Chapter 13

Violoncello and Violone

MARC VANSCHEEUWIJCK

As bass instruments of the violin family (bass violins), violoncellos and violoni have been the object of much discussion and confusion in recent years, particularly since Stephen Bonta's two articles in1977 and 1978.1 The latter, on the terminology of bass violins in seventeenth-century Italy, showed the enormous name diversity bass violins were given; the former article presented the hypothesis that violone was not necessarily a sixteen-foot double bass but could be an eight-foot bass of the violin family. According to Bonta, the difference between the violone and the violoncello—a term first encountered in a 1665 print with music by Bolognese organist Giulio Cesare Arresti²—was that the violone was usually larger and that the violoncello was strung with at least one wire-wound gut string (a development in string making that occurred approximately in the same decade) and was considerably smaller, thus offering both a good sonorous low range and greater ease in playing more virtuoso passagework.

On the other hand, since the beginning of the early music revival in the second half of the twentieth century, cellists interested in historical performance practice have adopted the general approach of using instruments that are—both organologically and in terms of playing technique—quite close to the modern cello. Indeed, the “Baroque” cello has roughly been characterized by (1) its violin shape; (2) its four (gut or wire-wound gut) strings tuned in fifths;³ (3) a slightly shorter fingerboard; (4) a flatter, differently shaped tailpiece and bridge; (5) the absence of an endpin; and (6) sometimes even a differently angled neck (often straighter). It is played in a da gamba position. The bows cellists have been using are most frequently short French-style sticks for seventeenth-century repertories; longer, though still convex or straight, bows for early eighteenth-century music; and so-called transitional bows for Haydn and Mozart. All are played rigorously with overhand grip.

Moreover, since no treatises or methods before Michel Corrette's 1741 Me-thode⁴ explain in sufficient detail how to play the instrument, modern Baroque cellists have largely based their technique on Corrette's precepts on how to hold the instrument and the bow and how to finger the cello. In the end, cellists who took up the “Baroque” cello did not need to go too far out of their comfort zone in terms of equipment and playing technique. Yet I am convinced that what Corrette provided in his treatise was not a description of standard practice, but rather a groundbreaking innovation, both in playing technique and in the use of a (fairly recently adopted) semi-standardized ideal compromise instrument that offered the best features of both large and small types. In short, the “Corrette way” of performing on the cello came to be utilized for the repertories of the mid-eighteenth century, but also for those of the two preceding centuries. In this chapter, I propose a revision of such a standardizing approach and suggest a much larger diversity of possible instrument types, playing techniques, number of strings, and tunings, as they apply in various European regions (not yet nations!) for the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Since Corrette is our point of departure by necessity and by default, I will need to work my way back into the seventeenth century from the mid-eighteenth century, instead of adopting a simple chronological approach. The sources call for not only a fresher and more nuanced reevaluation of iconographic materials and documentary descriptions (which I can only briefly summarize here), but also and most importantly an open-minded questioning of the music itself and of a few extant instruments, though these are too often questionable because of nineteenth-century alterations or even forgeries. In sum, I want to emphasize that scholars and performers alike need to realize that all the term “violoncello” means is a small bass violin, literally a “small violone,” which can be a variety of organological types with different sizes, shapes, number of strings, tunings, and playing techniques.

BASS VIOLINS LARGE AND SMALL

In addition to the most standard terminology, we also have to deal with a few other terms, such as violoncello piccolo, violoncello (or viola) da spalla, and viola da collo.5 Although the first two are traditionally associated in modern terminology with slightly later types of smallish instruments (most often with five strings), I contend that in fact they are all members of the larger category of the violoncello (in the seventeenth-century sense), as well, and that such terminological differences and delimitations were made only in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in opposition to what has later become our universal “violoncello.”⁶ I must emphasize that the budding eighteenth-century passion for standardization, which developed into nineteenth-century evolutionary and positivistic thinking and culminated in more recent global theories and in our obsession with systematization, has resulted in a clear but highly artificial and anachronistic separation of issues and ideas that were not necessarily so separate in seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century contexts. For example, in looking at bowed bass instruments, we recognize viole da gamba only if they correspond to our modern construct of what a viola da gamba should be.7 The same is true for viole da braccio, and whatever fits neither group is too often designated as a “hybrid”—which, if one looks closely at the entire available body of iconographic sources, appears to be the largest of the three categories! This is definitely a notion that postmodern thought is no longer willing to accept, because it does not correspond to what we now consider to be the reality of the past.

In looking at European iconographic sources of the sixteenth through the mid-eighteenth centuries, and without (yet) categorizing types of instruments and performing styles within small geographical regions, we realize how rarely the bowed bass instruments depicted even remotely resemble our current concept of the Baroque cello, let alone how the instrument was actually played. Documentary sources, repertory, and iconography show us bass violin-type instruments being (1) held da gamba (between the legs), da spalla (on the [right] shoulder), da braccio (against the chest), across the player's lap, or standing on the floor, on a stool, with some sort of endpin,⁸ or hung with a rope around the neck or shoulders; (2) with four, five, or six strings; (3) with the bow held overhand (quite rarely before 1720) or underhand; (4) with the left-hand position that could be diatonic or chromatic;⁹ or (5) with the strings tuned in fifths or in a combination of fourths and fifths. All these different factors are eventually to be ascertained by situational, regional, and even local practices. In short, it is essential that scholars and performers address a number of these specific questions instead of taking a monolithic approach to what the violoncello may have been before it became the later eighteenth-century instrument so long considered to be “the” Baroque cello.

