LLD ® Hagen 13c Baroque lute

Bowl in Ribbon Striped Sapelli • Warm treble, strong mid-range and deep full bass sound • LLD ® FG-B case included

Excl. Tax : €2,375,00
Rating:
100% of 100
Availability: Out of stock
SKU
LLDI02-H

• Model: Hagen
• Type: Baroque lute
• Number of strings: 13 courses
• Tuning pitch: A 415 Hz
• Tuning: Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd, Ee, Ff, Gg, Aa, dd, ff, aa, d, f
• String length: 690 mm
• String spacing at the nut: 75,5 mm
• String spacing at the bridge: 140 mm
• Ribs: 9
• Weight: 1150 g

Unique masterpieces produced by the hands of craftsmen

Quality, refinement and tradition. Le Luth Doré ® lutes, early guitars and mandolins are designed in Paris by experienced european luthiers, and handcrafted in our high quality new China-based manufacturing facility, by today’s top luthiers in the country.

LLD ® instruments represent the culmination of over 40 years of music instruments manufacturing by our European and Chinese luthiers and 20 years of music expertise by world famous lutenist Miguel Serdoura.

The tone, resonance, and beauty of fine instruments are all dependent upon the wood from which they are made. The wood used in the construction of LLD ® lutes, early guitars and mandolines is carefully chosen and aged to guarantee the highest quality.

Each LLD ® instrument is a work of art that begins with the selection of the finest materials and is brought to perfection with great passion.

With select solid woods and impeccable workmanship, LLD ® instruments will satisfy anyone looking for a truly superior sound and an unique experience with exquisite early music instruments.

All LLD ® instruments are sold with modern, exclusive and refined fiberglass hard case, featuring a convenient climatic system to ensure your instrument great protection against travel, storage and climate changes.

History of the lute

The lute is probably the most widely distributed type of stringed instrument in the world. In Europe, the lute enjoyed great popularity from the 15th-18th centuries where it had an important role in both courtly and popular music. It is depicted with great frequency in artworks from the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Baroque periods. It was the principal plucked string instrument of its time. It originated in the Middle East as the Arabic ʿūd. The instrument was brought to Europe in the 13th century where it was adapted to suite local musical styles. The European lute has a deep, pear-shaped body, a neck with a bent-back pegbox, and strings tied to a bridge glued to the instrument’s belly. European lutes have a large, circular sound hole cut into the belly and ornamented with a perforated rose carved from the belly’s wood.

The earliest European lutes followed the Arab instruments in having four strings that were plucked with a quill plectrum. By the mid-14th century the strings had become pairs, usually referred to as courses. These were tuned in unison or, in the bass strings, at the octave. Late in the 15th century, the plectrum was abandoned in favor of playing with the fingers, movable gut frets were added to the fingerboard, and the instrument acquired a fifth course. The frets were important as they opened the way for lutes to play multiple notes or chords and still be in tune.

The Renaissance lute

By the 16th century the classic form of the Renaissance lute was established, with its six courses of strings (the top course was a single string) tuned to G–c–f–a–d′–g′, ascending from the second G below middle C. Later in the sixteenth century, additional courses of strings were added to the 6-course instrument. Some of leading lute makers of the time included Laux Maler, Hans Frei, Vendelio Venere, Moeses and Magno Tieffenbrucker.  

As the instrument developed, it playing technique was systematized, and a custom made tablature notation developed using the horizontal lines of the traditional staff to represent the courses of the lute and then, either letters or numbers to indicate the notes. In effect, the tablature tells the player the frets to be stopped with the left hand, the strings to be plucked by the right hand, and the rhythm as well.

The archlute, chitarrone and the theorbo

By the early 17th century the 7-course lute was extended by the addition of extra basses, resulting in lutes of 8, 9 and 10 courses. Instruments changed in line with these additional bass strings, or diapasons, which required the widening and lengthening of the neck and head of the instrument. Such modified instruments were called archlute, chitarrone and the theorbo.

The Baroque lute

Shortly after 1600, modified tunings were introduced by French lutenists giving rise to a few decades of great experimentation. However, by around 1650 the scheme known today as the "Baroque" or "D minor" tuning became the norm and the number of strings grew even more to 13 by the 18th century. The first six courses outline a d-minor triad (ascending A-d-f-a-d’-f’) followed by an additional 5 to 7 courses, descending stepwise from the low A. Lutes in D minor tuning today are known as baroque lutes and can have 11, 12 or 13 courses, according to the nature of the different types of repertoire.  

