1 Senn, Walter and Roy, Karl, Jakob Stainer, Leben und Werk des Tiroler Meisters, 1617–1683 (Frankfurt: Bochinsky, 1986), 66Google Scholar.

2 Senn, Walter, ‘Jakob Stainer, der Geigenmacher zu Absam’, in Schlern-Schriften 87, ed. von Klebelsberg, Raimund (Innsbruck: Universitäts-Verlag Wagner, 1951), 124–125Google Scholar. The letter is catalogued by Senn as U131. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are mine.

3 Senn, ‘Jakob Stainer, der Geigenmacher zu Absam’, 129. The letter is catalogued by Senn as U140.

4 Jiří Sehnal notes that ‘one of the most brilliant periods in the history of Kroměříž was the period under the rule of Bishop Karl Liechtenstein-Castelcorno (1664–95), who not only rebuilt the residence and the town but also maintained a well-equipped Kapelle’. ‘Kroměříž (Kremsier)’, in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2002), volume 13, 933–934. Further information on the instrument collection of Bishop Karl can be found in Sehnal, Jiří, Pavel Vejvanovský and the Kroměříž Music Collection (Olomouc: Moravia and World, 2008), 95–110Google Scholar.

5 Fuhrmann, Martin, Musicalischer-Trichter (Frankfurt: author, 1706), 93Google Scholar.

6 American Bach Soloists / Jeffrey Thomas, Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Concertos (Koch International Classics 3–7332–2H1 (1995); rereleased on Masterworks Series Bach Cantata series, volume 5, 2007). Thomas uses a G violone for Concertos 2 and 6: ‘For the second [concerto], we utilize a chamber organ rather than a harpsichord (chamber organs were a very popular continuo instrument for secular as well as sacred music, and provide a highly complementary timbre to the solo trumpet); an 8′ “G” violone is used, since the violoncello and continuo line are often an octave apart, meaning that the use of a 16′ instrument would cause a two-octave separation between it and the ’cello. . . . And for the sixth, with its “royal” instrumentation of two violas da gamba, we call upon two lutes to complete the sonority; an 8′ “G” violone is used due to the lowest pitch (B♭⁰) of the part’. The notes are available online at <http://americanbach.org/recordings>. The issue of the two-octave separation that results from employing a sixteen-foot instrument is taken up below.

7 Kuijken, Sigiswald, ‘A Bach Odyssey’, Early Music 38/2 (2010), 263–272Google Scholar.

8 Otterstedt, Annette, The Viol: History of an Instrument (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2002), 148–150Google Scholar. Otterstedt is in agreement with many of the general principles outlined in this article: ‘In a nutshell: the violone of the early period was defined by its instrumental context; and the consort bass viol could appear in the character of a 12-foot “double-bass” in a mixed ensemble’ (149).

9 Senn, ‘Jakob Stainer, der Geigenmacher zu Absam’, 118–119. The letter is catalogued by Senn as U120.

10 Senn, ‘Jakob Stainer, der Geigenmacher zu Absam’, 119. Count Liechtenstein-Castelcorno apparently objected to the prices suggested by Stainer and Khuen; Senn notes that all the prices on the list are crossed out and new prices in the Count's hand are written in. For the small Violon, instead of thirty talers, the Count suggested twenty-four; for the Octafviolon, instead of fifty talers, the Count specified forty-two.

11 Senn, ‘Jakob Stainer, der Geigenmacher zu Absam’, 126–127. The price of thirty talers for the Paßviolen is what Stainer was asking; again he asked fifty talers for the Octavviolon, but only received forty-two. The instrument referred to in the correspondences as Paßviolen is identified as a ‘Tenor-Baß Viola da gamba’ in Senn and Roy, Jakob Stainer, 219.

12 The most pertinent of these treatises is by Johann Jacob Prinner (1624–1694), who had connections to the bishop's court at Olmütz during the period under discussion here. See the material related to footnote 50 below.

13 Boyden, David D., The History of Violin Playing from its Origins to 1761 (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), 15 and 25Google Scholar. See also Boyden, David D. and others, Violin Family (New York: Norton, 1989), 19Google Scholar.

14 Banchieri, Adriano, Conclusioni nel suono dell’organo, Op. 20 (Bologna: Rossi, 1609), 53–54Google Scholar. A modern facsimile is available in Monuments of Music and Music Literature in Facsimile, second series, volume 101 (New York: Broude, 1975).

