolution of the lute
The origins of the lute are obscure, and organologists disagree about the very definition of a lute. The highly influential
organologist Curt Sachs distinguished between the "long-necked lute" (Langhalslaute) and the short-necked variety: both referred
to chordophones with a neck as distinguished from harps and psalteries. Smith and others argue that the long-necked variety
should not be called lute at all, since it existed for at least a millennium before the appearance of the short-necked instrument
that eventually evolved into what is now known as the lute, nor was it ever called a lute before the 20th century.
Ancient Egyptian painting depicting a player of the long-necked lute (center),
18th
Dynasty (c.
1422-
1411 BC)
Various types of necked chordophones were in use in ancient Egyptian (where they were
introduced from Asia in the Middle Kingdom), Hittite,
Greek, Roman, Bulgar,
Turkic, Chinese, Armenian/Cilician cultures. The Lute developed its familiar forms in
Arabia, Persia, Armenia, and Byzantium beginning in the early 7th century. These instruments
often had bodies covered with animal skin, as do the modern American banjo, Persian
tar, Indian sarod, West African xalam, or Chinese sanxian.
As early as the 6th century the Bulgars brought the short-necked variety of the instrument called Kobuz to the Balkans, and in the 9th century Moors brought Oud to Spain. The
long-necked Pandora/Quitra had been common Mediterranean lute previously. The Quitra didn't
become extinct however, but continued its evolution, its descendants being Chitarra
Italiana, Chitarrone and Colascione, aside from the still
surviving Kuitra of Algiers and Morocco.
In about the year 1500 many Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese lutenists adopted vihuela de
mano, a viol-shaped instrument tuned like the lute, but both instruments continued in
coexistence. This instrument also found its way to parts of Italy that were under Spanish domination (especially Sicily and the
papal states under the Borgia pope Alexander VI who brought many Catalan musicians to Italy), where it was known as the
viola da mano.
Another important point of transfer of the lute from Muslim to Christian European culture might have been in Sicily, where it
was brought either by Byzantine or later by Saracen musicians. There were singer-lutenists at the court in Palermo following the
Christian Norman conquest of the island, and the lute is depicted extensively in the ceiling paintings in the Palermo’s royal
Cappella Palatina, dedicated by the Norman King Roger II in 1140. By the 14th century, lutes had disseminated throughout Italy.
Probably due to the cultural influence of the Hohenstaufen kings and emperor, based in Palermo, the lute had also made
significant inroads into the German-speaking lands by the 14th century.
Medieval lutes were 4- or 5-course instruments, plucked using a quill for a
plectrum. There were several sizes, and by the end of the Renaissance, seven different sizes
(up to the great octave bass) are documented. Song accompaniment was probably the lute's primary function in the Middle Ages, but
very little music securely attributable to the lute survives from the era before 1500. Medieval and early-Renaissance song
accompaniments were probably mostly improvised, hence the lack of written records.
In the last few decades of the 15th century, in order to play Renaissance polyphony on a
single instrument, lutenists gradually abandoned the quill in favor of plucking the instrument with the fingertips. The number of
courses grew to six and beyond. The lute was the premier solo instrument of the 16th century, but continued to be used to
accompany singers as well.
A man playing a lute, painted by Jan Kupetzky, ca. 1711
By the end of the Renaissance the number of courses had grown to ten, and during the Baroque era the number continued to grow
until it reached 14 (and occasionally as many as 19). These instruments, with up to 26-35 strings, required innovations in the
structure of the lute. At the end of the lute's evolution the archlute, theorbo and torban had long extensions attached to the main tuning head in order
to provide a greater resonating length for the bass strings, and since human fingers are not long enough to stop strings across a
neck wide enough to hold 14 courses, the bass strings were placed outside the fretboard, and were played "open", i.e. without
fretting/stopping them with the left hand.
Over the course of the Baroque era the lute was increasingly relegated to the continuo
accompaniment, and was eventually superseded in that role by keyboard instruments. The lute fell out of use after 1800.