THE VIOLONCELLO IN THE EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Practically speaking, modern Baroque cellists can use their “standard” instruments (i.e., the small bass violin type called “violoncello”) with four strings tuned in fifths in a large part of the repertory starting in the 1720s, although the use of five-string instruments (more often tuned C-G-d-a-d' than with an e'-string on the top) was still quite common in many parts of Europe (see below). In their use of violoncellos, players in France, England, Spain, Austria, the Papal States (Rome, Ferrara), and the Duchies of Modena, Parma, and Mantua seem to have preferred four-string instruments. In Bologna, there seems to have been a larger number of cellists who played with a more varied number of strings and tunings: some cellists, such as Antonio Maria Bononcini, were first trained as violinists and played the instrument da spalla.¹⁰ As to bow grip, all seem to have favored underhand position. However, overhand bow grip began to impose itself at that time, probably through the influence of Bolognese violinist/cellists who played in da spalla position and began to advocate for a typically da braccio bow grip, even on da gamba–held instruments; it became almost standardized by the 1760s.¹¹

But first let me return briefly to the idea of variable sizes, numbers of strings, and tunings. In his treatise of 1752, Johann Joachim Quantz advises owning more than one instrument:

Those who not only accompany on the violoncello, but also play solos on it, would do well to have two special instruments, one for solos, the other for ripieno parts in large ensembles. The latter must be larger, and must be equipped with thicker strings than the former. If a small instrument with thin strings were employed for both types of parts, the accompaniment in a large ensemble would have no effect whatsoever. The bow intended for ripieno playing must also be stronger, and must be strung with black hairs, with which the strings may be struck more sharply than with white ones.12

Luigi Rodolfo Boccherini too, in his inventory of personal belongings from April 26, 1787, still refers to owning a Jacob Stainer cello and a violoncello piccolo.¹³ Iconographic sources and a variety of treatises (including Johann Mattheson's Das Neu-eröfnete Orchestre¹⁴), as well as some surviving instruments, confirm the existence of various sizes of bass violins (or violoni) of the smaller type with four or five strings, tuned an octave below the violin (four-string instruments), or in C-G-d-a-e' (more often also C-G-d-a-d') and called “violoncello” (after 1665), violoncino, viola, violetta, or bassetto (starting in 1641).¹⁵ In 1756 even Leopold Mozart still describes that:

The seventh type is called Bassel or Bassette, which we call Violoncell, according to the Italian Violoncello. In the past it had 5 strings; today people play with only four. It is the most common instrument to play the bass part on, and although there are some larger and some smaller [cellos],…¹⁶

Even more striking for us today than Mozart's observation that the cello used to have five strings and by 1756 four is what he writes in his description of the viol on the same page:

The ninth type is the Gamba. It is held between the legs; whence its name: since the Italians call it viola da gamba, that is: leg viol. Nowadays the Violoncello is also held between the legs, so we could also rightly call it a leg viol [emphasis mine].¹⁷

In order for Mozart to state that the cello is “nowadays also held between the legs,” it must have been noteworthy, which triggers the obvious question: how was the violoncello held before? On the floor, on a stool, or da spalla with a strap around the neck? Most probably, any or all of these options were possible and used.

In some other specific case studies I have investigated, such as the Ricercate of 1687 by Bolognese organist Giovanni Battista Degli Antonii¹⁸ or the two concertos by Giuseppe Tartini,¹⁹ written for his “cellist” Antonio Vandini in Padua, I have shown that cellists are obliged to accept that the Baroque cello as we know it today is not necessarily the instrument these composers had in mind. Degli Antonii, I believe, was really thinking about a violoncello da spalla with five strings, whereas Tartini, in composing for Vandini, wrote for a small bass violin, with four or five strings tuned respectively as G-d-a-e' or d' or C-G-d-a-d' (or even D-G-d-a-d') and played solely with an underhand bow grip. This last sort of instrument was indeed quite common, particularly in the Venetian, Neapolitan, Bolognese, German, and even Viennese and British contexts, as can be seen in various concertos and/or sonatas by Antonio Vivaldi, Benedetto Marcello (Venice), Antonio Caldara (Venice and Vienna), Francesco Scipriani, Francesco Alborea, Leonardo Leo, Nicola Fiorenza, Nicola Sabatino, Nicola Antonio Porpora (Naples),20 Giovanni Benedetto Platti (Wiesentheid, Bavaria),²¹ Giacobbe Basevi (called “il Cervetto”), Antonio Maria Bononcini, or Carlo Graziani (England).²² In some German areas, as well, such small-size cellos were often used: we need only recall the cantatas with solo violoncello piccolo and the sixth solo Suite per violoncello (BWV 1012) by Johann Sebastian Bach, and the 1789 Sonata per il Cembalo o Pianoforte et Violoncello obligato in A Major by Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach.²³ Furthermore, in the European iconographic sources of the sixteenth century through the 1720s for bass violins, large or small, with four, five, or six strings, played da gamba, I have found only a few images in which the player holds the bow in overhand grip.²⁴

As I mentioned, the modern, overhand grip is only first described by Corrette in his 1741 treatise and appears increasingly from the second quarter of the eighteenth century on. In recalling the cello concertos Antonio Vivaldi wrote in the 1720s, when Vandini was teaching at the Pietà, we can observe certain similar tendencies as in Tartini's concertos: there is not much virtuosity in the Boccherinian sense of the term (high positions or wide leaps up and down the fingerboard), but rather a general range that barely exceeds the middle of the upper string, with virtually no use of the lowest string. In that sense, as Vandini was one of the players for whom Vivaldi wrote his most technically elaborate cello concertos, we may assume that the instrument was indeed a vertically held small bass violin with four or five strings and played with underhand bow grip. On the other hand, since we have ample iconographic evidence of violoncelli da spalla in the Po Valley and in the Venetian area, a historically relevant performance on such an instrument is not unthinkable, either. Thus modern players are actually given a larger number of viable options.

In sum, I propose that the small seventeenth-century violoncino/bassetto/violoncello only gradually began to impose itself as a vertically played instrument during the first third of the eighteenth century, while its size was also gradually increased to reach modern measurements. Finally, having experimented myself on several occasions with “alternative” tuning possibilities and smaller instruments, based on indications in treatises and in the repertory, I am convinced that—just as with the variety of types of small bass violins called “violoncello”—performers, particularly of the eighteenth century (when the repertory evolved in terms of technical challenges), were not as reluctant as we are today²⁵ to retune their instruments and use the appropriate string gauges in a way that optimized the resonance and especially the ease with which a particular composition could be performed.

