What is a basse de violon?
The nomenclature of the bass stringed instruments before the second half of the eighteenth century has been a complex topic that even today is a subject of disagreement among scholars. My research focuses mainly on the history of one of the types of bass violin in France. The most important string ensemble of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in France, the Vingt-quatre violons du Roi, contained during its lifetime at least three different types of bass violins similar to the cello. The first and oldest bass violin mentioned in that ensemble is the basse de violon à quatre cordes, the second, the basse de violon à cinque cordes and the third, the violoncelle. Regarding these different various basses, I focus mainly on the basse de violon à quatre cordes. The most exhaustive research on this instrument until now has been that of Gyongy Iren Erodi, The sixteenth century basse de violon: fact or fiction? Identification of the bass violin (1535-1635).1
The earliest illustration of a basse de violon is in Marin Mersenne´s Harmonie Universelle, contenant la Theorie et la pratique de la musique.2 Even though Mersenne´s depiction doesn´t specify the size of the instrument, he gives us an idea of what the size might have been by comparing it to the instruments that surround it. Until the eighteenth century, there wasn’t an established measurement for most bass instruments of the violin family. We can only speculate about the sizes of the basses de violon. This large bass instrument is the closest relative to the cello. Two main aspects separate these instruments, the first being its size and the second the tuning system. As we see in the depiction, this instrument has many characteristics that the cello will inherit. From the drawings and paintings of the time, we can appreciate that the instrument was strung with four strings. It normally had a fretless neck. Frets were sometimes used for learning purposes. The neck was shorter and more perpendicular than the neck of Stradavari’s 'forma B' cello. It had F-shaped holes in the middle and an especially large lower bouts. This broad base must have created a deep and round tone that was perfect for accompanying other instruments or singers. After all the alterations that these instruments have experienced, it is impossible to know how they might have sounded. In chapter five of my research, a discussion of extent instruments, I will explain in more detail the reasons behind the modifications and adjustments to these instruments and how these have affected the knowledge that we possess.
The name basse de violon comes directly from its function: to play the bass line within the violin family (violon in French). With the arrival of the Italian players in Lully´s orchestra, another type of basse de violon was added. This new instrument was fitted with five strings instead of four. The tuning system varies from one historical source to the other, but most of them agree that the instrument was tuned like a baroque cello, with an interval of a fourth between the two upper strings (C G D A d). The first player to introduce the basse de violon à cinque cords into the opera in France was Theobaldo di Gatti (c 1650-1727). In his Le Parnasse Français Du Tillet explains that Theobaldo was liked, not just by Lully, but by the public of the time:
Lully received him with much pleasure. He put him in his opera orchestra, having recognized his ability to play music on the basse de violon.3
This basse de violon à cinque cords covered a wider range as it had the additional string. This permitted the player a more comfortable usage of the instrument, in contrast to the clumsiness of playing the large-dimensioned, four stringed basse de violon. Neither did the basse de violon à cinque cords have fixed measurements. Looking at the depictions of the time, some of these instruments were as large as the other basses de violon, and some were smaller, similar to what is now a cello piccolo.
Which tuning systems had the basse de violon?
In several treatises of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth century (Agricola, Cerone, Lanfranco and Ganassi) we find instruments of the violin family with just three strings. Information regarding the basses is different. In the earliest treatise on music theory written in Italian, the Scintille di musica (1533), Giovanni Maria Lanfranco4 states specifically that the bass violin should have four strings rather than three:
but the viola da braccio e d'arco (his terminology for the violin family) [...] only has three strings except the bass which has four5
Lanfranco (1490-1545) does not specify the pitches of the instruments, only that the strings should be tuned a fifth apart. He clarifies that the top string of the basso should be in unison with the middle string of the tenore as well as with the bottom string of the soprano.6
Before Lanfranco´s Scintille, Agricola (1529)7 and Gerle (1532)8 specify in their writings the identical tuning for a three string violin: G d a. A few years later Ganassi (1543)9 and Zaconni (1592)10 also state that the lowest note of the violin is a G. If we take into account Lanfranco´s explanation of how to tune the bass violin, going from the top to the bottom in intervals of a fifth, is it safe to assume that the tuning for his basso is B' F c g? And is Lanfranco the first who ever mentions this tuning?
Some years later Quantz suggests that cellists should have two instruments, one for the bass lines and another for the solos:
Those who not only accompany on the violoncello but also play solos on it would do well to have two special instruments, one for solos, the other for ripieno parts in large ensembles. The latter must be larger and must be equipped with thicker strings than the former. If a small instrument with thin strings were employed for both types of parts, the accompaniment in a large ensemble would have no effect whatsoever.11
Was he writing about the French basse de violon? Quantz doesn´t specify the tunings, from which we might identify the instrument to which he was referring.
