On Mar 4, 2005, at 4:25 PM, Godofredo Romero wrote:
Taken from Cecil Forsyth' book on orchestration "The name Violone, i.e "big Viola, was given to the Double-Bass, and in accordance with the accurate if somewhat limited principles of the Italian laguage, the intermediate instrument was christened, Red-Indian-fashion, "little big Viola, " Violoncello". It's a four stringed instrument.
Forsyth wrote in 1914, and his information is totally outdated. The name violone was applied to the original bass of the violin family (Fr.: basse de violons), wh. was tuned like the cello but had a longer neck and never played above first position. The cello was developed ca. 1660 as a soloist's version of the violone, and was called violoncello because of its shorter neck. Eventually, of course, the vc. took over from the older instrument completely.
Unless my memory is completely faulty, the three instruments of the viola da braccia family in sizes equivalent to the violin, viola and cello are clearly illustrated in Agricola (1529), although I'm not sure whether they are illustrated in Virdung (1511). It is very clear in the score to Monteverdi's "L'Orfeo" (1607) that the bottom line of the 5-part violin "band" was a cello-range instrument. One assumes that the bass size instrument in the "24 Violins of the King" was a cello-sized instrument. Yes, Praetorius shows a "bass cello" (for want of an accepted term) and it was clearly one version of the bass viola da braccio in the 1610s, but while something may have happened around 1660 it clearly was not the invention of the cello as a new instrument.
About this same time (ca. 1700) the cb, wh. previously had served only to support the basses in church choirs, began to appear in the orchestra, and the name violone was transferred to it. NB: there was no 16' voice in the orchestras of Lully or Corelli.
Again, I must cite Monteverdi's use of both contrabass violin and contrabass viol in 1607 as well as a 16' instrument (of whichever family but most likely the viols) in the music of Schuetz, and Corelli's preference for contrabass in some of his church sonatas. 1700 is MUCH too late as the terminus ante quem for the use of the contrabass in ensembles, unless you are arguing that the orchestra itself didn't develop until c. 1700.
One more point on the word "violone." Back in the pre-cello period, the same word was used indifferently for low-pitched gambas as well, and instruments of either type could appear in the continuo section of 17th-c. orchestras.
On that we can certainly agree.
All this info comes from _The Birth of the Orchestra_, wh. I have mentioned frequently here and wh. I strongly recommend to anyone interested in the subject.
I really do want to get and read this book, but if your quotations are accurate I would have to question the scholarship in advance. There is a very well-researched and well-written dissertation on the history of the cello which does not agree at all, accepts the cello as a 16th-century instrument (which it certainly was), and notes that it was during the 17th century that many cellists started to adopt the overhand violin bow position while viola da gambists retained the earlier underhand position.
John
-- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
