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.
Godofredo
David W. Fenton wrote:
On 4 Mar 2005 at 9:07, John Howell wrote:
[]
IIRC, there is also a low B in Brandenburg 3, but that may have been
intended for a six-string violone.
I with I had a score at hand to check this, but it seems kinda
questionable. Could somebody check and report back to us? While bass
tuning was and is the least standardized in the string family, I
believe the violone was tuned an octave below the bass viola da gamba,
which would take it down to a low D, a whole step below the low E of
the "normal" bass violin, but nowhere near a low B. The lowest note
I've seen throughout Bach's work is low C, the lowest note of the
cello in standard tuning and the lowest note available on the organ
keyboard. (This is entirely separate from the question of the
original, intended pitch for the Weimar cantatas, which is a very
special case.)
NYU is about to take delivery of a new violone. I really know not
much of anything about it, but I do know that it has a low A string
(I don't know if it is 6 strings, A to A or what, or if it's a 7-
string instrument).
Also, keep in mind that Bach's gamba sonatas assumed a 7-string gamba
with a low A string (because two of the three sonatas require low B),
so if the violones were an octave below this 7-string instrument,
then they'd also have a low A string (regardless of what strings they
had above it).
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