The Violone in Bach's Brandenburg Concerti

Author(s): Jon W. Finson

Source: The Galpin Society Journal, Vol. 29 (May, 1976), pp. 105-111
Published by: Galpin Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/841865
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 7

PLATE X
(seep. 109)
A hiighlydetailedviolonefroutiGabinettoArmioniicoby FilippoBoniauuiii.
Confjhsioncausedby thepecuiliar is resolvedin Bonanni'stext
strinigitng
 JON W. FINSON

The Violone in Bach's

Brandenburg Concerti
N the first page of Bach's Ist BrandenburgConcerto in the copy,
dated 1721, presentedto the Margraveof Brandenburg,Bach has
written in his own hand beside the bottom line: Continuoe Violono
groflo.'The questionof the Violonogrofio, or violoneasit is calledthrough-
out the presentationcopy-its shape,size, number of strings,and tuning
-has been mentioned in several studies2but not approacheddirectly.
The problem is largely due to the eighteenth century's relatively wide
definition of the term violone3and in partto Bach'svaried usage (violono
groflo, violone,violon).Nonetheless, the solution is found in a range of
plausibility bounded on the one hand by the technical demands
of Bach'swriting and on the other by the definitions,descriptions,and
illustrationsfound in contemporaryorganological sources.
The violoneappearsin the presentationcopy of the score either as
part of the continuo (Concertos I, 3, and 6) or as a member of the
ripieno (Nos. 2, 4, 5). No matter the exact name (violonogrofo or
violone)or the grouping, the technical demands of the part are much
the same in each concerto. The violone, where it plays, essentially
doubles the violoncello note for note. It seems improbable that Bach
would have written an extra part for an instrumentwhich doubled the
'cello line in the same octave, and it appears more logical that the
violoneline is notated with the assumptionthat it will automaticallybe
transposeddown an octave, as still with contra parts in the orchestra
today. With this understanding,a detailed survey of soundingpitch in
Bach's writing reveals that e is the highest pitch common to all the
violonelines, and CC (C') is the lowest pitch generally found.4
The modern instrument most likely to fit these demands is the
'string bass', but the four-stringed double bass, commonly tuned
EE AA D G, cannot match the range needed to play Bach's partswith
sufficientfacility. Nor are various methods of scordatura satisfactory.A
tuning of CC AA D G (in other words, lowering the EE string a major
third) to accommodate the low range of Bach's writing seems imprac-
tical for rapid passagework like that in Ex. I. With such a tuning, all
pitches below AA must be played on one string, leading to a violent
series of leaps up and down the fingerboard to accomplish scales and

I05
string crossings.Clearly, the technicaldemandsof Bach's violone
writingexcludeopenstringstunedmorethana fourthapart.Use of a
'C extension',a nineteenth-centurymechanicaldevice which allows
theplayerto soundpitchesbelowthenormalEEby manipulating levers,
alsoprovesinadequate for theexecutionof passageslikeEx. i in tempo.
Transposingpitchesbelow EE an octavehigherseriouslydamages
part-writingas in Ex. I and2.

EX. I 1st BrandenburgConcerto,3rd movement,bars71-2

yE i
2p pBI 1 I't o 6

t. Concerto,
r dmovement,
Brandenburg bars
Concerto,3rdmovement,barsI o-i 6
EX.2 Ist Brandenburg

Transpositionof whole passagesup an octave removes the solid foun-

ation of tone which Bach evidently intended to rest an octave below
the 'cello. If we tune the whole four-stringedbass down a major third
(to CC FF BBb Eb, an odd tuning at any rate), passages like that in
Ex. 3 must be played at the end of the fingerboard where speed and
accuracy are notoriously difficult and rarely achieved.

