Bass violin
Encyclopedia
Violin family
The violin family of musical instruments was developed in Italy in the sixteenth century. The standard modern violin family consists of the violin, viola, cello, and double bass....
(i.e. "viola da braccio") family. They were the direct ancestor of the modern cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
. Bass violins were usually somewhat larger than the modern cello, but tuned the same or sometimes just one step lower than it. Contemporary names for these instruments include "basso de viola da braccio," "basso da braccio," or the generic term "violone
Violone
The term violone can refer to several distinct large, bowed musical instruments which belong to either the viol or violin family. The violone is sometimes a fretted instrument, and may have six, five, four, or even only three strings. The violone is also not always a contrabass instrument...
," which simply meant "large fiddle." The instrument differed from the violone of the viol
Viol
The viol is any one of a family of bowed, fretted and stringed musical instruments developed in the mid-late 15th century and used primarily in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The family is related to and descends primarily from the Renaissance vihuela, a plucked instrument that preceded the...
, or "viola da gamba" family in that like the other violins it had at first three, and later usually four strings, as opposed to five, six, or seven strings, it was tuned in fifths, and it had no frets. With its F-holes and stylized C-bouts it also more closely resembled the viola da braccio. Because it was created to be in consort with the violin and viola, the bass violin was a member of the violin, or viola da braccio family
Violin family
The violin family of musical instruments was developed in Italy in the sixteenth century. The standard modern violin family consists of the violin, viola, cello, and double bass....
.
The name "bass violin" is also sometimes used for the double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
.
Occasionally historians have used the term "bass violin" to refer other various instruments of the violin family which were larger than the alto violin or viola
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
, such as the tenor violin
Tenor violin
A tenor violin is an instrument with a range between those of the cello and the viola. An earlier development of the evolution of the violin family of instruments, the instrument is not standard in the modern symphony orchestra...
. This use can be synonymous with "harmony violin."
After the 1950s, the term "bass violin" may refer to a bass instrument of the violin octet
Violin octet
The violin octet is a family of stringed instruments developed in the 20th century primarily under the direction of the American luthier Carleen Hutchins. Each instrument is based directly on the traditional violin and shares its acoustical properties, with the goal of a richer and more homogeneous...
.
History and development
Amati
Amati is the name of a family of Italian violin makers, who flourished at Cremona from about 1549 to 1740.-Andrea Amati:Andrea Amati was not the earliest maker of violins whose instruments still survive today...
, as early as 1538. The first specific reference to the instrument was probably made by Jambe de Fer
Philibert Jambe de Fer
Philibert Jambe de Fer was a French Renaissance composer of religious music.This composer is only known from his publications. The first known publication is a chanson for 4 voices , which dates from 1548. It appeared in print in Lyon, just like his last known composition...
in his treatise Epitome Musical (1556). One of the first known instances of a composer explicitly calling for the bass violin ("basso da brazzo") was Monteverdi
Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...
in Orfeo (1607) (the first was possibly Giovanni Gabrieli
Giovanni Gabrieli
Giovanni Gabrieli was an Italian composer and organist. He was one of the most influential musicians of his time, and represents the culmination of the style of the Venetian School, at the time of the shift from Renaissance to Baroque idioms.-Biography:Gabrieli was born in Venice...
in Sacrae symphoniae, 1597).
The viol
Viol
The viol is any one of a family of bowed, fretted and stringed musical instruments developed in the mid-late 15th century and used primarily in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The family is related to and descends primarily from the Renaissance vihuela, a plucked instrument that preceded the...
, or viola da gamba, was introduced to Italy from Spain around 1490. Before the introduction of the viol, no bowed instrument existed in the region which was played in the a gamba position (i.e., between the legs, the way the cello is played today, as opposed to the violin, which is held under the chin). The viola da gamba was also much larger, and therefore could play much lower notes than the other fiddles that existed in Italy at that time. The first Italian viols (or "violoni" as they were often called) soon began to take on many characteristics of the pre-cursors to the violin, such as separate tail pieces, and arched bridges that allowed to player to sound only one string at a time. (Though paintings like Jan Brueghel the Elder
Jan Brueghel the Elder
Jan Brueghel the Elder was a Flemish painter, son of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and father of Jan Brueghel the Younger. Nicknamed "Velvet" Brueghel, "Flower" Brueghel, and "Paradise" Brueghel, of which the latter two were derived from his floral still lifes which were his favored subjects, while the...
's "The Rustic Wedding" and Jambe de Fer in Epitome Musical suggest that the bass violin had alternate playing positions, these were short-lived and the more practical and ergonomic a gamba position eventually replaced them entirely.) One of the qualities that was almost certainly adopted by the Italian violin makers from the early Spanish viols was the C-bout, which they soon stylized. At some point in the early to mid-sixteenth century, an Italian maker (possibly Amati) set out to create a violone that was more closely matched, in appearance, tuning, and number of strings, to the new violin. Judging by artistic representations of the period, this may have been a somewhat gradual development. For example, there are depictions of instruments that appear to be bass violins (such as the one in Gaudenzio Ferrari
Gaudenzio Ferrari
Gaudenzio Ferrari was a Northern Italian painter and sculptor of the Renaissance.-Biography:Gaudenzio was born at Valduggia in the Valsesia in the Duchy of Milan. Valduggia is now in the Province of Vercelli in Piedmont. He is said to have first learned the art of painting at Vercelli from...
's Glory of Angels, c. 1535), but that clearly show the presence of frets. Once the distinction became clear, and the form of the bass violin had crystallized, theorists and composers began to refer to the new instrument as the "basso da viola da braccio," or the first true bass violin.
Innovations in the design of the bass violin that ultimately resulted in the modern violoncello were made in northern Italy in the late 17th century. They involved a shift to a slightly smaller type and the higher tuning in A3-D3-G2-C2 (although Michael Praetorius
Michael Praetorius
Michael Praetorius was a German composer, organist, and music theorist. He was one of the most versatile composers of his age, being particularly significant in the development of musical forms based on Protestant hymns, many of which reflect an effort to make better the relationship between...
already had reported this tuning for the bass violin in his Syntagma Musicum (c. 1619). It has been surmised that an early centre of these innovations lay in musical circles of Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
, and that it was made possible by the invention of the new technique of composite string
Strings (music)
A string is the vibrating element that produces sound in string instruments, such as the guitar, harp, piano, and members of the violin family. Strings are lengths of a flexible material kept under tension so that they may vibrate freely, but controllably. Strings may be "plain"...
s of gut wound with metal. The new type found its ultimate consolidation and standardisation in works of the famous violin builder Antonio Stradivari
Antonio Stradivari
Antonio Stradivari was an Italian luthier and a crafter of string instruments such as violins, cellos, guitars, violas, and harps. Stradivari is generally considered the most significant artisan in this field. The Latinized form of his surname, Stradivarius, as well as the colloquial, "Strad", is...
around 1700. Many existing bass violins were literally cut down in size in order to convert them into cellos. The new, smaller type was also linked to the new name of violoncello, a hypocoristic
Hypocoristic
A hypocorism is a shorter form of a word or given name, for example, when used in more intimate situations as a nickname or term of endearment.- Derivation :Hypocorisms are often generated as:...
form of the older term violone, meaning literally "small violone" (i.e., ultimately, "small large viola"). The bass violin remained the "most used" instrument of the two in England as late as c1740, where the violoncello was still "not common."
Articles
- The term Violone and the early history of the bass violin — 2004 article from The Online Journal of Bass Research 2
- Bach's Violone: a 16' double bass of sorts or a 8' C-G-d-a bass fiddle?
- Article
