Mersenne (Harmonie Universelle, Paris, 1636) places this finger-board scale a tone higher, with the Chanterelle on A. This change really infers the use of a lower pitch. By Gaultier's tuning the strain is taken off the highest note—a relief of much importance, when the high chamber pitch then customary, nearly a whole tone above the normal French pitch, is considered. By the twelve frets upon the finger-board for the highest notes, the melody strings could be raised chromatically one octave, thus making the extreme compass of the instrument four octaves and a note, from the third F below, to the second G above, middle C. Before the year 1600 the lute was played, as the old tablatures or lute notations show us, in single notes with occasional chords, a practice derived from lute-playing frequently found in modern pianoforte music. There were attempts at counterpoint, but these were limited, owing to one hand only being available for stopping. Certain graces were used, especially the vibrato, but there is reason to believe they were used for some time by the players before the composers thought fit to indicate them. With the growing favour for simple chords, which were developed into the Continuo or Thorough Bass accompaniment, the bass strings—diapasons, as they were called—were added beneath the finger-board accordance to be tuned for basses as the player required. At last they were attached by the contrivance of a double neck to a higher peg-box, by which the Lute became a Theorbo. Both varieties were superseded early in the eighteenth century by the guitar, which was easier to play, and the immensely popular spinet, which permitted the performance of a complete counterpoint, by the freedom it gave to use both hands upon the key-board. A reflection might here be made on the masterly way in which contemporary painters drew hands and lutes. I need only name those masters of the Dutch school, Frans Hals, Jan Steen, and Terburg, especially Steen, whose truthful precision compels admiration. Of another school, there is a lute-player drawn by Albrecht Dürer, that is a miracle of skill and accuracy of observation.
A considerable literature of the lute exists belonging to the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Thomas Mace (1676) writes very amusingly about it. He accounts Venice lutes as commonly good, but gives the highest place to Laux Maler of Bologna. Evelyn, in his Diary, also quotes Bologna as famous for lutes, especially those of the old masters, Mollen, Hans Frey, and Nicholas Sconvelt (sic), who were Germans. The first-named is probably intended for Maler. In Evelyn's time, lutes by these makers were fetching extraordinary prices. The most interesting modern works of information about the lute, as well as of contemporary music generally, are La Musique aux Pays Bas, Edmond Vander Straeten (Brussels, 1867-85), from a future volume of which a monograph has been published in anticipation, entitled Jacques de Saint-Luc, Luthiste Athois du xviie siècle (Mayence, 1887); Musique et Musiciens au xviie siècle, a publication of the "Société pour l'Histoire Musicale des Pays-Bas," edited by W.J.A. Jonckbloet and J.P.N. Land, and containing the musical correspondence of the astronomer Constantin Huygens (Leyden, 1882); and a monograph upon the famous Parisian lutenist, Denis Gaultier, by Oscar Fleischer, published in the Vierteljahrschrift für Musikwissenschaft for January and April 1886 (Leipsic, Breitkopf and Härtel). The first three-quarters of the seventeenth century was a period remarkable for a refined amateur cultivation of instrumental music. Shakspeare's appreciation of the lute, and his graceful tribute of admiration for the performance of his friend, the lutenist Dowland, are well known.
PLATE XVI.
THEORBO.
THE instrument here drawn was made by Giovanni Krebar of Padua in 1629, and now belongs to Mr. George Donaldson, London.
The body of this instrument is built up of ivory; the back of the peg-box and neck is also of ivory, and is delicately engraved with a view of Venice, showing vessels engaged in firing, and spearmen advancing. Incised dancing and fencing figures adorn the lower neck; there is a garden scene with numerous figures upon the upper neck. By the pegs we find the instrument had eight bass notes or diapasons; a single string to each note, and that there were on the finger-board five double strings and one, the highest, single—the chanterelle or melody string. In the true theorbo, the Paduan according to Baron (Untersuchung des Instruments der Lauten, Nuremberg, 1727, p. 131),—the diapasons were single strings. When the diapasons were in pairs of strings the instrument was, according to Mersenne (Harmonie Universelle, Paris, 1636), called (French) "Luth téorbé" or (Italian) "Liuto attiorbato," a theorboed lute. It must, however, be admitted that Mersenne's rule is not of strict application. The single strings introduced, in the first instance, for basses, at last became general throughout, and banished the double stringing in lutes, theorboes and guitars. The lutes were, however, by this time nearly out of use. The name Archlute is given by different authorities to both Theorbo and Chitarrone ([Plate XXI.]).