15 Meier, Adolf, Konzertante Musik für Kontrabass (Prien am Chiemsee: Katzbichler, 1969), 12Google Scholar.

16 Meier, Konzertante Musik für Kontrabass, 12–13.

17 Planyavsky, Alfred, Geschichte des Kontrabasses (Tutzing: Schneider, 1984), 138Google Scholar, states that the term Quartviolon, indicating a contrabass instrument with its compass expanded downward a fourth, often through the addition of a string, was in use by the sixteenth century. Sehnal, Pavel Vejvanovský and the Kroměříž Music Collection, 109–111, acknowledges that there are two distinct categories for string-bass instruments called Violon in the collection of Bishop Karl Liechtenstein. Citing Planyavsky, he assigns the G tuning mentioned above to the Quartviolon. Meier, Konzertante Musik für Kontrabass, 12–13, however, associates that term with the sixteen-foot instrument with the D tuning.

18 See especially Bonta, Stephen, ‘From Violone to Violoncello: A Question of Strings?’, Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society 3 (1977), 64–99Google Scholar; ‘Terminology for the Bass Violin in Seventeenth-Century Italy’, Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society 4 (1978), 5–42; and ‘Corelli's Heritage: The Early Bass Violin in Italy’, Studi Corelliani 4 (1990), 217–231. These and other relevant essays have been reprinted in Bonta, Studies in Italian Sacred and Instrumental Music in the 17^th Century (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003).

19 Bonta, ‘From Violone to Violoncello’, 81. A chart illustrating this point can be found in Bonta, ‘Terminology for the Bass Violin’, 41.

20 Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca (Florence: Pitteri, 1729), 190: ‘Violone. Viola grande di tuono grave, che si dice anche Basso di viola, e Violoncello quando è di minor grandezza’. See also Bonta, ‘Terminology for the Bass Violin’, 37–38, and ‘From Violone to Violoncello’, 85. The Vocabolario can be accessed online through Google Books.

21 Houle, George, ed., Vitali Sonatas for Four and Five Violins or Viols Op. 5, Nos. 10–12 (Stanford: PRB Productions, 1991)Google Scholar.

22 Vocabolario, 190. The definition for violoncello in the Vocabolario reads simply ‘Violone’.

23 de Fer, Philibert Jambe, Epitome musical des tons, sons et accordz, es voix humaines, fleustes d’Alleman, fleustes à neuf trous, violes, & violons (Lyons: Du Bois, 1556), 61–62Google Scholar. See the facsimile reprint in Renaissance Français: Traités, Méthodes, Préfaces, volume 3 (Courlay: Fuzeau, 2005), 227–228.

24 Mersenne, Marin, Harmonie universelle II (Paris: Cramoisy, 1636–1637)Google Scholar. See Mersenne, Harmonie universelle: The Book on Instruments, trans. Roger E. Chapman (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1957), 242–244.

25 Cyr, Mary, ‘Basses and basse continue in the Orchestra of the Paris Opéra 1700–1764’, Early Music 10/2 (1982), 155–170Google Scholar. Cyr (158) also mentions a different type of basse de violon, with five strings and tuned C–G–d–a–d¹.

26 Holman, Peter, Four and Twenty Fiddlers: The Violin at the English Court, 1540–1690 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993), 318–319Google Scholar. Holman cites two important sources for information on this B♭ instrument: Playford, John, A Breefe Introduction to the Skill of Musick (London: Campion, 1654)Google Scholar, beginning with the 1683 edition through to at least 1697, and the manuscript of the English writer on music James Talbot, prepared during the last decade of the seventeenth century. Talbot's manuscript is discussed further below.

27 La Petite Bande / Sigiswald Kuijken, Johann Sebastian Bach: The Brandenburg Concertos (Accent: ACC 24224, 2010), liner notes, 6: ‘The score of these concerti . . . suggests that the use of a double bass (the so-called “16-foot” violone) was likely not the composer's intention. In our opinion, the term “violone” indicates the direct “predecessor” of our present cello; that is, what we would consider an “oversized” cello, aptly referred to in France as the “basse de violon”. This is a label that can help us today to identify exactly what is being talked about, what is more difficult to know with a “violone”[,] which was in fact a collective name covering both larger bass instruments transposing one octave lower, and instruments of the “basse de violon” type, sounding at the written pitch (“8-foot” instruments). In the kind of scoring encountered in these concertos, the “violone” in the latter sense (occasionally in combination with the “violoncello da spalla” depending on the indications in the score) provides a very transparent and yet solid support to the whole, without “darkening” it.’

28 La Petite Bande / Sigiswald Kuijken, Johann Sebastian Bach: Cantatas, BWV 177 – 93 – 135 (Accent: ACC 25302, 2005), liner notes, 7–9. Kuijken's point concerning the use of the eight-foot violone of the viol family (or G violone) in some of Bach's cantatas is shared by other writers discussed below.

29 This example is also given in Kuijken, ‘A Bach Odyssey’, 266.

30 Spitzer, John and Zaslaw, Neal, The Birth of the Orchestra: History of an Institution, 1650–1815 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 124, note 60. The chart on pages 128–129 of Corelli's orchestral personnel from 1702 to 1705 is also instructive.

