Information About the Lute & Restoration Report by Ian Watchorn:
Conservation of an 11-Course Lute by Joachim Tielke, Hamburg, 1706
Catalogue Reference: Hellwig: Tie WV 149 (see pp. 128-130; F & B Hellwig, Joachim Tielke; 2011)
Description: An 11-course lute of Brasilian rosewood, tortoiseshell and ivory.
Provenance: In 1986, the instrument was brought for conservation by Mr. Berend Mőller of Max Mőller & Zoon, Amsterdam on behalf of a private owner in the Netherlands. The conservation work was undertaken in the musical instrument conservation workshop of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg.
Condition on Arrival: The lute was brought in pieces, with the pegbox and the belly detached from the back and neck. The lute appeared to have been inexpertly opened, causing damage to the upper part of the belly and its lower edges, as well as to the pegbox seating in the neck. All the major parts were original and the overall condition of the instrument was very good for its age.
Belly: 2 pieces of fine-grained and very well quartered pine, bookmatched, with ivory and tortoiseshell bindings to the edge. The hexagonal geometrical rose is carved into the belly from the inside. Traces of the template are visible at the edges of the paper reinforcement glued to the inner face of the rose.
The bridge is original and the marking out and gluing surface preparation employed in the Tielke workshop are clearly visible.
The barring is original except for the 2 cross-bars nearest the bridge. These are later, but still clearly made by an 18th century lute maker. The first cross-bar has been reinforced with a wooden nail set through the side and into the end-grain of the bar. Though in this case this bar is unoriginal, being later 18th century, it has nonetheless been fixed in this way. Similar bar-nails can be seen on the 1696 Tielke MI394 in Nuremberg and this form of reinforcement appear to be characteristic of the Tielke workshop.
The belly had a number of open cracks, some previously repaired and reinforced with linen, and the majority of them required the insertion of pine fillets, as per the photos, to retain the original belly width. One of the fan bars was missing and another loose in the instrument.
The belly had also been stained an opaque dark red-brown colour, as had portions of the inside of the instrument. This stain was water soluble and appeared to be some kind of walnut stain.
Back: 9 ribs of colourful and well figured Brasilian rosewood with 2mm wide ivory fillets between each rib. The rosewood cap is in 2 pieces separated by a 2 mm ivory fillet. The centre of the capping strip carries an ivory button, which is set in the centre of the outermost strip of rosewood. The inner cap is of pine and the reinforcement of the rib joints is linen. The neck block is of pine, and is oriented at right-angles to the neck, with the inner face being approximately 1⁄4 sawn, and pierced by a large iron nail.
The original Tielke label is affixed to the central rib beneath the rose opening in the belly.
Later linen cross strips and repair patches had been added to the back, most of which had failed, requiring removal and repair. Some of these had also been stained with the same water-based mixture as the belly.
Neck: The core of the neck is pine, veneered with engraved ivory and tortoiseshell inlay and purflings. It is fixed to the neck block with a single large iron nail. The fretboard is also ivory and tortoiseshell and is curved laterally for its entire length. The ivory and tortoiseshell inlay work is underlaid with a thin coat of red sealing wax and the ivory finials set into the belly are double.
Pegbox: The pegbox is of maple, constructed in the customary manner, and drilled for 19 pegs. The front surface of the treble side pegbox wall shows signs of a now missing chanterelle housing. The pegbox walls and blocks are constructed so that the seating face is tapered to match the cut-out in the neck – see drawing for details.
The pegs are unoriginal, but fitted to the existing peg holes without appreciable alteration to their diameters. The walls, front face and rear surface of the pegbox are all veneered with tortoiseshell, the rear face being inlaid with ivory and engraved, set as with the neck, over a coating of red sealing wax.
Dimensions:
Length overall: 839 mm
Length body: 491 mm
Stringlength: 709 mm
Body width: 303 mm
Body depth: 150 mm
Neck width : 99mm–body, 76mm-nut
Pegbox length: 256 mm
Notes on Construction and Set Up.