Three years after Lanfranco’s book, Jambe de Fer in his Epitome musical (1556)12, indicates the Bb’ tuning for the bass violin by naming the pitches. It is the first time the Bb’ tuning is specified. Jambe de Fer is also the first to call this bass violin “basse de violon”, indicating also that it has four strings.13 Agnes Kory says that Jambe de Fer’s French is not really clear. Agnes gives the English translation made by Tatiana Andonovski from the chapter on how to tune the violins:14
(The violins) are tuned fifths apart [...] The tuning of the instrument is done in unison. The dessus is tuned from the bottom string (open string), the bas is tuned from the chanterelle (open string), the taille and haute-contre are tuned from the second string from the bottom, next to the bourdon, and they call it G sol re ut.15
Dessus is the term used by the French for the violin. Jambe de Fer states that the bottom string of the violin is a G. If the bottom string of the dessus and the chanterelle (top string) of the bas have to be in unison, the result is the tuning Bb’ F c g. Despite the difference in nomenclature, the Bb’ tuning appears in the treatises of Zacconi in 1592 (basso di viola), Cerone in 1613 (baxo), Mersenne in 1636 (bass de violon) and Playford in 1683 (bass). I will give an explanation of all these references to the Bb’ tuning system.
Lodovico Zacconi (1555-1627)
Although the text of Lodovico Zacconi’s Prattica di musica16 is hard to decifer, Boyden´s translation of the text gives us a clear understanding of Zacconi´s tuning system. The bottom string of the basso is a Bb' as in the tuning systems of Lanfranco and Jambe de Fer. He also puts an interval of a fifth between the strings.
[...] the violin is tuned by fifths [...] and the Bass because it is tuned to the lowest note that can be played by the soprano will have the range from Bb'17
Pietro Cerone (1566-1625)
Some claim that Pietro Cerone’s El melopeo y maestro, tactado de musica theorica y practica (1613)18 is basically a translation of Lanfranco’s work. The most important information that Cerone gives us in his Melopeo is the pitches that were missing in Lanfranco’s Scintille. This information shows once more the existence of the Bb’ tuning for the bass violins, or as he calls it, baxo.
Marin Mersenne (1588-1648)
Taking a closer look at Mersenne’s writings19, we see that he too specifies the distance between the strings as intervals of a fifth, and, additionally, that the basse de violon should use the Bb’ tuning. Mersenne gives more than just four different tunings for the violin family. Using the 'fifths formula', he adds a lower tuning: Eb’ Bb’ F c. This tuning must have been intended for an instrument which was bigger than the basse de violon and used when there was a need for two basses.
John Playford (1623-1687)
In his book An Introduction to the Skill of Musick,20 Playford gives two different tunings for the bass violin. The first one (1655) was C G d a:
(the bass violin) his first string is A la mi re, the second string is D la sol re, the third is Gam ut, the fourth is Double C fa ut21
Nearly thirty years later (1683) he specifies the Bb’ tuning for the bass violin: Bb’ F c g.22
This tuning system, however, was not used for all bass violins. For example, Lanfranco’s contemporary Hans Gerle (1500-1570) indicates a different tuning system for the bass violin: C G d a. This is the most common tuning for today’s cello. In his book, Gerle,23 like Lanfranco, presents three-stringed violins and a four-stringed bass:
Now you should learn about the violins, […] and have mostly only three strings which are usually enough even if they play in four parts. But the bass must have four strings24
Gerle’s three-string violin, or discant, was tuned g d’ a’. Contrary to the previously mentioned authors, whose procedure for tuning the bass would be to take the C of the violin, Gerle wrote:
you must press the fifth note (C) on the third string and tune the fourth string an octave lower to C25
Stephen Bonta suggests that Hans Gerle might have been the first theorist to describe the C tuning for a four-string instrument.26
Michael Pratorius too, in his second volume of his Syntagma Musicum,27 indicates the C tuning for the bass instrument. He doesn’t say much about it because he considers that enough information is already known about the violin family:
Since everyone is familiar with these instruments it is unnecessary to deal further with them here.28
Concerning the basse de violon à quatre cords in France, I believe that it was tuned in Bb’. Two of the main, reliable sources about this instrument are French, Mersenne and Jambe de Fer. In the depiction that appears in Harmonie universelle, to the left of the instrument the Bb’ tuning is implied. In addition, the last primary source that I found with the name basse de violon and the Bb’ tuning is in France is Joseph Sauveur’s Principes d’acoustique et musique (1701).29 This tuning system became obsolete at the beginning of the eighteenth century; it faded from the music scene along with the old basses de violons.
In the following video I play a few bars of Colombi’s Tocatta a violone solo. On the left, I am playing the passage on a basse de violon in Bb' tuning, and on the right, I am playing the same excerpt on a cello in C tuning. This piece gives a clear example of how comfortable the Bb' tuning can be for certain tonalities. This music requires open strings c and g in order to play the double stops easily. On the other hand, the posture required to play these double stops on the cello in C tuning is awkward, and the intervals are difficult to tune.
Figure 5 Anton Domenico Gabbiani: Musici del Gran Principe Ferdinando de' Medici, (c.1685). From Firenze, Galleria Palatina.
Figure 8. Table of tunings in the Scintille Di Musica by Giovanni Maria Lanfranco (Brescia: Lodovico Britannico, 1533) 137.
Figure 9 Table of tunings by Ludovico Zacconi, Prattica della Musica (Venice: Bartolomeo Carampello, 1596). 219
Figures 14 and 15, Table of tunings from the Aplication du systeme general aux voix et aux instrumens de Musique (Planche III) by Joseph Sauveur. Principes d’acoustique et musique (Paris: Academie Royal des Sciences,1701).
