Early families and tunings

Prelude to the birth of the Violoncello da Spalla

These days I was reviewing my notes from the lecture Mark Vanscheeuwijck gave in Bruneck last July. Starting from those notes, I’m sharing something hoping it will be helpful for further thoughts on our instrument’s history.

Violotto is viola with a suffix: -otto. Viol-ino is a little viola, Viol-one is a very big viola, Violon-cello is a violone but little and cute, Viol-otto suggests a viola a bit big and goofy, but in a cute way. A teddy bear in Italian is an orsacchiotto, orso (=bear) with the suffix -otto.

I’d like to discuss families and tuning versus terminology and function, presenting two sources.

The first is Philibert Jambe de Fer, Epitome musical des tons, sons et accords, Lyon 1556.

We call violes [da gamba] those that gentlemen, merchants and other men of virtues use to spend their time. […] The others are called violins and are those that are commonly used in the danceries, and for a good reason: because they are easier to tune, being the fifth is sweeter to the ear than the fourth. They are also easier to bring around, and this is a heavily necessary feature when you are conducting a wedding or a procession.

So it seems that the difference between the two families was not an organology matter but rather a function and context matter: violes were used by the high social classes, violins by professionals. Viols were played seating, violins standing.

These two well-known iconographies, BSIP 513 from early 16th century Netherlands and BSIP 2729  from 18th century France, show a family of violins da braccio at work.

Even if Praetorius in his Syntagma Musicum (Wittenberg 1618) divides precisely the two families de gamba and de bracio (even if with some intrusions, the organological characteristics of the two families are there), in iconography more than half of the instruments we see present specs of both families.

The second source I want to share is Adriano Banchieri, a page about how to tune the gut-stringed instruments in his L’organo suonarino (Venice, 1611)

Here it’s showed a family of viole da brazzo in which the bass is tuned G2D3A3E4, one octave below the violin, while tenor and alto are tuned in the same way, like today’s viola but with the low string in D instead of C (we are still strung with all gut here, no wound strings). The violin is tuned like today’s violin.

What M. V. points out here is that we shouldn’t call tenor an instrument tuned one octave below the violin, as for Renaissance registers names, the G2 is a bass note, not a tenor.

To us, what matters is that the function of a bass violin tuned as our first four strings is that of a bass, not that of a tenor. With Jambe de Fer's description in mind, we can assume that at the beginning of the 17th century the violin family had a bass instrument that was played standing, not seated, was tuned one octave below the violin, had four strings, and (as wound strings were not available yet), was big at least twice as a violin.

Later, when overspun strings were invented, they could “shorten” that instrument, or simply tune lower the tenors they already had, to be more agile (both in playing than in moving, marching, conducting dances or whatever other professional duties required).

This Violoncello da Spalla was made by Johann Wagner around 1750 and is the only instrument we know so far coming to us with its original neck, not altered, five strings, and signs of wear only of da Spalla playing. It’s also shorter than the usual Violoncello da Spalla of today, nevertheless, it has a warm sound that projects well. Isn’t this exciting?

We are the only ones offering a copy of it so far. If you like to try it, get in touch!

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Updates from our workshop

We’re finally both at home and at work. This week Alessandro worked on his big Gasparo viola while I was still at the seaside with my mother. On the way back, I stopped in Genova at the workshop of my good friend and bow maker Antonino Airenti for a quick lunch on the bench! Sharing pizza with us banjoist and maker Silvio Ferretti and luthier Alessandro Lowenberger.

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Featured video of the week

Do you remember, two weeks ago, we mentioned Kai, the young student of Toshihiko Amano, who managed to play all of Bach’s sixth cello suites in one month? Here is a video resume about his first month with his Violoncello da Spalla: