The LAST EVER piece of historical lute music! Phantasia by J. M. Zink c.1818 - Chris Hirst (mandora)

Описание: #thelastever #lutemusic #lute #mandora
This Phantasia by Josef Michael Zink (1758 - 1829) is from a very little known 'Notebook' dated 1818, from Eichstätt in Germany. This Notebook is an unpublished manuscript which contains another shorter Phantasia and 44 songs for voice and mandora which appear to be arrangements. As it is very clearly dated 1818, this Phantasia is therefore the last surviving piece of historical music ever written for a lute instrument. I don't think it has ever been recorded before.

The last pieces for the 13-course 'baroque' lute date from the early 1790s, by that point there were only a few older players of this instrument. See this video for a Mozart piece from 1791 played on the 13-course lute:    • Mozart Adagio K356 / K617a (for glass armo...  
The complex technique and particularly low volume and limitations of bass strings tuned to a particular scale made it generally unsuitable for the music of the time.

Another type of lute, the mandora (which initially was also called gallichon, calcedon or colachon) had appeared in the early 18th century as an instrument with a simpler technique and less strings. The mandora was popular mainly in Germany and Austria, but also in Italy and there are many surviving instruments, some look like renaissance lutes with a bent-back pegbox but many have the characteristic sickle shaped pegbox like the mandora in this video.

The early 19th century guitarist Simon Molitor described the mandora several times in his writings and admired its tone. He said that in 1812, the mandora as played in Vienna and had 8 single strings, tuned in E with 2 extra bass strings tuned to D and C. This is the model used in this video. Besides Vienna, another important centre of late mandora playing was Eichstätt. The instrument seems to have been very popular there and there are a fairly large number of manuscripts containing mandora music, from solos to ensemble pieces and songs with many different instruments. Some of these are dated, and although there are a number of composers the name of Josef Michael Zink is common in the manuscripts from around 1790.

Zink was a close contemporary of Mozart who seems to have been active until fairly late in his life. Many of Zink's earlier solo pieces are quite simple and insignificant pieces, but this Phantasia is much longer, more complex and adventurous. At the start is written 'Adagio con Expresione' and I have tried to follow that in my performance! The title page of the Notebook says for mandora or guitar, although it is clearly intended for the mandora as it is written in tablature and all of Zink's previous music specified mandora only. By 1818 few people would have played the mandora and it was perhaps to make the music more adaptable to the much more common and by that time fashionable guitar. This Phantasia sounds a bit like early 19th century guitar music, but it also has elements of Weiss, and also echoes of Beethoven and even Schubert in parts!

It is possible that there were other pieces for the mandora/lute written after 1818, but they have either not survived or are yet to be discovered. There are a number of paintings showing people playing mandora like instruments throughout the 19th century, and quite a few surviving instruments which were often adaptations of earlier lutes. I firmly believe that the lute never entirely 'died out' at all, but was played much less from around 1820 to 1880. From around 1880 the type of lute often inaccurately described as a 'lute-guitar' became very popular in Germany, this was surely a development of the mandora as it has so many features in common.

I believe the main reason why no more music was written expressly for the mandora/lute after 1820 was that by that time the design had somewhat crossed over with the guitar, which was very popular and widely played at that point. As Molitor describes, the mandora had the same basic tuning (note this is a parallel development and NOT taken from the guitar, many mandoras were tuned in D and some of the Eichstätt pieces use this tuning) and by the 19th century often single strings as well. Therefore, the majority of music written for the guitar could be played on the mandora, and as there was a large amount of 19th century published music for the guitar, there would be little point in massively restricting the audience by specifying mandora/lute. Many thanks to Dieter Kirsch for providing me with a copy of the manuscript and general mandora wisdom!

Filmed in St. John the Baptist, Yaverland, Isle of Wight. The church is Norman and the two arches you can see in the video and the basic structure date from c.1140. Many thanks to Barry for letting me use such a beautiful and historic building.

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