THE VIOLONCELLO IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Although the term “violoncello” did not appear before Giulio Cesare Arresti's 1665 print, smaller bass violins have been used since the earliest development of the violin family in the beginning of the sixteenth century. Bonta mentions terms as violoncino and its variants, bassetto, viola, violetta basso, violone piccolo, and so forth,26 which etymologically refer to a smaller type of bass bowed instruments, and mostly even to instruments of the viola da braccio family, so it is clear that relatively small instruments were capable of playing in the bass register. Whether the use of wire-wound gut strings was a factor in calling these smaller basses more consistently “violoncellos,” as Bonta claims,²⁷ is not entirely pertinent, I believe, though there is no doubt that their increasingly generalized use for the lowest string(s) between 1670 and 1730 contributed to the eventual standardization of the smaller-type bass violin over its larger cousin. Even though it is often fairly clear from the range of the musical line of the bass instrument whether we should choose a small- or a large-type instrument, it is also not always useful to separate the two, since there is no reason for excluding one or the other instrument from a certain type of repertory or musical genre. We should also be considering the fact that in Italy, for example, the C-G-d-a tuning seems to have been used on both types, whereas lower tunings tend to apply to larger instruments only, and higher tunings to smaller types. In England, on the other hand, smaller instruments were more often tuned ₁-F-c-g,²⁸ whereas in France that lower tuning was the only one used on the larger basse de violon.²⁹

TUNINGS—FINGERINGS—BOWINGS

I will not discuss here the treatises of Giovanni Maria Lanfranco (1533), Sylvestro Ganassi (1543), Martin Agricola (1545), and others, but Lodovico Zacconi (1592), Adriano Banchieri (1609, 1611), and Michael Praetorius (1619) offer some important information worth reporting.³⁰ These last three authors all mention bass instruments of the viola da braccio family tuned in fifths either on F (F-C-g-d') or on G (G-d-a-e'),³¹ which does not quite cover what we moderns call the “bass register,” since we assume that it is equivalent to the eight-foot register of the organ, starting on C under the staff in bass clef. On the other hand, it is also useful to understand what specifically was meant by basso versus contrabbasso register in the period under consideration. In the Renaissance, any pitch below Gamma-ut (the low G in bass clef) was referred to as in contrabbasso, but this also indicates the entire register below that Gamma-ut and applies to any string or instrument capable of reaching even just the low F of the six-foot register. In that sense, Banchieri's Prima Violetta, Basso (tuned G-d-a-e') is thus a true bass instrument. Besides a tuning in F-C-g-d', Praetorius also mentions another tuning in C-G-d-a for the Baß Viol de Braccio. In his Il Scolaro per imparare a suonare di violino, et altri stromenti (the only seventeenth-century tutor book for instruments of the violin family), published in Milan in 1645, Gasparo Zannetti gives tunings for the three sizes of violin-family instruments and a long collection of dances for this typical three- or four-part violin band in both musical notation and in tablature, with occasional indication of bowings. Thanks to the tablatures it is easy to deduce from the regular g-d'-a'-e” tuning of the violin, that alto and tenor use the same tuning, a fifth lower than the canto (soprano), that is, c-g-d'-a', and that the bass is tuned again a fifth lower than the alto/tenor, or in ₁-F-c-g. Finally, in his Compendio musicale, Bartolomeo Bismantova provides a Regola p[er] suonare il Violoncello da Spalla in which he writes: “The modern violoncello da spalla is tuned in fifths, except that the lowest string, instead of being tuned as C, should be tuned as D, and this is done for the ease of the player, but it could also be tuned as C.”32 Bismantova further gives an entirely diatonic fingering chart for the strings (D-G-d-a), using 0–1–2 on the D-string, 0–1–2–3 on the G- and d-strings and 0–1–2–3–4 on the a-string (for the pitches a-b-c'-d'-e'), which is possible only on a fairly small instrument played da spalla. Finally, on page [120] he adds “Le Regole et Arcade sono l'istesso di quelle del Violino,” obviously implying an overhand bow grip.

REPERTORY

Only a limited number of compositions available to us call unequivocally for a small-type bass violin. The first of these is Giovanni Battista Fontana's Sonate published posthumously in Venice in 1641, the ninth of which calls for a Fagotto ò Chitarone ò Violonzono Con Violino ò Cornetto. The range is limited to F–c', which could work on a small instrument tuned F-c-g-d', although all other pieces that call for a fagotto—as is also the case in Bartolomeo de Selma y Salaverde's Canzoni, fantasie e correnti (Venice, 1638)—have a much larger range. Other collections that require a violoncino include Francesco Cavalli's Musiche sacre (Venice, 1656), notated in bass and tenor clef with a range of D–f'; Domenico Freschi's Messa e salmi (Op. 1, Venice, 1660; range E–d'); Simpliciano Olivo's Salmi di compieta à 8 (Op. 2, Bologna, 1674; range D–d'); Gasparo Gaspardini's Sonate à 3 (Op. 1, Bologna, 1683; range D–e'); and an undated Laetatus sum à 2 by Ferrarese composer Giovanni Battista Bassani (range D–d'). On the other hand, particularly in and around Modena, Ferrara, and Bologna (the region now known as Emilia), we frequently encounter the terms violetta, bassetto,and bassetto viola in the latter part of the seventeenth century, for example in Sebastiano Cherici's collections Opp. 1, 2, 3, and 4 (1672, 1698, 1686; ranges D–d' or D–e'). Azzolino Bernardino Della Ciaia's Salmi à 5 voci (Bologna, 1700; range C–g') juxtapose violetta and violoncello, as does Antonio Caldara in his unpublished Messa à 4 composed in Venice (I-Bc); we also find these terms in various printed collections by Giuseppe Colombi (active in Modena), Giovanni Paolo Colonna (active in Bologna), Stefano Filippini (Rimini), Andrea Grossi (Mantua), Isabella Leonarda (Novara), Giovanni Battista Mazzaferrata (Ferrara and Faenza), and so on. Based on the frequent occurrence of bass violins played either da spalla or da gamba in Emilia and in the Veneto, we can surmise that this kind of repertory that calls for small bass instruments could be played either on a violoncello da spalla or on a smallish four- or five-string violoncello (an instrument we have erroneously tended to call “violoncello piccolo”). These terms seem to be completely interchangeable with “violoncello,” which we find in many printed collections since Arresti's Op. 1 (Bologna, 1665), though again mainly in the region of the Po Valley in northern Italy.33 In many of the cases mentioned in note 33, as well, violoncello can be any small bass violin played da gamba (with underhand bow grip) or da spalla with tunings including C-G-d-a, C-G-d-g, D-G-d-a, F-c-g-d', G-d-a-e', G-d-a-d' or with five strings, tuned C-G-d-a-d', C-G-d-g-d', D-G-d-a-d', D-G-d-g-d', and others as the music requires. Finally, even when we encounter the term basso (which indicates only the part, not the instrument!), viola (if notated in tenor [C4], baritone [F3] or bass clef [F4])—see the Sonate concertate of Dario Castello—Or basso viola, we may consider using a small bass violin, though the latter term seems to be more often identifiable with violone, that is, a larger instrument of either the viola da gamba or the viola da braccio family, or, probably even more likely, some “hybrid” of the two (see below). In all these situations, considerations about the complete range of the part and an understanding of where in the instrument the part is mainly “situated” should determine whether to use a small or large bass violin. Regarding types of repertory, the instrument was most often used in chamber/dance music and as a solo higher bass instrument in sacred and theater music during the seventeenth century. Later, as Mattheson claimed, its penetrating sound makes good effect also in bass parts.

