When Joseph Mayes heard the lute, it was love at first note. The Collingswood resident was studying with guitar master Andrés Segovia in Spain in 1968 when the music coming from the pear-shaped ...

The lute is the most intimately expressive of musical instruments. A descendant of the lyre with which Orpheus mythically tamed the wild beasts, the lute returned to Europe more than a millennium ago ...

A rare, melodious twang was heard this week on U.S. airwaves. The twangs came from an instrument which legend says was invented by a son of Methuselah—the lute, an instrument resembling an archaic ...

I tell strange stories from music history, and offer up words of advice for your next romantic rendezvous. The guitar—as well as its predecessor, the lute—is the instrument of seducers. This isn’t a ...

Stories of falling head over heels for an instrument are not unusual. What is unusual is love at first sight — or sound — when that instrument is the theorbo. In fact, it was the combination of both ...

Wait long enough and an old-style musical instrument, much like an out-of-date piece of clothing, might eventually come back in fashion. Or do what lutenist Ronn McFarlane is doing and take an ...

Apart from Renaissance fairs and Sting albums, the lute makes relatively few public appearances these days. And when it does grace a concert stage, it's generally in the service of centuries-old ...