Theorbo and lute performer will discuss craft
Richard Kolb has never met anyone in Beacon who owns a theorbo. Ditto for a 10-string Baroque guitar, but there could be a few lute owners, he says.
Kolb also plays standard classical guitar, which he studied in college, but figured that the exotic instruments were more marketable as entrees into Renaissance and Baroque performance and scholarship. He will perform with and discuss the instruments on Sunday (Jan. 4) at the Lucky Dog club inside Beacon Music Factory, 333 Fishkill Ave.
The musician's email address includes the birthdate of Francesco da Milano (1487), a favorite composer and lute picker, so it's slightly jarring to see Buddy Holly and Ella Fitzgerald CDs in his home studio.
As an educator and freelance musician, he says he's "eked out a living" teaching, playing with Baroque orchestras and serving as scholar-in-residence at the New York Continuo Collective.
The Frankenstein-like theorbo is an integral part of the Baroque repertoire because they typically have 14 strings and offer a wide tonal range, especially in the low end. It is also "ideal for accompanying vocals," says Kolb, who is 5-foot-11 and stands about 6 inches shorter than the instrument.
Lutes, which resemble elaborate gourds, look like they're bent out of shape because, unlike a six-string guitar, the headstock at the end of the fretboard is tilted at what looks like a 90-degree angle. The design tightens the tension from the string's end to the tuning peg.

Most acoustic guitars include a circle cut into the soundboard beneath the strings to amplify the volume; the holes on Kolb's instruments have intricate carvings, called "roses," that stand on their own as works of art.
Antique instruments are too brittle to play, says Kolb, so every lute, theorbo or Baroque guitar is a reproduction. His were made in Montreal.
Though tuned differently, the Baroque guitar is more of a forerunner to the six-string than the lute, he says. "There's a substantial repertoire for the Baroque guitar," says Kolb, who has done yeoman's work editing, transcribing and publishing the complete works of two Italian composers, Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677) and Francesca Caccini (1587-1640).
"There were a lot of excellent female musicians back then, but their legacy got lost in part because it was considered to be socially improper," he says. "They started coming to light in the 1990s."
It took Kolb 10 years to publish an eight-volume set covering Strozzi's compositions, "who was famous in her own time," he says. Supported by soprano Elissa Edwards, he recorded two albums of material culled from the collection, playing theorbo and archlute.
In addition, Kolb researched and modernized antique sheet music of Caccini's work, a process that took four years. He plans to record selections.
In his home near Memorial Park, Kolb protects his prized instruments with a humidifier. But he also owns less-fragile guitars, such as a solid-body electric Telecaster, like the one used by Buddy Holly, and a jazz-style archtop, perfect for accompanying an Ella Fitzgerald combo.
However, they have never beckoned to him like the instruments used four centuries ago in Europe. "I wish I could play jazz," he says. "But I got focused on this other, narrow world."

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