In the end, if the twenty-first-century Baroque cellist were to need a “compromise” instrument to be able to perform the largest possible repertory without being too anachronistic, I would advocate for a small (smaller than the modern cello; 64–74cm body length) five-string instrument that could be played either da gamba or da spalla, with several sets of strings, the gauge of which should be as heavy as possible for each pitch (and only a C or D wire-wound gut string for music after the 1670s), and two bows made of European woods: one long bow for underhand playing, and a shorter one for overhand grip for post-1720s music.

THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY VIOLONE

Much ink has been spilled on trying to understand exactly what the violone was in the Baroque period, and probably the mere question is primarily responsible for all the confusion. The violone is not one specific instrument; indeed, it does not even denote one specific family of instruments. For example, scholars have often posited, based on only a few treatises, that violone in the sixteenth century was synonymous to viola da gamba as a family. Although this is not entirely erroneous (given a specific period in a specific place), I believe it is far too restrictive. Even though at first sight, terminology may seem haphazard and confused, it was on the contrary quite precise and specific if we bring the exact time and location into the equation. Etymologically, violone means “large viola,” and we should accept that it is no more specific than that. Even the strict separation between viole da gamba and viole da braccio is artificial and anachronistic, particularly when it comes to large instruments. Most iconographic and documentary sources considered together would end up indicating that violoni were almost all “hybrids,” if we were to observe the characteristics that have become standard in our descriptions of both instrument families. Again, I believe that also in the case of larger-type bowed bass instruments, we should let local practices, repertories, and customs at a specific given time give us more useful ideas about what instrument to use and how to play it, rather than to try to find a one-size-fits-all solution for the entire Baroque period. This naturally causes serious practical problems regarding the number of different instruments the modern player would need to own, to be able to operate as a “historically informed” performer. Concert programs often include repertories from various places and periods within the Baroque, and a violone for Monteverdi, Cazzati, Corelli, or Vivaldi will certainly be a completely different instrument in each of these situations. Compromises are usually a bad idea, but some instrument types can actually be used in a few more situations than others.

In his 1994 article, Rodolfo Baroncini mentions the existence of a contrabbasso di viola da gamba (a seventeenth-century term which he admits having borrowed from Monteverdi) tuned in G₁ (twelve-foot) based on the famous miniature of the musical chapel of Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria by Hans Mielich.34 It is in Venetian contexts that this low tuning in G₁ first appears. I am thinking here particularly of Lodovico Zacconi's 1592 Prattica di musica, and later of Monteverdi's use of the contrabbasso de viola in Orfeo, which necessarily refers to an instrument capable of playing at a lower pitch than the bassi da brazzo and bassi da gamba. A same or similar use appears again in the Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda and in the 1610 Vespers. I am convinced that at least until ca.1675, “violone” without further specification was a non-transposing eight-foot viola da braccio instrument of the larger type with possible extensions into the twelve-foot register (F₁-C). Such a violone could be shaped like a traditional viola da gamba (with six strings, tuned G₁-C-F-A-d-g, often called the G-violone³⁵), or a bass violin (with five or four strings), or anything in between (as we can see in some Evaristo Baschenis paintings³⁶), and could possibly correspond to Praetorius's Groß Quint Bass (tuned F₁-C-G-d-a) and the five-string instruments by Hans Krouchdaler preserved in the Musical Instrument Museums in Brussels, Berlin, and Nuremberg. It should also be noted that so much seventeenth-century printed repertory offers the alternative between theorbo and violone for a melodic bass part (often independent of the basso continuo) that some correlation must exist between the two instruments; if we accept twelve-foot violoni as a possibility, the theorbo presents the same range and the two become easily interchangeable. Both are fundamentally non-transposing eight-foot instruments with a possible extension into the twelve-foot range (down to F₁ or G₁). On the other hand, if composers or printers meant to include an instrument capable of playing most of the bass line an octave below the written pitch, they referred to an instrument larger than the bass by adding modifiers such as grande, grosso, doppio, contrabbasso, in contrabbasso, or any combination of these, as Stephen Bonta and Tharald Borgir already hypothesized in the late 1970s. In most of the seventeenth century, these violone in contrabbasso were only used in exceptional situations, mostly in sacred polychoral concertato Venetian/Bavarian, Bolognese, and Roman contexts.37 Their use became more frequent and eventually standardized in eighteenth-century opera and large-ensemble contexts throughout Europe. In most performance situations in which the standard instrumentation was one to a part,³⁸ a sixteen-foot transposing double bass was virtually never used in the seventeenth century, and it was still a rarity during most of the first half of the eighteenth century

REPERTORY

Virtually all Italian seventeenth-century music that calls for a violone (in ₁-F-c-g or in C-G-d-a) is thus to be played at pitch, that is, not transposing, except for the possible extension into the 12-foot register along with (or instead of) the theorbo and/or the twelve-foot short organ pedal if one uses a six-string viola da gamba (the so-called G-violone), a five-string viola da braccio (tuned G₁ or F₁-C-G-d-a), or any hybrid. Here again, I believe these various types of instruments are fairly interchangeable, and it is only the regional context that will dictate some preferences, though without being specifically prescriptive.