Lute in the modern world
The lute enjoyed a revival with the awakening of interest in historical music around 1900 and throughout the century, and that
revival was further boosted by the early music movement in the Twentieth Century. Important
pioneers in lute revival were Julian Bream, Hans Neemann, Walter Gerwig, Suzanne Bloch and
Diana Poulton. Lute performances are now not uncommon; there are many professional lutenists, especially in Europe where the most
employment is to be found, and new compositions for the instrument are being produced by composers.
During the early days of the early music movement, many lutes were constructed by available luthiers, whose specialty was
often classical guitars. Such lutes were heavily built with construction similar to classical guitars, with fan bracing, heavy
tops, fixed frets, and lined sides, all of which are anachronistic to historical lutes. As lutherie scholarship increased, makers
began constructing instruments based on historical models, which have proven on the whole to be far lighter and more responsive
instruments.
Lutes built at present are invariably replicas or near copies of those surviving
historical instruments that are to be found in museums or private collections. They are exclusively custom-built or must be
bought second hand in a very limited market. As a result, lutes are generally more expensive than mass-produced modern
instruments such as the guitar, though not nearly as expensive as the violin. Unlike in the past there are many types of lutes
encountered today: 5-course medieval lutes, renaissance lutes of 6 to 10 courses in many pitches for solo and ensemble
performance of Renaissance works, the archlute of Baroque works, 11-course lutes in d-minor tuning for 17th century French,
German and Czech music, 13/14-course d-minor tuned German Baroque Lutes for later High Baroque and Classical music,
theorbo for basso continuo parts in Baroque ensembles, gallichons/mandoras, bandoras, orpharions and others. Lutenistic practice has reached considerable
heights in recent years, thanks to a growing number of world-class lutenists: Robert Barto,
Paul Beier, Eduardo Egüez, Edin Karamazov, Luca Pianca, Pascal
Monteilhet, Ariel Abramovich, Evangelina Mascardi,
Andrea Damiani, Luciano Contini, Christopher Wilson, Radamès, Jakob
Lindberg, Jacob Heringman, Antony Bailes, Hopkinson Smith, Axel Wolf, Stephen
Stubbs, Terrell Stone, Francesca Torelli,
Richard Stone, Jacopo Gianninoto, Luca Chiavinato, Paul O'Dette, Calogero
Sportato, Federico Marincola et alia. Singer-songwriter Sting has also played lute and archlute, in and out of his collaborations with Edin Karamazov.
Lutes of several regional types are also common in Greece: laouto, and outi.
Lute repertoire
Notable composers of lute music include:
Renaissance--Italy
Renaissance--Central Europe
Renaissance--England
Baroque--Italy
Baroque--France
Baroque--Germany
Modern and Contemporary (also see the Index of Contemporary Lute Music by David Parsons and Lynda Sayce)
Many historical lute pieces were published, but great many more are found only in manuscripts, perhaps belonging to the
composer or perhaps belonging to some amateur lutenist who would copy unpublished pieces, or have a renowned guest inscribe a new
composition while visiting.
The modern repertoire is largely drawn from historical publications and manuscripts, though quite a few modern compositions do
exist. The historical corpus is vast, consisting of over 40,000 pieces, and about half of it exists only in the original
manuscripts and has never been published. Much material circulates among lutenists in facsimiles of the manuscripts or as
photocopies of handwritten copies. Historical lute music is most commonly written in tablature, though sometimes in ordinary musical notation instead.
Several computer programs now exist designed specifically for the editing and printing of lute tabulature of many types.
Ottorino Respighi's famous orchestral suites called Ancient Airs and Dances
are drawn from various books and articles on 16th- and 17th-century lute music transcribed by the musicologist Oscar Chilesotti,
including eight pieces from a German manuscript Da un Codice Lauten-Buch, now in a private library in northern Italy.
Orazio Gentileschi's young lutenist, painted
ca 1626, plays a 10-course lute,
typical of the time from around 1600 AD through the 1630s. Music stands appear very rarely in paintings of the period — the music
is most commonly laid flat on a table, as seen here.
Tuning conventions
Lutes were made in a large variety of sizes, with varying numbers of strings/courses, and with no permanent standard for
tuning. However, the following seems to have been generally true of the Renaissance lute: A 6-course Renaissance tenor
lute would be tuned to the same intervals as a tenor viol, with intervals of a perfect
fourth between all the courses except the 3rd and 4th, which differed only by a major third. The tenor lute was
usually tuned nominally "in g"(there was no pitch standard before the 20th century), named after the pitch of the highest course,
yielding the pattern [(G'G) (Cc) (FF) (AA) (dd) (g)] from the lowest course to the highest. (Much renaissance lute music can be
played on a guitar by tuning the guitar's third string down by a half tone.)
