Bononcini

Brent Wissick's work in the Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music. Note 5.

Today, I learnt that the last gamba built in France was an eight string instrument made by Benoist Fleury in 1759 (or 1769 depending on how you interpret the label) - right around the time the cello was gaining prominence. A copy of it can be heard in a new recording of Rameau's Pieces de Clavecin en concert played by Ensemble Fleury. I was thinking about Louis Guersan and his pardessus viols  and thought I saw somewhere an instrument dated 1770.

Viol with cello characteristics.

In 1659 Christopher Simspon writes that viols suitable for playing divisions - a form of variation on a ground usually improvised by a master player - should have a sound that is quick and sprightly, like a violin. Viols which are built with their 'Bellyes being digged out of the Plank', he says, will normally have such a sound. This is an obvious concern for Simpson, at least for the purpose of virtuoso solo playing, and he seems to prefer the sound of the viol on the left, which is violin/cello - shaped, than on the right . Perhaps the consort viols, whose fronts were built from strips rather than carved from a plank, did not offer the type of sonority that Simpson wanted.

Below is the Alqhai brothers performing on Amati viol copies, playing a Corelli transcription. Note the violin characteristics of the instruments, including the 'F' shaped sound holes.

Jacob Stainer was another maker who made viols with a violin outline. Below is an example of an original, played by José Vázquez .

Picture. A print of what looks a like large early viol or bass violin being bowed overhand. Frets are barely visible.




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Cello with viol characteristics. The two instruments have never been very different from each other!

Underhand bow hold. Pictures.

Frets. Quantz? Bruno Cocset.

The story of the rivalry began with the advent of public concerts which became widespread in the eighteenth century. The Concert Spirituel in France began in 1725. Fifteen years later Hubert Le Blanc wrote his Defense de La Basse de Viole, upholding the viol against the pretence of the violin to superiority. While members of the nobility played the viol early on in the eighteenth century, only a handful of players - professional musicians -  played the viol at the turn of the nineteenth century. Soon the viol left the scene almost altogether and the rivalry between the two instruments was quickly forgotten. 

Since the revival of early music the general perception has been that the two instruments do not work well together. But well before Le Blanc's Defense, viol and cello had played side by side as can be seen in the works of Buxtehude, Ruhe, Charpentier, Handel and even J.S. Bach. Around the period of the Defense, composers began to produce music that can be played on either instrument. This programme aims to show that the viol and the cello could form an amiable partnership when their different characters are sensitively expressed by the composer and the player. 

Programme (with lecture)

Carl Friedrich Abel (1723 – 1787):  Sonata in E minor (first movement)

Michel Corrette (1707 – 1795): Sonata no. 6 in D major, Op. 20 (first movement)

Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (1689 – 1755): Sonata no. 3 in D minor, Op. 14:

Allemande - Lentement - Gigue

Johannes Schenck (1660–after 1712): Sonata no. 2 in A minor, Op. 9:

Adagio  - Corrente  - Vivace

The viola da gamba was used mainly as a solo instrument in the eighteenth century. Abel, one of the last celebrated performers on the viol, was admired for his expressive playing but he also gave performances on the cello. In France, where the viol had flourished in the early eighteenth century, the cello slowly gained ascendancy as composers began publishing music that could be played on either instrument and eventually wrote sonatas exclusively for the cello. Schenck, of Dutch extraction, worked in Düsseldorf and wrote some of the most demanding music for the viol. The final movement of his A minor sonata highlights the continuo string bass which is given a solo. 

Length: 50 - 55 mins.

Lecture requirements: Powerpoint. JPEG projections onto a screen.

Harpsichord at A = 415, 1/6 comma mean tone temperament. 

Two music stands. 

Three chairs, adjustable height preferred. 

Antonio Vandini

Charles Burney, 2nd August 1770: 'It was remarkable that Antonio (Vandini), and all the other  violoncellists here, hold the bow the old-fashioned way, with the hand under it'

Pieces that involve the use of bass viola da gamba with another bowed bass instrument.

Ruhe- Sonata for viola da gamba and violoncello
Charpentier- Sonate in 8 parts, which feature the gamba and cello accompanying each other's solo
Buxtehude- Sonata for viola da gamba, violone, continuo. If 'violone' is to be taken in its Italian sense such as in Corelli, the instrument referred to would probably be a bass violin or cello. G violone in Germany, but either way, an 8 ft instrument.
Corelli transcriptions- by implication, the tenor clef in the basso may indicate cello.
Bach- Brandenburg 6

More to follow..

From 'A Commentary on Le Blanc's Defense de La Viole', by Barbara Garvery Jackson, VdGSA Journal Volume 12.

'Here he feels the fretted instruments have a definite advantage in the playing of duets - that it is impossible for two cellists to play in tune with each other but that two gambists, so long as the strings are not false, can play beautifully in tune'

'He' is Hubert Le Blanc.

But what about one of each?

Composers in the eighteenth century began to be less specific about instrumentation. Here, Violoncelle is followed by Viole, Basson.

Abel with the Concerto Spirituale . Information also from 'Life After Death'. Note bow hold and Abel manoeuvring the cello like a viol to reach the low string.

Abel, by John Nixon (1787), entitled 'A Solo on the Viola da Gamba'. The instrument looks like a cello, with four pegs. In Peter Holman's book, 'Life After Death', we learn that Abel performed solos on the viol, but played bass lines on the cello in orchestras. He co-directed with J. C. Bach. When Abel directed, it was from the keyboard. When J. C. was directing, Abel played cello in the ensemble. Professional gambists at this stage - even the most famous - played and performed on the cello. Earlier on, Antoine Forqueray switched from the basse de violon to the viol and became one of its greatest  players. '..having had the honour of playing the basse de violon before the King (Louis XIV)..He ordered that he (Forqueray) should be taught to play the Bass viol...at present, one finds few who can equal him.' (Mercure galant, April 1682).

In a few weeks I'll be delivering a lecture recital about the relationship between the viol and the cello in the eighteenth century. I've decided to call it 'A forgotten rivalry'. I don't know if this blog will ever survive these first few lines, but I thought it would be good to try and at least use it as a place where my ideas and various bits and pieces could be stored and developed. Anyone interested can access the project and see it taking shape.

I will begin with some pictures which I'm aiming to include in the lecture. The first is Carl Friedrich Abel with a seven string bass gamba, by Thomas Gainsborough. The seventh string is used in at least one of his 27 unaccompanied pieces.