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Thanks so much!

Glad to hear it! Thanks for your informative comment.

I have a license to strum but I rarely use it. Thanks for your support and interest!

Many thanks!

We're very glad you like it; thank you!

My pleasure!

Thank you very much!

We appreciate your kind words. Thank you!

Thank you very much for your comment! There aren't too many performances of this concerto on period instruments, but here is one; th-cam.com/video/05g3lAYguf8/w-d-xo.html Also, there are some Beethoven symphonies on period instruments conducted by Jordi Savall and issued by DW, available on TH-cam. It's illuminating to hear these works in a new (old) way. We're very glad you like the video and we're planning lots more projects. You might enjoy our recent Mozart K.333 on the Viennese piano. Cheers from Canada!

@EarlyMusicStudio1 thankyou for your reply! i will enjoy exploring the links and suggestions you made.. i think I did hear the lady (sorry, I forget her name) saying a different piano would probably be used for concert performance, more robust maybe.. ? what an interesting channel

Yes, you can mark how much you want to plane or knife away with tape place around the capping strin area. Also you should remove some from the area of the rose to prevent problems with having enough room to pluck. Test the action with dental floss in place of strings, taping the entire top down with drafting tape (not masking tape). Make sure that the floss gives a height at the body joint of just over 4 mm. Re-glue with hide glue or fish glue, careful to glue the bars as well to prevent buzzing. Do not under any circumstances put metal frets on. The structure is not there to take them. c

@EarlyMusicStudio1 thanks. What do you mean by there is not the structure to take metal frets? Could i not cut slots for them?

@@paulcrawford5153 The first objection to metal frets is that they are anachronistic. The tuning system is only one objection. (equal temperament vs some version of an early temperament-meantone or pythagorean). Metal frets are just a poor choice that is insensitive to the nature of the instrument and its music. You will find that the low string tension means that the frets are too high and don’t play well in tune across the choir. Basses often need a slightly lower position, the restricted keys of lute music require lowered thirds, etc., etc. Metal frets can’t do any of that. Metal frets will also wear the gut, nylon or carbon fibre strings more than their diameter, a third less than a guitar’s, will allow. Then, unless you have a heavily built lute with a fingerboard at least 4 mm thick which is overlaid, not flush, in the manner of the classical guitar, you do not have enough wood even for mandolin frets to work. You have to bang them in: this will undoubtedly lead to damage. The instrument is not built to take this kind of force. If you do cut into a 2 to 3 mm fingerboard, you will leave the lute unable to resist even feeble string tension. The overlay of the fingerboard onto the body is a significant structural point. The lute depends on every single bit of wood to keep it from folding up. Tied frets are easily replaced, can be moved, their size can be varied to compensate for action problems. Everything points to keeping it simple. I know, it’s hard to accept that early technologies are superior in many cases, but there you are. Originally, old gut strings would have been recycled as fret material. Nylon frets also will not work: nylon stretches too much. You’re welcome, c even

Hi Dan, thanks for your question. I don't have any lute plans for sale, but the Guild of American Luthiers has them. You could also try the Lute Society of America and the instrument museum in Nuremburg. Good luck with your project!

Thanks very much! Pachelbel wrote some really wonderful music.

Many thanks!

I'm very glad you like it! This piece is really fun to play on the Viennese piano.

We're happy that you like it! Thank you!

Many thanks, and a wonderful holiday to you as well!

We appreciate your continued interest; thank you!

Many thanks!

Time to shine!

The hammers are covered in layers of leather, producing a brighter attack than a modern felt hammer. Overboards appeared later, mostly in English pianos but also in German instruments. Thank you for your comment1

We're happy that you like the video...thank you!

It’s hard to tell from your description, but let me comment that it is perfectly normal to see a deflection of the soundboard, downwards in front (toward the rose) and upwards behind (in front of the rim or capping strip). Luthiers refer to this movement as “potato chip(ing)”. It describes the stress that the soundboard is deflecting because of the string tension, and it’s not only perfectly normal, but good. A flat soundboard is one that is too thick, and results in a lute with an unfocussed, leaden sound, one that is low in upper partials, lacks the ping that we like, and we find the instrument unresponsive to hand movements, changes of colour, changes to the plucking point and so on. This is common on kit lutes or lutes where the soundboard has not been thinned like that on a historical instrument. Lutes from the nineteen fifties and sixties, even later were often built far too stiffly, for example, and had a flat, dead sound. However, you may also be referring to the glue joint lifting from the rim of the lute body. This must be repaired with new glue. If you can’t get to a competent luthier soon, then use some drafting tape (less sticky than masking tape, which is messy, and may damage the grain of the top) to tape the opening closed until you can get it fixed properly. I hope I have interpreted your statements correctly, if not, let me know…best, Clive

@EarlyMusicStudio1 thank you a lot.

Many thanks!

Many thanks! The third movement should be coming soon.

We're very happy that you like it! Thank you!

Thank you for your continued support! I enjoy playing the long, elegant lines in this piece.

Thank you so much!

Many thanks for listening again!

Carbon fibre strings...thanks for your comment!

@@EarlyMusicStudio1 ok, thanks. Who is the luthier?

@@Lute1697 I made this lute in 2014, yew wood bowl. Patterned, but not copied from an anonymous French lute of the second half of the 17th C. in the Cité de Musique, Paris, formerly at the Paris Conservatoire, where I first saw it. It's very like the Warwick Frei, but with 11 courses.