Modern lutenists tune their lutes, vihuelas, archlutes or theorbos to a variety of pitch standards, ranging from A = 392 to 470 Hz, depending on the type of instrument they are playing, the repertory, the pitch of other instruments in an ensemble and other performing expediencies. No attempt at a universal pitch standard existed during the period of the lute's historical popularity. In modern days it is usual to tune the renaissance lute in A to 440 Hz and the Baroque lute in A to 415 Hz.

© 2019 Le Luth Doré ®

Wood and color characteristics

 
The LLD ® Hagen 13c Baroque lute bowl is made with ribbon striped sapelli, a dense tone-wood with a very distinctive striped grain featuring a very attractive ribbon figure that runs parallel to the grain. Ribbon striped sapelli is a quite hard wood but still easy to carve.
 
The very dark reddish brown natural color of our ribbon striped sapelli wood, covered by a thin coat of transparent oil varnish, makes our LLD ® lutes look very similar to the historical lutes of famous 16th century lute maker Laux Mahler. Indeed, he was famous for his very dark reddish brown oil varnish that until today no luthier has been able to reproduce. We believe that our choice of ribbon striped sapelli is aesthetically the closest we can get to the varnish color of Laux Mahler lutes.
 
Sound characteristics
 
It has subtle yet complex overtones, overall warm sounding tone, strong mid-range and deep full bass. Both flamed maple and ribbon striped sapelli tend to be warm-bright, but sapelli would have a bit brighter treble and deeper bass than maple.
 
The sound of ribbon striped sapelli exhibits a powerful midrange, great punch, warm and dense trebles, while retaining a very good level of warmth in the lower ends and lower mids. In comparison, flamed maple is a tonewood that improves in richness and complexity over time with playing.
 
Ribbon striped sapelli is a fast growing and highly sustainable exotic wood which is protected from over harvesting making it a fabulous choice for the environmentally aware.
 
Ribbon striped sapelli or flamed maple?
 
Ribbon striped sapelli is an harder wood then flamed maple. Both tend to be direct, bright and warm at the same time, but ribbon striped sapelli exhibits warmer treble presence and deeper basses than flamed maple – that will be the main sound difference among this two woods.
 
Flamed maple as a very direct but warm sound, and has fewer overtones or complexity then ribbon striped sapelli. What you hear initially with flamed maple, is what you get.
 
The sound the lute projects at the attack is still the same sound you will hear as the note decays. Flamed maple is a wood that has to sampled with age to be fully appreciated.
 
Ribbon striped sapelli sound will be a little less direct than maple, with more overtones, and adds a bit more complexity to the sound of the lute overall.
 

The soundboard

 
Spruce is the most common tone wood used for the soundboard of the European lute family instruments. LLD ® uses only high grade and excellent quality solid spruce soundboards on the construction of its lutes.
 
The top, or soundboard, as the name suggests, bears great influence on the way a lute sounds, though the back also is a key component. The top seems to affect the lute's responsiveness, its sustain and even some of its overtone coloration and quality of each note’s fundamental tone. Taking in consideration the differences of the flamed maple wood (which develops more the fundamentals of the sound) and the ribbon striped sapelli (which develops more the overtones) we have chose two different sorts of spruce in order to equilibrate those specificities.
 
The LLD ® high grade wide grain spruce used with the ribbon striped sapelli lutes is a high grade well-rounded tonewood, with less stiffness and greater lightness. It translates to stronger overtones and weaker fundamentals.
 
Instrument settings
 
All our LLD ® lutes are carefully inspected in Paris before shipment to the customer by a professional, conservatory-trained lutenist and adjusted as necessary by a luthier in Paris specializing in making, restoring and repairing historical and modern professional quality lutes.
 
Our instruments are precisely designed and then adjusted to assure proper scooping of the top and height of the nut and the bridge to provide optimal action of the strings.

• Top in high grade wide grain solid spruce, finished and slightly varnished
• Bowl in ribbon striped sapelli, finished and oil varnished in transparent color
• Spacers in ebony
• Neck, bridge and pegbox in maple, finished and varnished in black
• Pegs in ebony
• Fingerboard and soundboard frets in ebony

• Slightly curved fingerboard (about 2 mm)
• Fingerboard frets in natural sheep gut
• Nut in natural cow bone
• Laser carved rosette
• Strung with Aquila Nylgut® strings
• LLD® FG-B case included
• Two LLD® L1 case straps included

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