31 Bonta, ‘From Violone to Violoncello’, 85: ‘The fact that the [larger] violone and the [smaller] violoncello doubtless had the same tuning (as did alto and tenor violas as well as both sizes of violins) explains the interchangeable use of the two terms, violone and violoncello, by a number of Italian composers late in the seventeenth century.’

32 Bonta, ‘From Violone to Violoncello’, 80–81: ‘[T]he two lowest string instruments employed at the Ottoboni court from 1689 to 1722 were the violone and the contrabasso. In this latter year, the term violone was replaced once and for all by the term violoncello, the term contrabasso being retained until at least 1737.’

33 Bonta, ‘From Violone to Violoncello’, 81: ‘German and Bolognese usages [for the term violone] appear to agree after 1681: violone in the eighteenth century – outside Rome until 1737 – means contrabasso.’

34 Mattheson, Johann, Philologisches Tresespiel, als ein kleiner Beytrag zur kritischen Geschichte der deutschen Sprache (Hamburg: Martini, 1752)Google Scholar.

35 Mattheson, Philologisches Tresespiel, 5–8.

36 Particularly when modified by grosse, Baßgeige refers to a double-bass instrument in many of the treatises listed in the Appendix. It should also be noted that the term Baßgeiger in modern German is a colloquialism for double bassist; the term is used much as English-speakers use ‘bass player’, meaning a contrabassist as opposed to a ‘cellist’. See Leuchtmann, Horst, Dictionary of Terms in Music: English-German / German-English (Munich: Saur, 1992), 214Google Scholar.

37 Mattheson, Johann, Das neu-eröffnete Orchestre (Hamburg: Schiller, 1713)Google Scholar. de Brossard, Sébastien, Dictionaire de musique, second edition (Paris: Ballard, 1705), 221Google Scholar: ‘VIOLONE. C’est nôtre Basse de Violon, ou pour mieux dire, c’est une Double Basse . . .’

38 See, for example, definitions by Johann Philipp Eisel discussed below.

39 Brossard, Dictionaire de musique, 221.

40 Cyr, ‘Basses and basse continue’, 158–161: ‘The smaller violoncelle (tuned C–G–d–a) probably superseded the basse de violon some time during the first decade of the 18th century. . . . By the beginning of Rameau's operatic career in 1733, the favoured pair of continuo instruments were the cello and double bass, and they remained so for the rest of his career.’

41 Bonanni, Filippo, Gabinetto armonico pieno d’istromenti sonori indicati e spiegati (Rome: Placho, 1723; facsimile edition, Leipzig: Zentralantiquariat der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1975), 121Google Scholar. The illustration is plate 121. The Gabinetto was first published in 1722 with 138 copper engravings, with thirteen more added for the 1723 edition, and was reissued as Descrizione degl’istromenti armonici d’ogni genere (Rome: Monaldini, 1776).

42 Bonanni, Descrizione, 120. The viola is depicted in plate 120, with the written description appearing on page 120. While the Italian version of Bonanni's definition is a bit vague, the French translation he supplies is more direct concerning size as the determining factor: ‘La Viole ne differe du petit Violon qu’en grandeur’ (The viola is differentiated from the small violin only by its size).

43 Bonta, ‘Terminology for the Bass Violin’, 5–7. The same conclusion is reached in Bonanni, Filippo, The Showcase of Musical Instruments: All 152 Illustrations from the 1723 ‘Gabinetto Armonico’, ed. Harrison, Frank L. and Rimmer, Joan (New York: Dover, 1964), 56Google Scholar.

44 Prinner, Johann Jacob, Musicalischer Schlissl (Vienna, 1677)Google Scholar, unpaginated autograph manuscript in thirteen chapters now in the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. (US-Wc, 1677).

45 For more on the music and practices associated with instruments using this tuning see Meier, Konzertante Musik für Kontrabass; Planyavsky, Geschichte des Kontrabasses; Focht, Josef, Der Wiener Kontrabass: Spieltechnik und Aufführungspraxis, Musik und Instrumente (Tutzing: Schneider, 1999)Google Scholar; Chapman, David, ‘Tuning Variations as a Guide to Bass-Line Instrumentation in the Orchestral and Solo Literature for the Eighteenth-Century Contrabass “Violon”’, Ad Parnassum 8/16 (2010), 53–96Google Scholar; and Chapman, ‘Historical and Practical Considerations for the Tuning of Double Bass Instruments in Fourths’, Galpin Society Journal 56 (2003), 224–233.

46 Meier, Konzertante Musik für Kontrabass, 13.

47 Prinner, Musicalischer Schlissl, ‘Das Dreyzehnte Capitl: Von allerhandt Geigen’. See also Focht, Der Wiener Kontrabass, 24.