For lutes with more than six courses the extra courses would be added on the low end. Due to the large number of strings lutes
have very wide necks, and it is difficult to stop strings beyond the sixth course, so additional courses were usually tuned to
pitches useful as bass notes rather than continuing the regular pattern of fourths, and these lower courses are most often played
without stopping. Thus an 8-course tenor Renaissance lute would be tuned to [(D'D) (F'F) (G'G) (Cc) (FF) (AA) (dd) (g)], and a
10-course to [(C'C) (D'D) (E♭'E♭) (F'F) (G'G) (Cc) (FF) (AA) (dd) (g)].
However, none of these patterns were de rigueur, and a modern lutenist will occasionally be seen to retune one or more
courses between performance pieces. Manuscripts bear instructions for the player, e.g. 7e choeur en
fa = "seventh course in fa" (= F in the standard C scale).
The first part of the seventeenth century was a period of considerable diversity in the tuning of the lute, particularly in
France. However, by around 1670 the scheme known today as the [1]"Baroque" or "d-minor" tuning became the norm, at least in France and in
northern and central Europe. In this case the first six courses outline a d-minor triad, and an additional five to seven courses
are tuned generally scalewise below them. Thus the 13-course lute played by [2]Weiss would have been tuned [(A"A') (B"B') (C'C) (D'D) (E'E) (F'F) (G'G) (A'A') (DD)
(FF) (AA) (d) (f)], or with sharps or flats on the lower 7 courses appropriate to the key of the piece.
6-course Early Renaissance lute tuning chart.
10-course Late Renaissance/Early Baroque lute tuning chart.
14-course Archlute tuning chart.
15-course Theorbo tuning chart.
13-course Baroque lute tuning chart.
13-course Baroque lute tuning chart.
Modern lutenists tune to a variety of pitch standards, ranging from A = 392 to 470 Hz, depending on the type of
instrument they are playing, the repertory, the pitch of other instruments in an ensemble and other performing expediencies. No
attempt at a universal pitch standard existed during the period of the lute's historical popularity. The standards varied over
time and from place to place.
References
Bibliography
- A History of the Lute from Antiquity to the Renaissance by Douglas Alton Smith, published by the Lute Society of America (2002). ISBN-10: 0-9714071-0-X
ISBN-13: 978-0971407107
- The Lute in Britain: A History of the Instrument and its Music by Matthew Spring, published by Oxford University Press
(2001).
- Historical Lute Construction by Robert Lundberg, published by the Guild of American Luthiers (2002).
- La musique de luth en France au XVIe siècle by Jean-Michel Vaccaro (1981).
- Articles in Journal of the Lute Society of America (1968-), The Lute (1958-), and other journals published by the
various national lute societies.
- Eckhard Neubauer, "Der Bau der Laute und ihre Besaitung nach arabischen, persischen und türkischen Quellen des 9. bis 15.
Jahrhunderts," Zeitschrift für Geschichte der arabisch-islamischen Wissenschaften, vol. 8 (1993): 279–378.
Quotations
The art of playing the lute formed a major part of instrumental music making in the Renaissance before keyboard
instruments assumed central significance. It was a refined, soft, and at the same time colorful art, in sharp contrast to the
agitated times in which it was practiced.
— Karl Schumann [1]
This style knows nothing of the otherwise usual requirements and prohibitions of voice-leading; it can only be understood in relation to the fingering technique; it frequently applies the
sound of open strings and in no way avoids the otherwise so despised parallel 5ths and octaves or unisons. The dissonances and
other conflicting sounds which appear so often...strike me as exciting and revealing.
— Carl Orff [1]
[1] Quotation taken from the liner notes to the Wergo edition of Orff's Kleines Konzert, with English translations by
John Patrick Thomas.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Lute Societies
Lute Music Online and other useful resources
Composers of Lute music
Lute Players
See also
European Lutes:
African Lutes:
Asian Lutes:
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