Lute & Theorbo in Bach's Vocal Works
Discussions

Tiorba

Kim Patrick Clow wrote (June 12, 2014):
Could someone answer this question: is there a single surviving part by Bach labelled Tiorba (or any other lute-like name) - and I mean a written out part, not the name of an instrument that might be listed in the instrumentarium of a work / aria. And does it have figures?

Cory Hall wrote (June 12, 2014):
[To Kim Patrick Clow] Theorbo?

Kim Patrick Clow wrote (June 12, 2014):
[To Cory Hall] Yes that's the instrument, thanks Cory!

Douglas Cowling wrote (June 13, 2014):
[To Kim Patrick Clow] Other than the lute solo in the St. John Passion? Which I think is marked "liuto"

Bach and theorbo? (off topic)

Bruce Simonson wrote (April 9, 2023):
I’ve seen a couple of recent recordings of Bach’s St Matthew Passion, which include a theorbo in the continuo group.

Did Bach use a theorbo? Was there one in his estate?

Jeffrey Solow wrote (April 9, 2023):
[To Bruce Simonson] An inventory drawn up a few months after Bach's death shows that his estate included five harpsichords, two lute-harpsichords, three violins, three violas, two cellos, a viola da gamba, a lute and a spinet, along with 52 "sacred books", including works by Martin Luther and Josephus.–[99]

From the Cantatas website:
On his death Bach had left a modest estate consisting of securities, cash, silver vessels, instruments – including eight harpsichords, two lute-harpsichords, ten string instruments (among them a valuable Stainer violin), a lute and spinet – and other goods, officially valued at 1122 thaler and 22 groschen; this had to be divided between the widow and the nine surviving children of both marriages. Bach himself had evidently given instructions for the disposition of his musical Nachlass, which is ignored in the official valuation. According to Forkel, the eldest son W.F. Bach ‘got most of it’.

Bruce Simonson wrote (April 9, 2023):
[To Jeffrey Solow] Fair enough. No theorbo in the estate. Is there any evidence that Bach used a theorbo in any of his ensembles?

Gregory Hamilton wrote (April 9, 2023):
[To Bruce Simonson] It's a complicated question. Bach probably did not know the Italian theorbo or chittarone, but he was quite familiar with the German baroque lute and wrote for it. However, some German lutenists of the time when playing continuo, played an Italian theorbo that was tuned in D minor like the baroque lute. Some scholars have also asserted that the baroque mandora was also used.

Daniel R. Melamed wrote (April 9, 2023):
There is no evidence that Bach ever used a plucked instrument for basso continuo in his Leipzig church music. A lute is used as an obbligato instrument in one version of the St. John Passion ("Betrachte, meine Seele") and in the 1727 St. Matthew Passion ("Ja, freilich will in uns das Fleisch und Blut"/"Komm, süsses Kreuz"). Two lutes are called for in "Lass, Fürstin, lass noch einen Strahl" BWV 198 (the Trauer-Ode), but Joshua Rifkin has argued (convincingly, to my mind) that they were used as obbligato instruments on upper lines, not as part of the basso continuo. (Joshua Rifkin, "Some questions of performance in J. S. Bach's Trauerode," in Bach Studies 2 ed. Daniel R. Melamed [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995], 119-53.)

We do know that a plucked instrument called the calcedeon was used for basso continuo in the Leipzig Neukirche, but there is no parallel evidence for the churches for which Bach was responsible or among any of his materials.

Were plucked instruments used in the early eighteenth century for basso continuo? Yes. Is there any evidence that Bach used them that way in church music performances? No.

I'll let others decide what that means for modern performances of the St. Matthew Passion and other works, according to their taste.

Gregory Hamilton wrote (April 9, 2023):
[To Daniel R. Melamed] since lutes were used for obbligato parts,it does not seem much of a streach that they would be used for continuo.

Miguel Prohaska wrote (April 11, 2023):
Bach's use of instruments for basso continuo:

[To Daniel R. Melamed] Information can be found in the book Bach's Continuo Group, entry on bach-cantatas.com at: https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Books/Book-Bach-Continuo-Group[Dreyfus].htm