I am by no means an expert, but the term violone is used for various instruments, including the cello itself (see for instance Corelli's violin sonatas original title), but was also in wide use for a double bass instrument. A violone could be an 8' or 16' instrument, or a mixture of both (the "G-violone").
Once again, terminology can be a trap. Corelli's church sonatas--at least some of the published ones, I believe--specify violone OR organ, if memory serves. I believe he distinguished carefully between 8' and 16' instruments, but I also believe that he would have worked with whichever 16' instrument was available at the time. Corelli was the third major 17th century composer (although probably not the only one) to specifiy the 16' instruments, after Monteverdi and Schuetz. To apply the term to cello would be so unusual as to be highly questionable, in my humble opinion. And it's easy to forget that he wrote for immediate use with players he knew and worked with every day, not for abstract publication.
David's definition of the violone as the contrabass of the viol family is exactly correct in modern usage, much as fortepiano has become the accepted term for the pre-metal-bracing forms of the piano. Confusion of terminology during the first century 16' instruments were being integrated into the instrumentarium would not surprise me a bit. In fact I would expect it.
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 [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