48 Gibbons, Orlando, Consort Music, ed. Harper, John, Britannica, Musica, volume 48 (London: Stainer and Bell, 1982), xxiGoogle Scholar. Gibbons was not the only English composer to write for the ‘great Dooble Basse’; this instrument was also employed by John Coprario, George Jeffries and John Blow. See Holman, Peter, Life After Death: The Viola da Gamba in Britain from Purcell to Dolmetsch (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2010), 43–47Google Scholar.

49 Anthony C. Baines and Darryl Martin, ‘James Talbot’, The New Grove Dictionary, second edition, volume 25, 29.

50 Peter Holman and Robert Rawson, ‘Gottfried Finger’, The New Grove Dictionary, second edition, volume 8, 829–831. Talbot's tuning for the five-string ‘Double Bass’ is F¹–A¹–D–F♯–A, with an alternative tuning for the lowest string of G¹. His notation next to these tunings reads ‘Mr. Finger’. See Donington, Robert, ‘James Talbot's Manuscript’, Galpin Society Journal 3 (1950), 27–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially 33. The precise nature of Prinner's connections to Olmütz remains unclear. See Federhofer, Hellmut, ‘Johann Jacob Prinner’, The New Grove Dictionary, second edition, volume 20, 325–326Google Scholar.

51 Otterstedt, The Viol, 148–150. The violone in contrabasso was a continuo instrument exclusively, and therefore not part of the consort.

52 Bonta, ‘Terminology for the Bass Violin’, 11–12. The partbooks for Buonamente's Quarto Libro are available in facsimile as Il Quarto Libro de Varie Sonate: Venezia 1626 (Florence: Studio per Edizioni Scelte, 1982).

53 Both Otterstedt and Holman discuss the practice of early eighteenth-century gamba players tuning their bottom string down to a C. See Otterstedt, The Viol, 182–183, and Holman, Life After Death, 101.

54 Bonta, ‘From Violone to Violoncello’, 67.

55 The use of such instrumental mixtures in large concerted works can be seen throughout the seventeenth century; Banchieri describes the performance of a mass scored for both da braccio and da gamba consorts in which the bass and contrabass instruments described above are employed.

56 Elias Dann and Jiří Sehnal, ‘Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber’, The New Grove Dictionary, second edition, volume 3, 520.

57 Chafe, Eric Thomas, The Church Music of Heinrich Biber (Ann Arbor: UMI, 1987), 9–10Google Scholar.

58 Chafe, The Church Music of Heinrich Biber, 3.

59 von Biber, Heinrich Ignaz Franz, Missa Alleluja à 36, ed. Hofstötter, Rudolf and Rainer, Ingomar (Vienna: Doblinger, 2005), i–iiiGoogle Scholar. The full list of voices and instruments reads: ‘8 Voci Concert:[ati]; 8 Voci Ripieni; 2 Violini; 3 Viole; 2 Clarini; 4 Trombe; 1 Timpano; 2 Cornetti; 3 Tromboni; 1 Tiorba; Organo con Violone’.

60 von Biber, Heinrich Ignaz Franz, Vesperæ à 32, ed. Hofstötter, Rudolf and Rainer, Ingomar (Vienna: Doblinger, 2000), i–ivGoogle Scholar. The full list of voices and instruments reads: ‘8 Voc[es] in Concertat[o]; 8 [Voces] in Capella; 5 Viol[æ]; 2 Cornett[i]; 3 Trombon[i]; 4 Trombi; Cum Tympano; Et 4: bassi Continui; Voces in Concerto 23’.

61 Praetorius, Michael, Syntagma musicum II: De Organographia (Wolffenbüttel: Richter, 1619)Google Scholar.

62 Praetorius, Syntagma musicum II, 25. The tuning for the five-string double-bass instrument is D¹–E¹–A¹–D–G. The six-string instrument is provided with three different tunings, one of which corresponds to Banchieri's violone in contrabasso: D¹–G¹–C–E–A–d.

63 As an alternative, Praetorius offers an A tuning like that given in the treatise by Daniel Merck discussed below and used for Gibbons's ‘great Dooble Basse’. See Gibbons, Consort Music, xxi.

64 Praetorius, Syntagma musicum II, 26. The table includes tunings for all instruments of the viole de braccio family.

65 A five-string instrument similar to that depicted by Praetorius can be seen in Johann Christoph Weigel, Musicalisches Theatrum (Nuremberg: author, c1722), plate 22. Weigel calls his instrument Violon but does not give a specific tuning.

66 Merck, Daniel, Compendium musicae instrumentalis Chelicae, das ist: kurtzer Begriff, welcher Gestalten die Instrumental-Music auf der Violin, Pratschen, Viola da Gamba, und Bass gründlich und leicht zu erlernen seye (Augsburg: Wagner, 1695)Google Scholar, ‘Caput VIII: Von der Application in die Höhe zu greiffen / und wie die Geigen zu stimmen’ (on the principles of fingering in the upper register, and how the string instruments are tuned). This brief treatise is unpaginated.

