Jean Claude came down from London today to show me his new "babee"; a copy of seventeenth century guitar. It is all inlaid with ebony and holly, beauty and craftsmanship just for the sake of it.I could live with that in the liturgy taking the chiterone part in a Monteverdi motet.
Fr Justin has just returned from Venice; I remember being told Monteverdi had had sixteen harpsichords in each side gallery of St Mark's, thirty-two of them!
2 comments:
"Isn't the guitar fantastic!"
In its place!
Simon.
What a fascination looking insrument. What are the strings made out of? And is there a sound recording of what that sounds like? The neck is quite a few frets short of what a modern guitar has, and the body is blunter and more symetrical, plus eight strings rather than six. Seeing as how the strings seem to be in sets of twos, is each set of two tuned to the same note, or is it 8 separate notes.
Re: the harpsichords. Wow. 32. I know they go out of tune very fast ... but 32? Your tuner wouldn't hve to show up but once a month or so! :-D Well, actually probably more because the strings probably go loose sitting there. Especially with all that dampness etc.
Karen
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