An overview of the repertory will in the case of the larger bass violins also necessarily be incomplete and condensed, but one of the earliest occurrences of solo parts for the “violone” as a (probable) bass violin are the two Sonate in Milanese composer Giovanni Paolo Cima's Concerti ecclesiastici (1610). There the instrument is used in its full range (including the lowest) from C to d', that is, in first position on a four-string instrument tuned C-G-d-a, but given the quick passagework on the lowest string, the instrument should be large enough to have sufficiently thin strings in pure or loaded gut to provide acceptable sound. An argument could also be made for using a large bass violin tuned in ₁-F-c-g, thus avoiding the lowest open string, or even a G-violone, and avoiding the lowest string altogether: in both cases the lowest “good” pitch would be the eight-foot C. On the other hand, it is almost only in Modena and in Parma (again, in Emilia) that, perhaps under French influence, the parts for violone consistently ask for a low ₁ both in solo and in ensemble music: Giuseppe Colombi,39 Giovanni Maria Bononcini (Opp. 1, 3, and 4; 1666, 1669, and 1671) Marco Uccellini (Op. 9; 1667) Giovanni Battista Vitali, Domenico Galli (Trattenimenti, 1691), and others. Another possible problem are the violone parts in late seventeenth-century Rome and particularly in Arcangelo Corelli's Sonate à violino e violone o cimbalo (Op. 5, Rome, 1700), and in Giuseppe Valentini's Idee per camera à violino e violone o cembalo (Op. 4, Rome 1706–1707), which both have a range of C–b”. Given the virtuosic nature of much of the Roman early eighteenth-century repertory, I believe that the violone there was an instrument of not-too-large proportions (though still slightly larger than the modern cello), of which we still have some examples by David Tecchler, that would allow for relatively virtuosic playing. In his Concerti grossi (Op. 6, Amsterdam, 1714) Corelli does prescribe a violoncello concertino, and we also know that he used violoni grossi as sixteen-foot transposing double basses in his orchestra.⁴⁰

All the other violone parts we have, either in print or in manuscript,⁴¹ tend to stay within the C–e' range, with a few exceptions to f#' and g', though such higher parts often are given to a violoncello/violoncino/bassetto. Another tendency is the gradual abandonment of the eight-foot violone (at least as a term) after the 1680s in favor of the violoncello. In fact, in a few cases the two terms are used interchangeably; for example, violone is mentioned on the frontispiece and violoncello in the partbook or vice versa (Marotti, 1710; Perti, Op. 2, Bologna, 1735).

As with the smaller bass violins, what is the twenty-first-century player ultimately to use in practice when the music calls for a larger eight-foot bass? In this case, a good compromise is even harder to find, but a good pair of all-round instruments could be (1) a five-string large bass violin (even with frets and a body length of 85–91 cm) tuned F₁/G₁-C-G-d-a for early seventeenth-century music and large-ensemble sacred repertory, and (2) a slightly smaller (but still larger than today's cello; body length of 80–85 cm) four-string bass violin that could be tuned in ₁ or in C for later seventeenth-century music. With these two instruments, one could actually play most Italian, French, German, Spanish, Dutch, and British repertories.⁴²

To summarize bass violin terminology in seventeenth-century Italy, an outline of some of the most important issues follows:

• Regions/cities use specific terms/instruments

• Venice, (Mantua): basso da brazzo (da gamba), basso viola

• Ferrara, Ravenna, Rimini, Mantova: bassetto (di viola)

• Bologna: violone, violoncello, violetta

• Modena: Violone (in ₁), violoncello, bassetto

• Rome, Naples, Lecce, Florence: violone

• In some cases, violone and violoncello are interchangeable (Florence, Brescia).

• Violone remains the normal term in Rome and in the South until ca.1720.

• Violone is usually a non-transposing eight-foot bass, except when otherwise specified (in contrabbasso, grosso, grande, doppio…).

• In Modena, the violone is usually tuned ₁-F-c-g.

• Bassetto, used in Emilia and in Romagna (except in Bologna), refers to a smaller violone (perhaps played da gamba).

• In Bologna there seems to be a tendency toward a frequent use of the violoncello da spalla. Variable tuning and number of strings (C-G-d-a; C-G-d-g; D-G-d-a; or five strings: C-G-d-a-e'; C-G-d-a-d'; C-G-d-g-d'; D-G-d-g-d').

• Violoncino and violonzino are parallel terms of violoncello used in northern Italy (Venice, Bergamo, Parma), though nothing proves that the difference with violoncello is determined by the presence (on the cello) of at least one wire-wound gut string.

• A tendency toward the correlation among “size of the instrument—number of strings—playing position (da spalla or da gamba)” seems logical; the repertory and/or the sort of musical writing should determine the choice of a specific instrument with a particular tuning, number of strings, playing position, and bow grip (over- or underhand).

In conclusion, in order to explore the Baroque repertory for “violoncello/violone” in a historically informed way, today's Baroque cellists need to increase their flexibility not only in dealing with various numbers of strings (four, five, or even six; with or without frets), bow grip (over- and mostly underhand), and tuning options (fifths and mixed fourths and fifths, particularly starting in the late seventeenth century), but perhaps also by learning to play the violoncello in da spalla position and to work with instruments of at least two (preferably three) different sizes.43 I believe that it is only with an increasing number of primarily French cellists/composers/pedagogues of the generation of the brothers Jean-Pierre Duport l'aîné and Jean-Louis Duport le jeune,⁴⁴ and their contemporaries and followers⁴⁵—in short, cellists active from the 1760s on, who determined what the new conservatory would eventually adopt as “the” violoncello—that the cello was reduced to the one type we use today. Through their performances, methods, and tutor books, these pedagogues advocated for a violoncello with four strings, tuned in fifths (C-G-d-a), played exclusively da gamba, with overhand bow grip and chromatic left-hand technique, and with the consistent adoption of thumb position for alto and treble registers.⁴⁶

NOTES

1. Bonta, “From Violone”; Bonta, “Terminology.”

2. Giulio Cesare Arresti, Sonate à 2. & à Tre Con la parte di Violoncello a Beneplacito, Op. 4 (Venice, 1665).

3. Tuned in C-G-d-a, except in a few rare cases such as J. S. Bach's fifth Suite for cello solo in C minor, BWV 1011, tuned C-G-d-g.

