Liuto

As Printed on a Score

Labels a lute part in Baroque scores (Liuto), most often as an obbligato line or as one of the continuo instruments realising a figured bass. Solo lute music is usually written in tablature, which shows strings and frets rather than pitches; in orchestral and vocal scores the part appears in ordinary staff notation.

Also spelled: Lute, Laute, Luth

How Composers Use It

A plucked, fretted instrument made in many sizes and tunings, soft and intimate, at its best accompanying a single voice or a small group. In Baroque scores it most often doubles the continuo, realising harmonies from the bass; Bach gave it an obbligato in the St John Passion arioso “Betrachte, meine Seel’”. Use it only where the texture is light enough for it to be heard, and give the player a figured bass or a written-out part.

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