67 Merck, Compendium: ‘Die Stimmung zu der Bass-Geigen / welche 6. Saiten hat / ist unterschiedlich / die drey beste Arten seynd dise: (N. B. Die Stimmungen sind alle von der kleinsten Saiten anzurechnen)’ (The tuning of the bass violins with six strings is variable. The three best types are these: (Note that the tunings are all presented from the smallest [that is, highest] string)). Merck also states that another type of bass instrument exists: ‘Es wird noch eine Art von dem 6. Chörigen gefunden / halb Chor Ton und halb Cornett’ (There is also to be found a type of six-string instrument / [tuned] half to Chorton and half to Kornetton). The tuning given is A¹–D–G–A–d–g – that is, the G tuning given previously, except that the lower three strings sound in Chorton at a pitch level approximately one whole step higher than Kornetton.

68 Merck, Compendium. The wire-wrapped strings may imply octave transposition, but no specific instructions are given in this regard.

69 Mattheson, Das neu-eröffnete Orchestre, 285–286.

70 Mattheson, Das neu-eröffnete Orchestre, 285.

71 Praetorius, Syntagma musicum II, 25.

72 Similar terminology is used for kleine Bass-Geigen in the treatises of Eisel, Majer and Walther (see the Appendix). These treatises also discuss the viola di spala, which Mattheson (Das neu-eröffnete Orchestre, 285) describes in this way: ‘Insonderheit hat die Viola di Spala, oder Schulter-Viole einen grossen Effect beym Accompagnement, weil sie starck durch schneiden / und die Tohne rein exprimiren kan. Ein Bass kan nimmer distincter und deutlicher herausgebracht werden als auff diesem Instrument. Es wird mit einem Bande an der Brust befestiget und gleichsam auff die rechte Schulter geworffen / hat also nichts / daß seinen Resonanz im geringsten auffhält oder verhindert’ (The viola di spala, or shoulder viola, in particular produces a great effect in accompaniments, since it is able to cut through [the musical texture] strongly and express the notes clearly. A bass [line] cannot be brought out more distinctly and clearly than on this instrument. It is secured to the chest with a strap and is thrown, so to speak, onto the right shoulder; therefore its resonance cannot be in the slightest impeded or obstructed). Kuijken makes extensive use of the viola di spala (or violoncello da spalla, as he designates it) in his recordings discussed below.

73 Eisel, Johann Philipp, Musicus autodidactos, oder Der sich selbst informirende Musicus (Erfurt: Funck, 1738), 47Google Scholar.

74 Eisel, Musicus autodidactos, 50: ‘Der Violon von dieser Gattung hat ein weit grösser und breiter Corpus, gehet auch eine Quarte tiefer als der Bass-Violon. Die unterste Saite heisset D. die andere G. die dritte C. die vierte E. die fünffte A. die sechste D. daß also diese Stimmung mit der Viola da Gamba vollkommen überein kommet’ (The Violon of this type has a much bigger and wider body, and sounds a fourth lower than the Bass-Violon [that is, the violone da gamba with the higher G tuning]. The lowest string is D, the next G, the third C, the fourth E, the fifth A, and the sixth D; therefore this tuning is in complete agreement with that of the viola da gamba [that is, the eight-foot member of the viol consort]).

75 Eisel, Musicus autodidactos, 50–51.

76 Eisel, Musicus autodidactos, 44.

77 Eisel, Musicus autodidactos, 45.

78 Eisel, Musicus autodidactos, 44–46.

79 Majer, Joseph Friederich Bernhard Caspar, Museum musicum theoretico practicum (Schwäbisch Hall: Majer, 1732)Google Scholar.

80 George J. Buelow, ‘Joseph Friedrich Bernhard Caspar Majer’, The New Grove Dictionary, second edition, volume 15, 645.

81 Majer, Museum musicum, 80.

82 Majer, Museum musicum, 79.

83 Majer, Museum musicum, 80.

84 Walther, Johann Gottfried, Musicalisches Lexicon oder Musicalische Bibliothec (Leipzig: Deer, 1732), 637Google Scholar. Walther gives the range of this instrument as ‘vom contra G bis ins d. e.’ – that is, from G¹ to d ¹ or e¹.

85 Walther, Musicalisches Lexicon, 78.

86 See Chapman, ‘Tuning Variations’, 59–60.

87 Walther, Musicalisches Lexicon, 637.

88 Cyr, ‘Basses and basse continue’, 158. See also Holman, Life After Death, 45.

89 See, for example, L’incoronazione di Dario, rv718, Biblioteca Nazionale di Torino, MS Giordano 38cc, 176r–309v. The bass line at the opening of Act 1 is labelled ‘Violone e Viol^lo: Piano senza Cembalo’. Indeed, the violone is prominently featured in this opera, perhaps most famously in the aria ‘Non lusinghi il core amante’ (Act 2 Scene 17), which is scored for solo fagotto and solo violone.