Thank you very much for the lovely comment! Mozart wrote so much luminous music during his short life, music which raises the mind and spirit. I first learned this sonata in university (many years ago, ha ha) and it has been so interesting to revisit it on a Viennese piano. There is always something new to learn!

@@EarlyMusicStudio1 I admire you so very much, Susan. Well done!

@@Ravivharshanee You are very kind!

Thank you so much for the comment! I'm happy that you like the video...the next two movements will be coming soon.

Many thanks for your kind words!

Thanks very much! I hope Mila enjoyed it too :)

Thanks very much for your comment! This piano is really wonderful to play, and it does provide some insight into the sounds of Mozart's time.

Many thanks for your comment!

Thank you for your kind comment! The other two movements are coming soon.

Thank you so much! It's a really lovely piece to play. The use of historical fingering gives the passages a lot of contour. I appreciate your ongoing interest!

Well I could say that's a secret, but the answer is simple. We use historical models, and that information comes from the drawing. The drawings come from the museums which hold these lutes: Italian, German, French and Belgian national museums publish very detailed plans. The front profile and back form the main lines, after that, it is all about fitting within those lines. Two templates can provide a check for seeing that the dimensions are correct. I made a video about making the moulds, which makes this clear: th-cam.com/video/-5eJWnCFic8/w-d-xo.html

Well, I did say it was a short history :) and it was my intention to emphasize the lute as the ancestor of the Vinacci style of Neapolitan mandolin. Technically speaking, the change of American mandolins to f-hole and carved tops and backs qualify them as citterns, a completely different tradition of instrument making that extends back to the medieval and through the Jacobean and Tudor periods. Thanks very much for your comment; I'm glad you like the channel because we've been working very hard on it.

@@EarlyMusicStudio1 it is a hard to please all the people all the time.. lol…I enjoy your channel!! Thanks for being you!!!

Thank you very much; I appreciate your comment!

We're very glad that you like it! The two instruments sing well together, creating that 'warm bath' of sound. Thanks for your comment!

There are two: one is the Warwick Frei, which provided the body shape and overall layout. It was originally a bass lute in F (a tone below a typical Tenor lute in G) from around 1550-80. Makers of subsequent generations took these as models for the lutes of the 17th C. The other is an anonymous French lute (once at the Conservatoire, drawn by Pierre Abondance, now at the Cité de Musique, which subsumed that entire collection). It provided the barring and disposition of the typical mid-17th C. lutes played by Gaultier, Gallot, Mouton and others. Often seen in engravings and pictures of the period. It is an iconic lute. Mine is made from yew and fine German spruce, with a veneered neck and pegbox, with boxwood pegs. Thanks for your comment! Clive

@@EarlyMusicStudio1 I figured it was a Frei or similar; very interesting re: the internal construction. I hope I'm not being annoying with the questions, but is the tonal difference between that and the original Frei barring significant?

Yes, they are very different. At first, makers from the period around 1600 were taking older lutes by famous makers from Padua and Venice, and rebuilding them according to contemporary stringing. They would change 6 and 7-course lutes into 9 and 10-course lutes. Later another course was added by most French players around 1630 and later. These lutes were modified in a standard process: remove the top, thin and re-bar it, re-cut the neck joint and replace the neck with a wider one, replace the pegbox. The bridges were moved from the 1/8 position to the 1/6 position. The ladder barring was altered thusly: originally the lute’s sounding body length was divided by 8, with a bar (or the bridge) on each section. The revision had the barring altered by sub-dividing the lower two sections into thirds, placing the bridge on the second division from the bottom. The upper two sections above the rose were also subdivided into thirds, placing a bar under the 12th fret. These divisions were more or less strictly adhered to. By the end of the 17th C., most of these instruments were revised to be use as theorbos and archlutes. As well, new instruments were made (fakes) that were distressed and sold as original. During the 18 and 19th C., a market developed based on the Grand Tour taken by northern family scions, and they were sold ludicrously decorated fakes. If you go to Venice today, you will see various of these fakes, purported to be from the 16th and 17th centuries in many historic buildings and villas. Many museums own them, especially the Cité de Musique in Paris, where they have their own section! For quite a while, makers interested in reviving old instrument copied them, thinking they were original-the Piltdown Man of musical instruments. Tonally, 17th C. instruments are more reedy, better balanced (because of the addition of unfretted bass strings) and the acoustical parts are generally thinner. The stringing also changed a great deal, especially with invention of gut strings incorporating copper and various treatments to increase their density. With the importation of tropical hardwoods from Central America and South America, the use of rosewood became more common, making the lutes heavier, but more steely in sound. Ivory was used a lot, but mainly for its decorative properties. Thanks for your question, Clive

I'm glad that you like this video, Richard. This series didn't have much response so I'm thinking of re-packaging them in pairs with improvements to the editing. We learn as we go, right? I'm very happy to have met you as well. Hyperspace is pretty cool :)

Thanks for your comment Titanic, and for being so often the first one!

It's truly wonderful music and thank-you for your comment!

The power of the lute is in part due to my excellent recording engineer, Chaianne Ellis, who has been, over the last few videos, really able to capture the unique sound of each lute. Yes, Bittner takes much of the texture from Gaultier, and I'm pretty sure he had contact with Gallot, and it really shows. Thank-your for your comment!

Many thanks for the encouraging words!

Happy to help :)

I appreciate your kind comment! This music really comes to life on the 1809 Broadwood; this instrument has given me a whole new perspective on Beethoven.