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- Light and portable, a harmonising instrument far cheaper and easier to maintain than keyboards, it was (and is) enormously versatile; it was used to play dance music, popular tunes, arrangements of vocal music and song accompaniments, and soon generated a solo repertoire of its own, in the form of preludes, passemezzi (a sort of Renaissance twelve-bar blues) and the most refined and expressive fantasias.
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A lute (/ ljuːt / [1] or / luːt /) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted.
Oct 3, 2024 · In Europe, lute refers to a plucked stringed musical instrument popular in the 16th and 17th centuries. The lute that was prominent in European popular art and music of the Renaissance and Baroque periods originated as the Arab ʿūd.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
The lute is rich not only in repertoire but in symbolism. Its refined sound has given it courtly associations in East and West: for Arabs the lute was amir al - 'alat, the sultan of instruments.
- Brief History
- Composers and Repertory
- Anatomy of The Lute
- Related Instruments
- Bibliography
The history of the European lute is rooted in a mythology and symbolism that stems back to ancient Greece. The Greek lyre held an esteemed position among the instruments at the time, which later inspired the musicians, philosophers, and theorists of the Renaissance and Baroque eras. Ancient Greek musicians used the lyre, as well as the kithara, a l...
Lutenists typically play music drawn from the repertory of the Medieval, Renaissance, or Baroque periods. Over time, the lute has amassed an extensive and unique literature, primarily by composers who were themselves lute players. The best of these lutenist composers, such as Francesco Canova da Milano, John Dowland, or Silvius Leopold Weiss, certa...
The lute is perhaps most notable for its deeply rounded, ovoid body fabricated out of thin strips of wood glued together edgewise. The body is closed by a wooden soundboard or table to which the bridge is glued. The strings are tied through the bridge and stretched along a neck, across a fingerboard which is fitted with a number of tied frets, over...
In the field of organology, the systematic study of musical instruments, the term “lute” is broader and more generic and includes, for example, the Chinese p’i-p’a and Japanese biwa, the Arabic ’oud, and gourd-based instruments of sub-Saharan Africa. The activities of the Lute Society of America focus primarily on the historical European lute and i...
Smith, Douglas Alton, A History of the Lute from Antiquity to the Renaissance.The Lute Society of America, Inc. (2002) ISBN: 0-9714071-0-XLundberg, Robert, Historical Lute Construction.Guild of American Luthiers, Tacoma WA (2002)Spring, Matthew, The Lute in Britain.Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York (2001) ISBN: 0-19-816620-6Luths et Luthistes en Occident.Cité de la Musique, Paris (1999) ISBN: 2-906460-98-2Jul 13, 2015 · The lute’s musical versatility, giving one musician the ability to play several polyphonic parts over a wide and increasing pitch range, made it once the most popular instrument in Europe, the ‘prince’ of all instruments.
The design and tuning of the lute itself kept on developing in the Baroque era in France. As a result, the ‘style brisé’, in which melodies were hidden in arpeggiated chords, became popular. Sample the glories of this period with the music of court lutenist Robert de Visée.
The lute saw a resurgence in popularity with the early music movement of the late twentieth century. Today, lute players and makers approach the lute and its music from an academic standpoint, and lute making is a cottage industry throughout the world.