90 See Vivaldi, Antonio, L’estro armonico: Concerti Opera Terza (New York: Broude, 1992)Google Scholar.

91 Bonta, ‘Terminology for the Bass Violin’, 34–35: ‘The violone mentioned [in describing the string instruments at San Marco] must be a contrabass – a term never encountered in San Marco during these years, not even apparently as late as 1766. . . . It would appear that violone was the Venetian term for contrabass from at least 1661 on.’

92 Keutholt or Kortholt was a generic name given to double-reed instruments with bores that double back on themselves. Curtal, a corruption of the term Kortholt, was an especially popular name for the early bassoon in England. See Howard Mayer Brown and Barra R. Boydell, ‘Kortholt’, The New Grove Dictionary, second edition, volume 13, 827–828.

93 See Christopher Hogwood's Introduction and Commentary to the facsimile edition of British Library Manuscript R. M. 20.g.7: Händel, Georg Friedrich, The Music for the Royal Fireworks (Feuerwerksmusik) hwv351, Concerti hwv335a & 335b (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2004), 59Google Scholar. The two orchestral concertos (1746) included in this manuscript, which provided the main material for the overture to the Fireworks Music, also contain interesting terminology. The bottom two staves of the score for hwv335a read ‘Violon’ and ‘Org’.

94 Muffat studied in Rome in the 1680s and was familiar with Corelli's Op. 6 concertos. See Susan Wollenberg, ‘Georg Muffat’, The New Grove Dictionary, second edition, volume 17, 361–364.

95 Muffat, Georg, Auserlesene mit Ernst und Lust gemengte Instrumentalmusik (1701), ed. Luntz, Erwin, Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich, volume 23 (Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1959), 8–9Google Scholar. Translated in Wilson, David K., Georg Muffat on Performance Practice: The Texts from ‘Florilegium Primum’, ‘Florilegium Secundum’, and ‘Auserlesene Instrumentalmusik’: A New Translation with Commentary (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), 72–73Google Scholar.

96 Muffat gives his Foreword to the collection in German, Italian, Latin and French. While the German version contains no explicit reference to the violone as a contrabass instrument, the Italian and French versions do (‘Ed’ all’hora Ti potrài moltò benè servir del Violone, ò Contrabasso, per far spicare il Basso del Concerto grosso più Maestoso’; ‘Et pour lors afin d’exprimer la basse du grand chœur avec plus de majesté, Vous pourrez fort bien Vous servir de la double Basse, que les Italiens appellent Contrebasse ou Violone’). Muffat, Auserlesene mit Ernst und Lust gemengte Instrumentalmusik, 13 and 21. Thus we may conclude that Muffat equates the German term grosser Violone with a contrabass instrument.

97 Telemann, Georg Philipp, Konzerte und Sonaten für 2 Violinen, Viola und Basso Continuo, ed. Poetzsch, Ute, Telemann, Georg Philipp: Musikalische Werke, volume 28 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1995), ixGoogle Scholar.

98 Telemann, Konzerte und Sonaten, ix–x.

99 In Concerto No. 2 the bottom staff reads ‘Violoncello e Cembalo ad unisono’, while the staff directly above reads ‘Violone ripieno’. The bottom staff in Concerto No. 3 reads ‘Violone e Cembalo’, while the three staves immediately above are designated ‘Violoncello 1’, ‘Violoncello 2’ and ‘Violoncello 3’. In Concerto No. 4 the bottom staff is designated ‘Continuo’ and the next two staves up are ‘Violone’ and ‘Violoncello’. The bottom two staves in Concerto No. 5 are the figured solo harpsichord part (‘Cembalo concertato’), with the next staves up labelled ‘Violon’ and ‘Violoncello’. Finally, in Concerto No. 6 the bottom staff reads ‘Violone e Cembalo’, while the next staff up reads ‘Violoncello’. See Bach, Johann Sebastian, Brandenburgische Konzerte: Faksimile der Autographen (Frankfurt am Main: Peters, 1996)Google Scholar.

100 Dreyfus, Laurence, Bach's Continuo Group: Players and Practices in His Vocal Works (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), 165–166Google Scholar.

101 See Chapman, ‘Historical and Practical Considerations’, 227–228, particularly note 20.

102 Woodfield, Ian, The Early History of the Viol (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 142Google Scholar.

103 For more on the scordatura tunings employed in the literature for this instrument see Chapman, ‘Tuning Variations’, 74–81.

104 The main problem associated with the tuning of a large contrabass instrument in fifths involves shifting. The greater the distance in pitch between strings, the more shifting is required. On a man-sized instrument, it is clearly in the best interests of the player to reduce shifting as much as possible. Thus the vast majority of documented contrabass tunings feature a configuration of all fourths or some combination of thirds and fourths. For other difficulties associated with tuning a contrabass in fifths see Chapman, ‘Historical and Practical Considerations’.

