Word: lute
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...When Soprano Maria Jeritza made her Metropolitan Opera debut in Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Tote Stadt, Manhattan was scoured for a "property" lute called for in the book. No lute could be found; a guitar was used instead...
From the 20th Century point of view the lute is antique, almost obsolete.* Its name is derived from the Arabic al'ud (the wood). It is akin to the biblical instrument called the psaltery...
...lute had its heyday from the 14th to the 17th Century. It has a pear-shaped body built of pine or cedar staves pieced together like the crescent divisions of a melon. Its neck (lengths varied) has a fretted keyboard over which are stretched perhaps four, perhaps as many as 24 gut strings. Lutanists (musicians who play the flute are flautists; musicians who play the lute are Internists or lutenists) plucked or twanged the strings either with their fingers or a plectrum. Because of its spoon-shaped body the instrument cannot be confused with the modern guitar which...
...these things the late Don Francisco Aguilar knew. He had once made a study of the lute and its literature. He was further aware that Johann Sebastian Bach had written for it, that Georg Friedrich Handel as late as 1720 had made a part for it in his Esther. He remembered, too, that a Granadan. Baltasar Ramirez, had been the greatest lute virtuoso in 16th Century Europe; that the art of lute playing had supposedly died in 1790 with the German Christian Gottlieb Scheidler. Hence he listened with a peculiar appreciation to the music of the blind man. He went...
Today in Europe the young Aguilars are famed. Ezequiel is the eldest although it would be difficult to tell, so much alike are they with small sleek heads, black pop eyes. But Ezequiel is the leader, plays the first lute, shows his authority by wearing wherever he goes a flowing Spanish capa...