a
ALLEGRO

I T I- I

9:t $ I
Xm tW
EX. Concerto,3rdmovement,bars1-3
3 3rdBrandenburg

Bach'swritingseemsto indicatethat a fifth stringis neededfor the

low rangeof his violoneparts.
The composer'sdemandsin the high rangearealsoproblematicon
the moderncontrabass.Ex. 3 showsanimitativeentrancefromthe 3rd
Concerto,partof a fughettasectionbeginningin the violins.On a bass
io6
tuned EEAA D G the performermust vault up and down the top string.
In most modern performances this important imitation is unclear,
inaudible, or missing entirely in the lowest part. The problem of
high rangecan be solved in the sameway aswas that of the low: addition
of a string, bringing the total to six.
Bach's technical demands on the violone indicate an instrument
appropriate to both continuo and ripieno situations; an instrument
similar to the modern contrabassbut possessinga facility of execution
over a somewhat wider range. His writing also argues strongly in
favour of an instrument with six strings. One of the first scholars to
point to an example of such an instrumentwas Terry, who reproduced
the violonepictured in Praetorius'sSciagraphia5 in his Bach'sOrchestra
(Plate Io). This would appear to fulfil the requisite criteria; the
instrument is a contrabassgamba with six strings. But, as Nicholas
Bessaraboffwrote,6 'Praetoriusis a most excellent authority, but his
data applies only to a certain period in the history of the viol. The
application of this data to a later period should be made with due
caution'.
If we searchamong lexicons and organologiesroughly contemporary
with the Brandenburgswe find a good number of referencesto the
violone.Brossardmentions the term in his Dictionnaire(1705), but his
definition is not specific as to number of strings or their tuning.7 Nor
is his information clear, for he is constantly comparing the violoneto
the Bassede Violon.Mattheson gives a less ambiguous description:8
Der brummendeViolone,Gall. Bassede Violon,Teutsch:GrosseBa-Geige,
ist vollenkommenzweymahl,jaofftmehrmahlso groBalsdie vorhergehenden
['cello],folglichsindauchdie Sayten,ihrenDickeundLangenach,a Proportion.
Ihr Ton ist sechzehnfiiBig, und ein wichtigesbiindigesFundament zu voll-
stimmigenSachen,als Chorenund dergleichen,nichtwenigerauchzu Arien
und so gar zum Recitativ auffdem Theatro hauptnotig,weil ihr dickerKlang
weiter hin summet und vernommenwird als des Claviersund anderer
bassirenden Instrumenten.
Clearly, Bach's use of the violonefits this descriptionof an instrument
sounding in the 6-foot registerand appropriatein both continuo and
ripieno situations. Mattheson's definition retained its validity until
at least 1732 when Majer repeated it almost word for word.9 Majer,
however, added significantly to Mattheson's description with the
words, 'Sie hat in allem 6. Saiten', and also with a picture of a violone
(Fig. I). Walther's Lexicon,published in the same year, confirms that
the violonewas a six-stringed instrument:10
Violone,pl. Violoni(ital.)Bassede Violon(gall.)eine GrosseBaB-Geigewird
alsogestimmt:G. C. F. A. d.g. oderauch:G. C. E. A. d.g. und gehetvom
contraG bis ins d. e.

I07
FIG. I FromJ.F. B. C. Majer'sMuseum Musicum (1732), a rathercrud
engravingof a violone
io8
Though we can say with some certainty that the violonewas usually
a six-stringed instrument in the first third of the eighteenth century,
we still lack a good visual representation(Majer'sis rather crude and
unscaled).A good picture is Plate 59 (Plate X) of Bonanni's Gabinetto
Armonico.1The number of strings in the engraving is at first unclear
(four, eight?), but there are six pegs, and Bonanni writes (p. ioi):
'... si chiama Violone, perch'e piu grande della Viola, ed ha sei corde,
con le quali si fa maggiore armonia, che nella Viola'. The scale of the
engraving can be judged approximately from the standing player.
We see here a double-bassviol of large proportions and easily capable
of sounding I6-foot pitches.
A comparison of this with Majer'sfigure raisesthe question of the
exact shape and size of the violonein Bach's time. Majer'sinstrument
is shaped like a violin and unfretted, but Bonanni's instrument is
shaped like a viol with frets. This conflicting information is reflected
in the three terms, violone (implying a large viol), Bafi-Geige(bass
fiddle), and violon. It would seem that violone,Bafi-Geige,and violon
did not serve to distinguish between instruments of the violin and
viol families any more than 'bass viol' and 'bass fiddle' do today.
Whether fiddle or viol-shaped, the instrument probably had frets, as
Quantz later maintainedwere necessaryfor a clear tone.'2 The size of
the instrumentalso cannot be ascertainedwith any precision. In order
to sound CC effectively it must have been a large instrument though
not as large as the basses discussed by Francis Baines13if the player
were to command the facility indicated by Bach's violoneparts.
There remains the problem of how the violone was tuned. The
clearest and most extensive account of the tuning of the six-stringed
violoneis in Eisel's MusicusAutodidaktos.'4 This describes two instru-
ments, a small violonetuned GG C F A d g, and a larger instrument
tuned DD GG C E A d. Neither tuning sufficesfor the low range of
Bach's part (though the first tuning helps to account for the tuning
given in Walther's definition above). A violonelike Eisel's second ex-
ample could be tuned a step lower and still maintain string tension. A
tuning of CC EE AA D G c or even BBB EE AA D G c is plausibleon
the second instrumentdescribed.
The violoneof Bach's Brandenburg Concertos can be found at the
intersection of the two sets of data which have been considered.
Bach's writing indicates a six-stringed instrument with a I6-foot
range, and contemporary lexicons and organologies indicate much
the same. The exact tuning, shape, and size of the violone,however,
cannot be determined. Bach continued to include the violone in his
orchestras,as we can read in his famous letter to the city fathers of

