Some pieces of iconography compared

…and our video is up!

Sometimes you see things differently just because you put them in a different order, like some games of cards. While deciding the order of my slides for this week’s presentation, I noticed something new for me.

This painting is too old for wound strings, the “bass” is a bass, but no idea on how it is tuned. However, being the bridge so low at the bottom of the ff cuts on all three instruments, it’s scale seems to be the double of the violin, and the viola 2/3 of it, so a tenor tuning is certainly plausible.

By the way, wasn’t tenor the lower voice at the beginning?

Same situation as before, a nice da braccio family ensemble. Here the bass looks a bit longer, but we don’t have the bridge marked, so it’s hard to guess a tuning. I love their playing position and the similarity with the Bruegel painting. But here the bass has a long neck!

Again the same kind of ensemble, somehow I never noticed the viola and violin before! Here many details are distorted, so even if we could say that the bass is the double length of the viola, who can really tell. The bass here has short neck and looks big compared to the man, as big as the previous one.

I don’t know anything about this source, the provenience, the context of the scene, and why it was dated XVIII century and not XVII. The clothes fashion maybe? I would appreciate comments and suggestions.

Find out more about this stunning iconography source here

---

Updates from our workshop and featured video of the week

Our video is out!🤩 We have to admit we are proud of it and grateful to the wonderful people that worked hard with us to make it possible. It is out on YouTube since last weekend. It had moving comments on socials like:

“I can’t stop watching it”

“I got chills when the vocalist started her part. Lovely!”

“This is the absolute good, the hardworking genius, Heaven. What happened in my city last week is hell on earth.” (Eurocontest is what happened in Turin last week)

“This is pure poetry”

“Magic. So much peace and harmony in these troubled times.”

“Magnificent instrument with a wonderful voice for an excellent work and singing”

You may like to watch it, or to watch it once again if you already did.