The following notes are intended to provide specific evidence of the points made by Thomas Mace with regard to “laying the lute”, or setting up the action. They address each point in sequence, beginning at the nut and proceeding to the bridge. Mace’s manner of setting the action has further ramifications for the contouring and barring of the belly, which are clearly visible on the present instrument and can be further analysed in conjunction with the working drawing of the instrument that accompanies this report.
From Thomas Mace; Musick’s Monument - The Lute Made Easie:
“Laying the Lute”
“Again, there is found by experience a better manner of laying our lutes, (as we term it), which is done, by causing the fingerboard, to lye a little round, or up in the middle; as well that the bridge (answerably) rise a little round to it. Then secondly, to lay the strings so close to the fingerboard, that the strings may almost seem to touch the first fret. This is call'd Laying of a Lute Fine, when all the strings lye near the frets. Thirdly, Laying the ranks of strings so carefully that the pairs may be conveniently neer, and the ranks pritty wide.”
On page 50 Mace writes: “Again observe how it lyes, whether flat, or a little round under the frets, from the treble to the 5th. or 6tn. strings. If it lye flat, it lyes not well; which was the general fault of the old work-men a hundred years ago, and since; till of later times we find that a round-laid finger-board, is a great advantage to the easie stopping of a string, especially in cross-stops.”
Examining these elements in order:
1. Neck and Fretboard at the Nut:
The fretboard is strongly radiused at the nut and this lateral curvature extends the full length of the neck and the neck block, its radius gradually increasing, as can be seen in the cross sections of the neck in the accompanying drawing. The curvature is planed onto the neck before gluing the fretboard, and its presence right down to the neck block is clearly visible in the photos below.
2. Neck and Neckblock at the body join
3. The Bridge:
The bridge has a slightly radiused curve to the upper surface, while the lower gluing surface is flat.
4. Contouring of the Neck block back at the gluing-edge of the belly:
4a. The lateral curvature of the neck is achieved by planing, after the neck and body are joined. The diminishing curvature of the neck is set forth onto the body of the lute. The centre line of the fretboard and the centre point of the lower edge of the body lie in the same plane, so that it is the bridge height that generates the final playing action of the instrument, once complete.
4b. The soundboard gluing surface on the ribs is quite considerably radiused, as is clearly visible in the photos below, and produces several different, but related effects:
4c. The first is to combine the lower rib line at the rose area with flat, or slightly concave crossbars, to increase the space between the rose and the stringband.
4d. The second is to raise the bridge into the plane that will align it with the projected fretboard – lower end plane. To achieve this, the first and second cross bars (the 2 nearest the bridge) need to be convex, thus raising the bridge into the necessary alignment with the centre line of the lute.
4e. The third is to manage the considerable rise at the top end of the belly, as it transitions from the lowered rose area to the convexly curved fretboard.
This implies that the belly is not actually flat at all, but rather waved, arching upward at the bridge, downward at the rose, and upward again as it approaches the neck block.
5. The Cross bars
Though now somewhat distorted, the first and second crossbars would originally have had to be arched, as described above, to create the correct alignment of the bridge in relation to the plane of the fretboard. The ends of the lower 3 crossbars are cut so as to provide a substantial gluing surface to the rib, and for extra reinforcement, the first bar is also pinned to the rib at both ends, with a wooden nail.
5a. The holes for the wooden nails are clearly visible both in the ends of the lowest crossbar, and in the outermost rib of the back, at the point of contact with the first cross bar.
6. The Fan bars
The present instrument has 6 fan bars, the second of which (6a. in the treble end) is substantially larger, scalloped, and extends beneath the bridge. The general pattern of fan bars is consistent with other Tielke instruments.
Whilst both the distribution and number of fan bars vary from school to school, the fan bar arrangement is, with the exception (to some extent) of the Hoffmans in Leipzig, a universally observable characteristic from the 1680’s onwards.