105 Dreyfus, Bach's Continuo Group, 252, note 26, states, regarding this instrument: ‘The violone in C (the “violono grosso”) refers to a four-string instrument tuned an octave below the cello, C¹–G¹–D–A, or, alternately, in some species of fourths.’ But if the dominant characteristic of this instrument is its ability to reach C¹, then the only species of fourths that can be inferred is the one I give above. Another plausible solution would be an instrument tuned to C¹ on the bottom string, with a gap of a sixth to A¹ and fourths upward from there. This is the arrangement that many historically informed double bassists favour today. However, if this tuning was commonly used in his time, Eisel would probably have described it as some sort of scordatura to an all-fourths tuning, as is the case in treatises and encyclopedias of the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. See Chapman, ‘Tuning Variations’, 78, note 67.

106 Christoph, Johann and Stössel, Johann David, Kurzgefaßtes musicalisches Lexicon (Chemnitz: authors, 1737), 417Google Scholar. Note the similarity in terminology for a sixteen-foot instrument to the other German-language sources cited above, particularly the terms ‘grosse Baß-Geige’ and ‘Octav-Baß Geige’.

107 The Kurzgefaßtes musicalisches Lexicon draws a good deal of its information from Walther's dictionary, though other theorists, such as Praetorius, are cited by the Stössels. See James B. Coover, ‘Dictionaries & Encyclopedias of Music’, section 3, part 2, The New Grove Dictionary, second edition, volume 7, 310–311. However, the authors clearly depart from Walther in regard to terminology for the violone. While Walther calls the G violone by that name, the Stössels reserve the term violone for the sixteen-foot instrument described above and call the G violone the Baß-Violon (Kurzgefaßtes musicalisches Lexicon, 17), as does Eisel.

108 Dreyfus, Bach's Continuo Group, 149–151.

109 Snyder, Kerala, Dieterich Buxtehude: Organist in Lübeck, second revised edition (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2007), 374–375Google Scholar.

110 Wollny, Peter, ed., Herr, ich lasse dich nicht (BuxWV36) (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2007), ixGoogle Scholar, dates the work to 1680. Numerous additional examples of the eight-foot G violone's use in Buxtehude's sacred vocal works can be found in Buxtehude, Dietrich, Dreizehn Kirchenkantaten für zwei Singstimmen, ed. Harms, Gottlieb, Werke, Dietrich Buxtehudes, volume 3 (New York: Broude, 1978)Google Scholar. See particularly Ich suchte des Nachts (BuxWV50), 41–58, and Laudate, pueri (BuxWV 69), 58–64.

111 Wollny, ed., Buxtehude, Herr, ich lasse dich nicht, ix. Another alternative scoring calls for trombones to perform the viola de gamba parts.

112 Snyder, Dieterich Buxtehude, 375: ‘St. Mary's Church purchased a violone in 1667 for the use of the cantor; this was probably the “großen Violon” for which strings were purchased in 1671. In 1672 the church bought a “große Octav-geige” for 30 Lübeck marks (10 rixdollars) from Zacharias Cronenberg, one of the municipal musicians who played regularly at St. Mary's. He died that year, and Peter Grecke applied for his position, claiming that he could play “Clavier, violdegambe, Bassviolone, und violone”. It is clear that both sizes of violone were known in Lübeck.’ It should also be noted that in Grecke's list of the instruments on which he could perform, the terminology for the bass and contrabass instruments coincides with that of Eisel. See the Appendix for Eisel's terminology.

113 Snyder, Dieterich Buxtehude, 381–382, notes that ‘in a large space, such as St. Mary's at Lübeck, [the] 8′ [string bass] line will not be heard without 16′ support, either from 16′ pedal stops or from 16′ instruments such as the large violone. . . . In a large space [16′ doubling] should be used in addition to, but certainly not in place of, a strong 8′ continuo line. The bass member of the instrumental ensemble, whether [G] violone or dulcian, plays in addition to the continuo instruments.’

114 Buxtehude, Dieterich, Sacred Works for Four Voices and Instruments, Part 2, ed. Snyder, Kerala J., Dieterich Buxtehude: The Collected Works, volume 9 (New York: The Broude Trust, 1987), 3Google Scholar.

115 Buxtehude, Sacred Works, 273.

116 Buxtehude, Sacred Works, 272.

117 The effect is the same, for example, in Concerto No. 2, where the bottom staff, reading ‘Violoncello e Cembalo ad unisono’, still allows the cello to act as the concertino bass, in this case along with the continuo instrument. The ‘Violone in ripieno’ line designates the violone as the bass (that is, contrabass) of the large ensemble.

118 Dreyfus, Bach's Continuo Group, 165–166, agrees with this basic point but draws conclusions different from mine. Otterstedt, The Viol, 149, notes that ‘the [sixteen-foot] violone played the bass line. Nothing else. It was not part of the consort of viols, but of the basso continuo faction, representing the core of this fundamental force, and sorely missed in its absence.’