4. Corrette, Methode: frontispiece, and description on p. 7; and Vanscheeuwijck, “The Baroque”: esp. the illustration on p. 91; see: http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/ppr&CISOPTR=815&REC=3

5. The descriptive term viola da collo (lit., neck viol) is used in the opera La Gerusalemme liberata (Dresden, 1687) by Carlo Pallavicino. In the score, the instrument is used as a solo bass, often one octave higher than the bass line, but also as the bass of the violin band in the opening Sinfonia and in the ritornellos, along with the other continuo instruments. Its range is D–g', and it is notated in bass clef (See Denkmäler deutscher Tonkunst, 1. Folge, Bd. 55, Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1916).

6. Research on this topic has been carried forward by scholars, instrument makers, connoisseurs, and performers, including violinist/viola da spalla players Sigiswald Kuijken and Dmitry Badiarov (also an instrument maker) and such scholars as Lambert Smit, Dmitry Badiarov, Mark Smith, and especially Brent Wissick and Gregory Barnett.

7. See also Holman, Four and Twenty: ch. 1: “Quagmires of History and Terminology: The Origin of the Violin”: 2.

8. See also Russell, “New Light.”

9. I refer to diatonic fingering when the hand is positioned in an oblique way on the fingerboard, as on the violin. Chromatic fingering, as adopted from the bass gamba, shows a perpendicular position of the fingers on the fingerboard.

10. See Barnett, “The Violoncello”; Wissick, “The Cello Music”; Smit, “Towards a More”; Badiarov, “The Violoncello.” Illustrations, see http://violadabraccio.com/violin.pictures/details.php?image_id=576 and http://violadabraccio.com/violin.pictures/details.php?image_id=577

11. Only a handful of seventeenth-century images show bass violins held da gamba and played with overhand bow grip, though in his Harmonie universelle (Paris, 1636: IV, 185), Marin Mersenne indicates that “l'o n doit tousiours tirer l'archet en bas sur la premiere note de la mesure” (“on every first note of a measure, the bow should be pulled downward”), in fact describing an overhand bow grip.

12. See Quantz, trans. and ed. Edward R. Reilly, On Playing the Flute: 241: Quantz, Versuch, 212: “Wer auf dem Violoncell nicht nur accompagniret, sondern auch Solo spielet, thut sehr wohl, wenn er zwey besondere Instrumente hat; eines zu Solo, das andere zum Ripienspielen, bey großen Musiken. Das letztere muß größer, und mit dicken Saiten bezogen seyn, als das erstere. Wollte man mit einem kleinen und Schwach bezogenen Instrumente beydes verrichten; so würde das Accompagnement in einer zahlreichen Musik gar keine Wirkung thun. Der zum Ripienspielen bestimmte Bogen, muß auch starker, und mit schwarzen haaren, als von welchen die Saiten schärfer, als von den weißen, angegriffen werden, bezogen seyn” (ch. XVII, sec. IV, §1).

13. “Ittem un Violon de Estayner con su Caja en mil y quinienttos Reales-/Ittem un Violon Chico con su Caja en doscientos Reale,” see Tortella, Boccherini: 265–267; see also Kory, “Boccherini.”

14. “Der hervorragende Violoncello, die Bassa Viola und Viola di Spala, sind kleine Bass-Geigen in Vergleichung der grössern mit 5 auch wol 6. Sayten worauff man mit leichterer Arbeit als auff grossen Machinen allerhand geschwinde Sachen, Variationes und Manieren machen kan insonderheit hat die Viola di Spala, oder Schulter-Viole einen grossen Effect beym Accompagnement, weil sie starck durchschneiden und die Tohne rein exprimiren kan. Ein Bass kan nimmer distincter und deutlicher herausgebracht werden als auff diesem Instrument. Es wird mit einem Bande an der Brust befestigt und gleichsam auff die rechte Schulter geworffen, hat also nichts dass seinem Resonantz im geringsten aufhält oder verhindert.” Mattheson, Das Neu-eröffnete: 285–286

15. See Bonta, “Terminology”: 6, and 40–42; and Vanscheeuwijck, “Baroque Cello”: 80–86. Illustration, see http://www.greatbassviol.com/iconography/hont1.jpg

16. Mozart—Versuch: 3: “Die siebente Art heißt das Bassel oder Bassette, welches man, nach dem italiänischen Violoncello, das Violoncell nennet. Vor Zeiten hatte es 5. Seyten; itzt geigtman es nur mit vieren. Es ist das gemeinste Instrument den Baß damit zu spielen: und obwohl es einige etwas grössere, andere etwas kleinere giebt…”

17. Mozart, ibid., 3: “Die neunte Art ist die Gamba. Sie wird zwischen die Beine gehalten; daher es auch den Name hat: denn die Italiäner nennen es Viola di Gamba, das ist: Beingeige. Heut zu Tage wird auch das Violoncell zwischen die Beine genommen, und man kann es mit allem rechte auch eine Beingeige nennen.”

