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Lute by Marx Unverdorben, Harvard University, Cambridge Masssachusetts, built in the middle of the 16th century in Venice. Converted to a 13 course lute by Heinrich Kramer, Vienna 1706. Inscribed label: Marx Unverdorben in Venetia. Printed label: Heinrich Kramer Lauten/ und Geigenmacher in Wienn 1706. HUCP3278. Edward R. Hewitt Collection, 1957

This lute first came to my attention through a conversation with fellow lute maker, Ray Nurse, about 1997. Ray mentioned that he and Robert Lundberg had examined the instruments in the collection at Harvard some years previous. They documented the Unverdorben with photographs, notes and a technical drawing. Ray generously gave me a copy of the drawing and the contact sheet of the photographs. I was delighted when I visited Harvard in 2008 to begin an examination of several instruments including this Unverdorben. I concluded my investigation on a return visit in June 2010.

This report contains a detailed description of the lute, followed by some thoughts on Unverdorben as a builder and the importance of this instrument. All photographs in the following portray this Harvard instrument. Please note that photographs that contain images of the wooden parts of the lute sometimes appear out of focus or cloudy because the lute is covered with a dusty patina that produces a fluorescence under the ambient lighting in the instrument room.

General Description

It is obvious that the lute has undergone modifications as a thick ebony fingerboard overlies the soundboard and extends to the rose. The lute is missing its pegbox and there are many cracks in the bowl and belly. Otherwise it is intact and stable.

The body (bowl) of the lute is constructed with 13 ribs of ivory, separated by narrow fillets of dark wood. The rib widths are nearly uniform except for the two edge ribs which are narrower. The bowl measures 293 mm wide, 152 mm deep and 475 mm long, from the bottom edge to the neck joint. There are many cracks in the ribs and small parts of several ribs are missing.

The end-clasp is made of one piece of ivory with little in the way of refinement. There is a thin (approx. 1 mm x 6.5 mm) strip of dark brown wood encircling the edge of the bowl.

The cross-section of this lute is nearly semi-circular. But note the line of the rib joints in the photo of the rear of the bowl. Unlike other lutes of this style, where the rib ends come together at the soundboard edge of the apron, the rib ends if continued, would come together at a point well below the apron. This style is usually associated with flat back bowls. I incorporated this feature in my most recent model of this lute and found that in order to replicate the flow of the rib lines I needed to form ribs that were crescent shaped. This is the usual procedure for the narrow ribs of multi-rib lutes that can be bent sideways but unusual for a lute with wider ribs because they must be shaped from a wide piece of wood which is difficult and wasteful of an expensive material. It is tempting to speculate that Unverdorben was using ribs cut from the tip of an ivory tusk that had a pronounced curve.

The soundboard is two matching pieces of beautiful close grain spruce that is consistent across the width of the belly. There is a half binding that is composed of a very narrow black-white-black strip and a wider band of dark brown wood that covers the edge of the soundboard. There are numerous long cracks in the soundboard through which some of the harmonic bars are visible. In order to determine the location of the bars that were not visible I constructed ‘L’ shaped pieces of stiff paper that I could slip through the narrowest cracks. Not only could I locate the remaining bars but I could also measure their height. I am currently making a drawing of the interior of the soundboard that includes this information. I will post this to my website’s Projects Page when it is finished.

The rose, which is virtually intact, is a traditional design with an elaborate border. The open diameter of the rose is 87 mm and its center is located 293 mm from rear edge of the soundboard. It is attractively but imprecisely cut. The two concentric rings and the rings of the border are asymmetrical. This asymmetry is difficult to account for because there is a pin hole in the center of the design, suggesting the use of a compass. Note that the support bars under the rose were left unstained.

The bridge is made of a hard wood stained black. The design is elegant and it is well made. It is drilled for 13 courses: 11 x 2 + 2 x 1. The tips on both wings are missing; accordingly, it is impossible to interpret this part of the original design. The total width of the string spacing on the bridge is 148 mm.

The evidence that the lute has been modified several times can be found in the construction of the neck. Most noticeably, the neck is overlaid by a modern ebony fingerboard with tangless fixed metal frets fashioned from a thin metal bar approximately 1.75 mm thick. This type of fret dates this modification to the 19th century. The pegbox is missing although the cutout for the joint remains. Visible in the cutout is the fir core wood of the neck. The ebony neck veneer measures 1 -1.2 mm thick at this point. The ivory nut is enormous and oddly offset to the treble side of the neck.

The neck is aligned to the bass side in such a way that the last two pairs of bass strings, which are played as open strings, would be set off the edge of the fingerboard. The treble string aligns the proper distance from the edge of the fingerboard. All of the dimensions of the neck are in agreement with the standard for 13 course baroque lutes. At the nut the neck is 80mm wide and 20mm deep. The thick overlaid fingerboard adds an extra 2mm to the neck thickness. At the joint to the body the neck is 99mm wide and 30mm deep. The fingerboard adds an extra depth here as it did at the nut. Nonetheless, the neck is comfortably contoured. There is a broad black leather strap glued over the neck joint, perhaps to disguise a poorly constructed joint.

Consideration should be given to the possibility that this neck dates from the first quarter of the 17th century when it was fashionable to convert old lutes of six or seven courses to nine or ten courses. The lute’s string length (652mm) is appropriate for that conversion as is the size of the neck. I think this is unlikely because there is no trace of a nine or ten course bridge (the footprint would be too large to be obscured by the surviving baroque bridge).

Although the bowl and the belly are firmly glued together there are two features that are visible, one through the end pin hole and the second through a gap in a broken rib, that shed light on the stages of modification that the lute has undergone.

