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Forsyth wrote in 1914, and his information is totally outdated.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.
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.
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.
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.
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/
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