In the preface to his method Corrette speaks of several systems amongst violoncellists, but adds, the best and most generally followed was that of Bononcini, of which also the most skilful masters in Europe made use. From this remark it follows, that in the composition of his school, he took Bononcini’s manner of playing, which he was able to study, soon after the latter’s arrival in Paris, as his guide. In surveying the above principles, detailed by Corrette, regarding the technique of violoncello playing, it must be admitted that, needing improvement in almost every respect about the middle of the last century, it had not progressed, with few exceptions, beyond the elementary stages. The chamber sonatas and suites of Joh. Seb. Bach for violoncello solo, the last of which were originally composed for the Viola pomposa, cannot be cited as proofs to the contrary. In them Bach forestalled the technical capacity of his time by a decade. Although they are composed for that part of the fingerboard on which there is no question of the thumb position, yet they contain difficulties of an extraordinary kind which Bach’s contemporaries had not been able to master.[67] And even in the second half of the last century there could have been no cellist who would have been fully capable of playing them. Therefore it must be considered either, that these compositions, so remarkable of their kind, were not absolutely composed for the cello; or that the violoncello technique took another direction, which was called out by these suites of Bach. The violoncello, like the violin, is primarily an instrument for the voice. As such it was chiefly used by the Italians, who, up to the second half of the last century, gave the impulse to stringed instrument playing. This is to be gathered from the cello pieces by Italian composers belonging to this period. As instances, next to the sonatas already mentioned, two musical pieces of the same kind may be cited, by San Martini (Giov. Battista Sammartini)[68] and Bernardo Porta.[69] Neither of these composers were violoncellists. Their sonatas are, however, adapted to the nature of the instrument for which they were composed. As compositions they are indeed of little importance, and as regards the technique, they do not rise above the measure of the modest demands which were then required. With regard to cello technique the younger Cervetto, whose compositions have already been mentioned, p. 52, goes really farther. In them there is a greater variety in the manner of playing, in the use of double-stops and different passages derived from the scale and the chord. Such ways of playing could naturally only at first be found out and perfected in a proper manner by those who were already experienced practised players on an instrument of extreme difficulty on account of its extensions.