File:Lute (AM 1998.60.7-4).jpg

English: Lute, wooden - two headed, plucked string instrument with 11 pair strings and one top string, 3 strings missing, 12 frets, plucked. One pegbox on flat surface the other thrown back at approx 60degree angle, 23 pegs in total. Black edging on front of body. Reverse body shaped with 11 'ribs' 1 theorbo Arnold Dolmetsch workshop, Haslemere, Surrey, England, circa 1935 maple, spruce (or cedar), rosewood, parchment, ash, bone, gut, copper-wire, silk, varnish 1042 x 325 x 160 mm 1998.60.7 Castle 9 The lute was one of the most poplar instruments of renaissance Europe. It was in regular use in broken consorts and as an accompanying instrument. Members of the lute family are distinguished by their pear-shaped bodies and light delicate construction. In the early 17th century, the musical demands upon the lute began to change. Music was beginning to be thought of in terms of melody, a bass, and a supporting structure of chords. With the increased emphasis on the bass line, the lute required lower notes and longer strings and various solutions were reached. The theorbo is a hybrid instrument constructed like a large lute, but with the pegbox in line with the fingerboard, instead of being bent back at nearly a right angle as with the lute. An extra pegbox on an extension to the neck was for several longer unstopped bass strings. The theorbo is a plucked instrument. The first instrument made by Arnold Dolmetsch was a lute in 1894 followed by a clavichord in 1894. Along with the recorder, the lute was central to his crusade for the revival of interest in and playing of early music. This theorbo was once owned by Diana Poulton, an English lutenist and music historian. A former pupil of Arnold Dolmetsch ‘for about three years’, she played instruments made by him. She is recorded as playing the lute alongside the eighty-two year old Arnold at the 1936 Haslemere Festival. She was also a regular contributor to The Lute - a journal on the lute and its history. Diana Poulton visited the Castles at 27 Colombo Street in the late 1950s. She donated this instrument as well as a number of books on how to play the instrument.