109
Leipzig about a 'wohlbestalltenKirchenMusik'.'5However, the nature
of his violonein the I730s can only be discovered by a study of those
parts together with a search through sources from the middle third
of the eighteenth century.
It is apparent that through the late I73os and into the I75os, six-
stringed 'violons' were increasingly abandoned in favour of four-
stringed instruments. Eisel mentioned a four-stringed bass in 1738
(p. 5I) and Quantz wrote extensively in approval of such an instru-
ment (p. 219):
Das Instrumentan sich, thut bessereWirkung,wenn es von mittelmiaBiger
GroBe,auchnicht mit fiinf, sonder mit vier Seytenbezogenist. Denn die
funfte Seyte muBte,wenn sie mit den andernin rechtemVerhaltenstehen
sollte,schwacherals die vierteseyn; und wurdefolglicheinenviel dunneren
Ton, alsdie andern,von sichgeben ... Der sogenanntedeutscheViolonvon
funf bis sechsSeyten,ist alsomit Recht abgeschaffet
worden.
About the same time Quantz published this (1752), Vincenzio Panerai
gives tunings for a 'contrabasso' which must have been the same as our
modern bass (tuned: EE AA D G).16 Bach's later writing for the
'violon' will have to be discussedin terms of Quantz and Panerai as
well as other sources.
The problem of the violone in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries will not admit broad, general solutions in ignorance of
technical demands of specific repertoires. Nor, given the range of
instruments to which the term 'violone' applies, can we insist on
absolute answers. Solutions, rather, must be evaluated by examining
their probability and their technical sufficiency.

NOTES
I JeanSebastienBach,Six Concerts/ Avecplusieurs
Instruments
/ Dediees/ A
SonAltesseRoyalle/ Monseigneur/ CretienLouis/ Marggrafde etc:
Brandenbourg
etc:etc:,DeutscheStaatsbibliothek,
Berlin,Am. B. 78 (facsimileNew York,
I950),fol. 2r.
2 In chronologicalorder the studiesinclude: C. SanfordTerry, Bach's
Orchestra,London, 1932; Adolf Meier, KonzertanteMusikfiir Kontrabass. . .
Giebing iiber Prien am Chiemsee, 1969, pp. 27-28; Alfred Planyavsky,
Geschichtedes Kontrabasses,
Tutzing, 1970, pp. 103-104; Francis Baines, 'Der
brummende Violone', G.S.J., XXIII, 1970, pp. 82-85.
3 Henry Burnetthas indicatedthe extent of this problemin his article,
'The Bowed StringInstrumentsof the BaroqueBassoContinuo(ca.I68o-
ca. I752)in ItalyandFrance',Journalof theViolada GainbaSocietyofAmerica,
VIII (I97I), pp. 29-59.
4 The 5th Concertocontainsoneff and the 6th Concertocontainstwo
BBBbs,one in measure45 andanotherin measureIIo of the lastmovement.
II0
Since there are only two BBBbsin all six Concertos, I think it safe to assume
that these may be transposedup an octave. Concertos Nos. 4 and 5 have DD
as their lowest pitch.
5 Michael Praetorius, TheatrumInstrumentorunt seu Sciagraphia,Wolffen-
biittel, I620 (facsimileNew York, I966), Plate VI.
6 N. Bessaraboff,AncientEuropeanMusical Instruments,Cambridge, Mass.,
1941, p. 361.
7 Sebastiande Brossard,Dictionnairede Musique..., 2nd ed., Paris, 1705
(facsimile Hilversum, 1965), p. 221.
8Johann Mattheson, Das Neu-EroffneteOrchestre. . ., Hamburg, 1713,
pp. 285-286.
9J. F. B. C. Majer, MuseumMusicum,Schwabisch Hall, 1732 (facsimile
Kassel, 1954), p. 80.
ioJohann Gottfried Walther, MusikalischesLexicon . . ., Leipzig, 1732,
p. 637.
I FilippoBonanni, GabinettoArmonicoPienod'Istromente sonori,Rome, 1722.
I2 Johann Joachim Quantz, VersucheinerAnweisungdie Flote traversiere zu
spielen,Berlin, 1752, p. 219.
13 F. Baines, 'Der brummende Violone', pp. 82-85.
14 Johann Phillip Eisel, MusicusAutodidaktos
..., Erfurt, 1738, pp. 47-5I.
I5 Werner Neuman and Hans-Joachim Schulze, ed., Schrifistuckevon der
Hand ohann SebastianBachs,Bach-Dokumente, v. I, Kassel, 1969, pp. 60-62.
i6 Vincenzio Panerai, Principjdi Musica Theorico-Pratici,Firenze, ca. 1750
(facsimileKassel, 1967), p. 7.

III