I found that the ivory end pin was loose in its hole and could be removed. Peering through opening I could see two slender bars, angled toward the center of the belly and ending under the bridge or nearly so. Probing through a crack I was able to determine that the bar on the bass side was 3 mm high at a point 27mm from the rear of the belly. From that point, toward the bridge, the bar diminished in height to nothing. A matching bar was visible on the treble side of the belly. Probing through other cracks in the vicinity I found no other bars. Presumably, these two could be the remains of a fan barring that was typical under and behind the bridge on baroque lutes of that period. On the other hand it is worth considering that since Unverdorben was active in the mid 16th century these two bars could be the bridge barring that Unverdorben inserted. Such an arrangement is present in an unaltered 16th century lute in the Freiberger Dom. The X-ray of the belly of Lute Nr. 12 by Georg Klemm dated 1594 shows two bars in similar locations behind the bridge.

The above photograph shows the bass side of the bowl level with the major bar that is mounted just to the neck side of the rose. In fact, exactly in the center of the photo is the end of this bar. Also visible, crossing in front of it, is a kerfed lining. Many old lutes received this treatment from ill-informed owners during the 19th century.

Historical Relevance. Although the original character of this lute has been altered through both ancient and modern modifications much remains. The bowl is representative of the style of lutes built during the early to middle of the 16th century and as such is an important addition to Unverdorben’s body of work. The provenance of the soundboard must remain uncertain unless it can be dated conclusively through dendrochronology to Unverdorben’s era. There are no traces of a smaller bridge that Unverdorben would have used because Kramer’s bridge is large enough to cover its footprint. Fingerboard points that Unverdorben might have inlaid would be obscured by the massive 19th century fingerboard or have been lost when the wider neck was attached. The bridge is a fine example from the early 18th century.

A Consideration of Unverdorben’s Ivory Lute Bowls. There are nine lutes attributed to Marx Unverdorben (see addendum). It is interesting to note that six of them are constructed with bowls entirely of ivory or striped with ivory and another material. The Harvard Unverdorben bowl is one of four constructed entirely in ivory. The large proportion of Unverdorben lutes built in ivory is striking.

There are several 16th century musical instrument inventories that provide information about building practice approximately contemporary with Unverdorben. The Raymund Fugger inventory of musical instruments, compiled in 1566, lists 141 lutes (Smith,1980). Of these, 22 are constructed with ivory bowls and 5 more are striped with ivory and another material, together representing 19% of the total number of lutes in the collection. (The next most frequent materials are cane and whale bone; each accounting for 15 lutes.) The inventory taken for the heirs of Unverdorben’s colleague, Moises Tieffenbrucker in 1581 lists 376 finished lutes (Smith, 2002). Of these, 10 are constructed with ribs of ivory and sandalwood and 4 are constructed entirely in ivory, representing less than 4%. A much larger proportion of Tieffenbrucker lutes surviving today are ivory-- of the 22 conserved lutes from the Tieffenbrucker workshop attributed to dates in the 16th century none is constructed with a striped ivory bowl and only 5 (23%) are constructed with bowls entirely of ivory. The larger proportion of surviving ivory Tieffenbrucker lutes compared with the proportion from the 1581 inventory probably represents the collector’s desire to preserve ivory artifacts. The proportion of conserved Unverdorben lutes in ivory is very large (66%), even taking collectors’ preferences into account, leading to the interesting speculation that Unverdorben had a preference for building in ivory; greater than that of the Tieffenbruckers or other contemporaries represented in the Fugger inventory. Unverdorben may have been an ivory lute specialist.

Addendum:
List of Lutes by Marx Unverdorben (Martius).

1. Kreisheimatmuseum, Eisenberg. Ribs of ivory.

2. Museo degli Strumenti Musicali, Rome, No. 37. Ribs of ivory and ebony. Stefano Toffolo, Antichi Strumenti Veneziani. Venezia 1987, pp. 57, 221

3. Lobkowicz Collection, Nelahozeves Castle, 1178 E. 9 rib maple bowl. Jiri C,epelak, Journal of the Lute Society of America, Vol. XXXII, 1999, pp. 89-93.

4. Victoria & Albert Museum, London, No. 193-1882. Mosaic of wood and ivory. Anthony Baines: Catalogue of Musical Instruments, Part II, London 1998, pp. 30-31.

5. Fenton House, London. 31 ribs of yew with white fillets. Christopher Challen, Early Music, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Apr., 1979), pp. 166-173

6. Dean Castle, Kilmarnoch, No. 32. 15 ribs of ivory with black-white-black fillets. Ribs are decorated with designs in gold.

7. Museu de la Música, Barcelona. MDMB 408. 13 ribs of maple with ebony fillets.
John Griffiths, Journal of the Lute Society of America, Vol. XII, 1979, pp. 48-66.

8. Museu de la Música, Barcelona. MDMB 604. 13 ribs of ivory with dark fillets.

9. Harvard University, Cambridge. HUCP 3276. 13 ribs of ivory with black fillets.

Note: minor changes have been made to the descriptive details for several lutes by the author.

Footnotes.
Smith, Douglas Anton. “The Musical Instrument Inventory of Raymund Fugger.” Galpin Society Journal 33 (1980) pp.36-44.

-----------. A History of the Lute from Antiquity to the Renaissance. The Lute Society of America, Inc., 2002.

Martius, Klaus. The Lautenweltadressbuch – A Database of Extant Historical Lutes. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~lsa/associated/database/dbsearch.php
Downloaded November 28, 2011

Acknowledgement. Justin Haynes, curator of the collection, arranged my visit and provided invaluable assistance. Thank you.

Michael Schreiner, November 28, 2011

copyright michael schreiner 2011