18. Vanscheeuwijck, Facsimile, score edition.

19. See also Vanscheeuwijck, “In Search.”

20. Probably written shortly before 1732 (see Vitali, “Un concerto”; Porpora's concerto can be situated stylistically as an early representative of the new galant style. It is not particularly challenging technically, and it certainly does not display the dense ornamentation of Tartini's concertos, but its range is very similar to Tartini's works: notated almost exclusively in tenor clef (C4), the solo part is mainly contained within the G–a' ambitus, with one short extension in a fast scalar passage down to C (Allegro, m. 32), and two brief ventures above a' (to b' in the same Allegro, m. 8) and even to c” (final Allegro, mm. 67–70). In this case, too, I would strongly advocate for a performance on a five-string instrument tuned C-G-d-a-e' [or d']), because in that case most passagework would occur in first position on the three upper strings. In fact, given the range of the piece, the presence of a C string is not absolutely indispensable: like so many works of Neapolitan composers, the piece dwells primarily in the tenor and alto registers of the instrument. The resonance of the instrument is excellent even on the highest pitches. These two examples make a convincing case, I believe, for the use of the most appropriate number of strings and type of tuning, based on the requirements of the repertory at hand. Illustration of Vandini, see http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/ppr&CISOPTR=2986&REC=1

21. The musical archives in Wiesentheid (between Würzburg and Nuremberg) contain hundreds of compositions for cello and basso continuo (sonatas) or for cello solo and strings (concertos), in fact, the largest collection of compositions for cello in Europe, dating from the first three quarters of the eighteenth century by composers active in Wiesentheid (Platti), or by others who were either loosely affiliated with the court or neighboring courts (Reichenauer, Guretzky, Zani, Hasse) or whose music was collected by the count's musicians. For example, Franz Horneck was sent to Venice in 1708–1709 by the count to collect cello music for his amateur cellist brother Rudolf Franz Erwein von Schönborn. Also, Vivaldi had some correspondence in 1711 and 1712 with one von Regaznig, merchant from Mainz and ambassador in Venice, who was also in charge of finding instrumental music for the Schönborn cellist. This explains why so many Vivaldi sonatas and concertos are extant in the Wiesentheid archives.

22. Antonio Maria Bononcini's sonatas tell the same kind of story. The range of most compositions advocates for a five-string instrument (or for several of them even a four-string violoncello, tuned G-d-a-e'), as Lindgren explains (see preface to Antonio Bononcini: complete Sonatas, xv–xvi). However, I would point out that if the cellist uses an instrument smaller than the modern “Baroque” cello—played da gamba or da braccio (see also Wissick, “Cello Music”), the use of thumb position for certain doubled stops (-c' or b-c#') becomes superfluous, since a slight extension of the left hand will suffice. On the other hand, Carlo Graziani's sonatas come technically closer to a Boccherinian treatment of the instrument, his works having been published roughly between 1760 and 1780 (see Parker, “Introduction”). However, given the types of arpeggios and double stops, here, too, I would strongly advocate the use of a five-string instrument.

23. The composition used to belong to the Fürstliche Bibliothek in Bückeburg and was transferred to Silesia during World War II. The autograph has been considered lost since April 1945, but there is a 1905 edition in the Collection Litolff (transposed into D major), which permitted a reconstruction to its original key (see Stefan Fuchs's 2007 edition, Mainz: Schott Music GmBH and Co. KG: Cello Bibliothek 184, Vorwort). In its original key, the sonata works ideally on a four-string cello tuned G-d-a-d'). See Vanscheeuwijck, “Recent.”

24. The few exceptions include engravings of Crispijn de Passe (1612), Bernard Picart (1701), and Nicola Cosimi (1702). Illustration, see http://www.vanedwards.co.uk/month/jan01/month.htm

25. Let us not forget that all tunings that difer from the “normal” C-G-d-a tuning are referred to as scordatura or discordato, literally meaning “out of tune,” a description that began to be used as soon as a standard tuning was perceived as such, later in the century. See Segerman, “The Name.” Although the C-G-d-g tuning was certainly not uncommon in the seventeenth century, Luigi Taglietti (in Brescia), in his Suonate da camera A’ Tre due Violini, e Violoncello, con alcune aggiunte à Violoncello solo…, Op. 1 (Bologna: Silvani, 1697), adds “Discordatura” over the four notes of the tuning (C-G-d-g) he provides on a Capriccio à Violoncello solo, though this is only by comparison to all the other capricci, which are in the C-G-d-a tuning.

26. See Bonta, “Terminology”: 6.

27. See Bonta, “From Violone”: 98–99.

28. In her article “The Cello,” Neece concludes that “Bass violin indicated the cello's place in the violin family, violoncello signaled the arrival of Italian cellists who brought both instruments and terminology with them, and bass viol demonstrated the cello's similarities (rather than kinship) to the viola da gamba and usually referred to church cellos” (p. 89).

29. Mersenne, Harmonie IV: 184–185.

30. Zacconi, Prattica IV: 218; Banchieri, Conclusioni: 53–54, and L'organo suonarino: 43; Praetorius, Syntagma II: 25–26, 48 and Sciagraphia XXI. See Vanscheeuwijck, “The Baroque Cello.”

31. See Bonta, “Corelli”: 220, and Vanscheeuwijck, ibid.

32. Bartolomeo Bismantova, Compendio musicale, Ms. Ferrara, 1677 and 1694, (facsimile ed., Florence: S.P.E.S., 1983, p. [119]): “Il Violoncello da Spalla alla moderna s'accorda in quinta, salvo che il Basso che in vece d'accordarlo in C sol fa ut, bisognerà accordarlo in D la sol re, e questo si fa p[er] la commodità del Suonatore, ma però si può ancora accordare in C sol fa ut.”

33. Composers include Pirro Albergati Capacelli, Giovanni Battista and Pietro Degli Antonii, Attilio Ottavio Ariosti, F. C. Belisi, Bartolomeo Bernardi, Giovanni Bononcini, Giovanni Battista Borri, Giovanni Paolo Colonna, Bartolomeo Laurenti, Ferdinando Antonio Lazzari, Giacomo Antonio Perti, Domenico Gabrielli, Giuseppe Maria Jacchini, Giuseppe Torelli (all active in Bologna); Giovanni Maria Bononcini and Tommaso Antonio Vitali in Modena, Giuseppe Cattaneo (Lodi), Elia Vannini (Ravenna), Angelo Maria Fiorè (Milan), Giulio and Luigi Taglietti (Brescia); and Antonio Caldara and Benedetto Marcello in Venice.

34. Baroncini, “Contributo.”

35. See Morton, “The Early History.”

36. See illustration at http://www.greatbassviol.com/iconography/basc3.jpg

37. On orchestras in Rome before and under Corelli, see note 40. On music in Bologna, see Vanscheeuwijck, The Cappella: 222–227 and 279–297.