119 Dreyfus, Bach's Continuo Group, 151–165.

120 Dreyfus, Bach's Continuo Group, 151–152.

121 The instrumental choirs are: Tromba 1, 2 and 3 with Timpani; Violino 1 and 2, Viola and Violone; Oboe 1 and 2 with Bassono; Flauto dolce 1 and 2 with Violoncello. Most of the instrumental parts are autographs; others are partially in the hand of an unknown copyist. The Violon(e) part is in Bach's hand except for the tacet instructions and the musical notation. The parts can be found on the Bach Digital website, <www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_0000256> (3 August 2012). See also Johann Sebastian Bach, Ratswahlkantaten I, ed. Christine Fröde, Johann Sebastian Bach: Neue Ausgabe Sämtliche Werke, series 1, volume 32/1 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1992), 3–65.

122 Christoph Wolff, ‘Johann Sebastian Bach’, The New Grove Dictionary, second edition, volume 2, 309–382, especially 309 and 312.

123 Dreyfus, Bach's Continuo Group, 153. Dreyfus concludes that, in this context, the term Violons ‘must probably be understood to indicate cellos, as is clear from the idiomatic passages in Movement 13’. The early version of Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 (bwv 1050a) could also be used to support the idea of contextual use of the term violone. In that version of the piece, the violone is the only string bass designated; in such a case, the G violone, described by Walther – a close relative of Bach's – is presumably the instrument that is called for. See Maunder, Richard, The Scoring of Baroque Concertos (Rochester, NY: Boydell, 2004), 108–110Google Scholar, particularly 109. Though Maunder does not agree with my conclusions, much of his information is pertinent to this discussion.

124 Kuijken, ‘A Bach Odyssey’, 266.

125 Kuijken, ‘A Bach Odyssey’, 266: ‘If we presume Bach intended a 16′ instrument when he used the word “violone”, it leads to some highly questionable musical consequences; for instance, in his vocal works whenever there are passages where this instrumental bass line is notated an octave lower than the 8′ vocal bass line (and this occurs quite often). There is reason to doubt the sense of a two-octave gap between these lines, yet this is what would happen if one considers the term “violone” to refer to a 16′ instrument. This occurs in instrumental works as well, where the violone part is notated an octave below the normal continuo in some passages.’ Kuijken cites several examples in both vocal and instrumental works. Thomas's objection to the two-octave gap is quoted above in note 6.

126 In Figures 6a and 6b the score reflects Bach's use of Kammerton for the wind parts and Chorton (a major second higher) for the string and organ parts. On Bach's use of Kammerton see Dreyfus, Bach's Continuo Group, 118–122.

127 Kuijken, ‘A Bach Odyssey’, 266, note 7, cites bars 3–4 of the third-movement chorale in particular. The autograph parts for bwv48 can be accessed through the Bach Digital website: <www.bach-digital.de/content/index.xml>.

128 Cyr, ‘Basses and basse continue’, 162–164. Also see Maunder, The Scoring of Baroque Concertos, 19–23, who points to passages in the works of Giuseppe Torelli where separate lines, designated ‘Violoncello’ and ‘Tiorba ò Violone/Organo’, play in octaves. He does not rule out the idea that in such instances the term violone could mean a sixteen-foot instrument, despite the fact that utilizing a transposing double-bass instrument would result in that part sounding two octaves below the violoncello line.

129 See, for example, Haydn, Joseph, Symphony No. 7, C Major (Le Midi), ed. Praetorius, Ernst (New York: Eulenburg, 1936)Google Scholar. In the third-movement trio, the violone line is designated Vc. for violoncello.

130 On the serenade quartet see Carl Bär, ‘Zum Begriff des “Basso” in Mozarts Serenaden’, Mozart-Jahrbuch (1960–1961), 133–155; Webster, James, ‘Towards a History of Viennese Chamber Music in the Early Classical Period’, Journal of the American Musicological Society 27/2 (1974), 231–242Google Scholar; Webster, ‘Violoncello and Double Bass in the Chamber Music of Haydn and His Viennese Contemporaries, 1750–1780’, Journal of the American Musicological Society 29/3 (1976), 423–437Google Scholar; and Webster, ‘The Scoring of Mozart's Chamber Music for Strings’, in Music in the Classic Period: Essays in Honor of Barry S. Brook, ed. Atlas, Allan W. (New York: Pendragon, 1985), 273–281Google Scholar. See also Webster, ‘The Bass Part in Haydn's Early String Quartets and in Austrian Chamber Music, 1750–1780’ (PhD dissertation, Princeton University, 1974), 168–207. For information on the registral gap and its effects on bass line instrumentation in the music of Mozart, Haydn and their contemporaries see Chapman, ‘Tuning Variations’, 67–74.