Little solo music survives from England, but William Lawes and others used theorbos in chamber ensembles and opera orchestras. Giuliano Paratico was another early Italian chitarrone player. The most prominent early composers and players in Italy were Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger and Alessandro Piccinini. In the performance of basso continuo, theorboes were often paired with a small pipe organ. Similar adaptations to smaller lutes (c. 55+ cm string length) also produced the arciliuto ( archlute), liuto attiorbato, and tiorbino, which were differently tuned instruments to accommodate a new repertoire of small ensemble or solo works. By the mid-17th century, it would appear that tiorba had taken preference – reflected in modern practice, helping to distinguish the theorbo now from very different instruments like the chitarrone moderno or guitarrón. Robert Spencer has noted the confusion the two names were already leading to in 1600: Chitarone, ò Tiorba che si dica (chitarrone, or theorbo as it is called). It is possible the appearance of this new large instrument (particularly in a crowded ensemble) resulted in jokes and a humour induced reference with popular local knowledge becoming lost over time and place.

The etymology of tiorba is still obscure it is hypothesized the origin may be in Slavic or Turkish torba, meaning 'bag' or 'turban'.Īccording to Athanasius Kircher, tiorba was a nickname in Neapolitan language for a grinding board used by perfumers for grinding essences and herbs. The round-backed chitarra was still in use, often referred to as chitarra Italiana to distinguish it from chitarra alla spagnola in its new flat-backed Spanish incarnation. unfretted) longer bass strings, called diapasons or bourdons, for improvements in tonal clarity and an increased range of available notes.Īlthough the words chitarrone and tiorba were both used to describe the instrument, they have different organological and etymological origins chitarrone being in Italian an augmentation of (and literally meaning large) chitarra – Italian for guitar. Musicians originally used large bass lutes (c. 80+ cm string length) and a higher re-entrant tuning but soon created neck extensions with secondary pegboxes to accommodate extra open ( i.e. For his 1607 opera L'Orfeo, Claudio Monteverdi lists duoi (two) chitaroni among the instruments required for performing the work. Theorbos were developed during the late sixteenth century in Italy, inspired by the demand for extended bass range instruments for use in the then-newly developed musical style of opera developed by the Florentine Camerata and new musical works utilising basso continuo, such as Giulio Caccini's two collections, Le nuove musiche (16). A similar theorbo is in the Wagner Museum, Lucerne, Switzerland. The other lute strings went to the bent pegbox. The girl is playing a type of theorbo that combined two ranges of strings with separate peg boxes the bass strings (longer) went to the straight pegbox that peeks from behind the girl's head. The theorbo was used during the Baroque music era (1600–1750) to play basso continuo accompaniment parts (as part of the basso continuo group, which often included harpsichord, pipe organ and bass instruments), and also as a solo instrument. This gives a theorbo a much wider range of pitches (notes) than a regular lute.

(The pegboxes enable the lute to be tuned by turning the pegs to make the strings sound at higher or lower pitches.) Low-register bass strings are added on the extended neck. A theorbo differs from a regular lute in that the theorbo has a much longer neck which extends beyond the regular fingerboard/neck and a second pegbox at the end of the extended neck. It is related to the liuto attiorbato, the French théorbe des pièces, the archlute, the German baroque lute, and the angélique or angelica. As with the lute, the player plucks or strums the strings with one hand while 'fretting' (pressing down) the strings with the other hand pressing the strings in different places on the neck produces different pitches (notes), thus enabling the performer to play chords, basslines and melodies. Like a lute, a theorbo has a curved-back sound box (a hollow box) with a wooden top, typically with a sound hole, and a neck extending out from the soundbox.

The theorbo is a plucked string instrument of the lute family, with an extended neck and a second pegbox. “Introducing the Baroque Theorbo”, Elizabeth Kenny, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, January 11, 2019 For the Latin American family of musical instruments, see Guitarrón.

Instruments like a lute