38. See Maunder, The Scoring, and Parrott, The Essential Bach.

39. In his various solo pieces for violone preserved in manuscript at the Biblioteca Estense in Modena, Colombi constantly used ₁, but an oddity appears in his Op. 4 Sonate à 2 violini con un bassetto viola se piace (Bologna, 1676) where the range is also ₁-e', thus practically invalidating my theory that bassetto would preferably indicate a small bass violin, unless in Modena the situation was similar to that of the bass violin in Britain (see the introductory section of “The Violoncello in the Seventeenth Century” in this chapter above). Also, Galli's Trattenimenti (1691) are written for “violoncello” and use the same low tuning.

40. See Hansell, “Orchestral Practice”; Jander, “Concerto Grosso”; Marx, “Die Musik am Hofew.”

41. A long list of composers’ names includes (among others), in alphabetical order, Albergati, Albinoni, Aldrovandini, Alli Macarini, P. degli Antonii, Baldassini, Bassani, Bellinzani, Bernardi, G. M. Bononcini, Caldara, Cazzati, Colombi, Colonna (as a sixteen-foot double bass), Corelli, Franchi, C. Grossi, Legrenzi (who often uses viola da brazzo), Leonarda, Merula, Migali, Milanta, Monteverdi, Natale, Passarini, Penna, Prattichista, Predieri, Ravenscroft, Reina, Silvani, de Stefanis, Stiava, Tarditi, Torelli (as a sixteen-foot double bass), Uccellini, Urio, Valentini, Veracini, and G. B. Vitali. See also Schmid, “Der Violone.”

42. For illustrations, see http://www.greatbassviol.com/iconography/claesz.jpg, but also http://www.greatbassviol.com/iconography/molenaer.jpg and http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/ppr&CISOPTR=815&REC=3

43. Although Cowling, The Cello: 60–61, already suggested some of this, it is only recently that such cellists as Bruno Cocset, Roel Dieltiens, Christophe Coin, and Gaetano Nasillo, and violinists/viola da spalla players Sigiswald Kuijken, Ryo Terakado, Makoto Akatsu, Giulio d'Alessio, Dmitry Badiarov, Lambert Smit, and others, have at last started to turn theory into practice.

44. Naturally, their approach to the violoncello and its technique has its most famous predecessors in the methods of Michel Corrette (1741) and François Cupis le jeune (1772).

45. These include Pierre-Hyacinthe Azaïs, Joseph Bonaventure Tillière, Jean-Baptiste-Aimé-Joseph Janson, Jean-Baptiste-Sébastien Bréval, Pierre-François-Olivier Aubert, Jean-Henri Levasseur, Jean-Marie Raoul. See also Campbell, “Masters”; Walden, “Technique”; Walden, One Hundred; and Milliot, “Le violoncelle.”

46. Many players and scholars have claimed that there is ample proof that the thumb position was used before Corrette (by, for example, Scipriani, Alborea, Lanzetti, and others), but if one plays these sonatas with an additional d'-string or in some cases with a four-string instrument tuned G-d-a-d', there is absolutely no need for thumb position. This element of cello technique, indeed first described in 1741, became necessary only when the semi-standardized four-string instrument tuned C-G-d-a became accepted as “the” cello.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A substantial bibliography and list of images are available on http://www.greatbassviol.com/home.html, and a good source for iconography is http://violadabraccio.com/violin.pictures/index.php. This site is often down for maintenance; their new homepage (http://badiarovviolins.com/badiarov-violins/Home.html) will get you anywhere in the system.

Primary Sources

Banchieri, Conclusioni; Banchieri, L'organo; Bismantova, Compendio; Corrette, Methode; Mattheson, Neu-eröffnete; Mersenne, Harmonie; Mozart, Versuch; Praetorius, Syntagma; Quantz, Versuch; Zacconi, Prattica; Zannetti; Il scolaro

Secondary Sources

Badiarov, “Violoncello”; Barnett, “Violoncello”; Baroncini, “Contributo”; Bonta, “From Violone”; Bonta, “Terminology”; Bonta, “Corelli's”; Borgir, Performance; Campbell, “Masters”; Cowling, Cello; Dangel-Hofmann, Musikalien; Hansell, “Orchestral”; Holman, Four; Jander, “Concerto”; Kory, “Wider”; Kory, “Boccherini”; Kory, “Significance”; La Via, “Violone”; Lindgren, “Preface”; Marx, “Musik”; Maunder, Scoring; Milliot, “Violoncelle”; Morton, “Early”; Neece, “Cello”; Parker, “Introduction”; Parrott, Bach; Planyavsky, Baroque; Russell, “New”; Schmid, “Violone”; Smit, “Towards”; Tortella, Boccherini; Vanscheeuwijck, “Baroque”; Vanscheeuwijck, Cappella; Vanscheeuwijck, “Facsimile”; Vanscheeuwijck, “Search”; Vitali, “Un concerto”; Walden, One Hundred; Walden, “Technique”; Wissick, “Cello.”

Works List

Below are some URLs for places to obtain facsimiles and some modern editions of most of what is mentioned in the text above. One of these is the URL of the Gaspari catalog in Bologna, which contains microfilm numbers for ordering all of that music; there are other useful digitalization projects and sheet music online resources as well.

BOLOGNA

Museo Internazionale e Biblioteca della Musica. In the Gaspari catalog, microfilm numbers are mentioned and can easily be ordered at:

http://badigit.comune.bologna.it/cmbm/gaspari/html/index.htm

DRESDEN

Landesbibliothek. Digital sources of music at the Dresdner Hofkapelle can be found at:

http://digital.slub-dresden.de/sammlungen/kollektionen/?tx_slubdigitallibrary%5Bcoll%5D=93&cHash=b9b9313ced

VARIOUS ITALIAN LIBRARIES

Large Italian digitalization project

http://www.internetculturale.it/genera.jsp?s=405&l=en#

BEST SOURCE FOR FACSIMILES IN THE UNITED STATES

http://www.omifacsimiles.com/index.html

S.P.E.S. FACSIMILES