The Violoncello and Its HistoryWasielewski, Wilhelm Joseph von
History
The Violoncello and Its History
Wasielewski, Wilhelm Joseph von
Cellists; Cello -- History
After Duiffopruggar, Andreas Amati (1520 to about 1580), the founder of
the Cremona school, distinguished himself in the making of violas (as
well as violins). His instruments obtained such a great reputation that
Charles IX. of France, an enthusiastic amateur of music, had twenty-four
violins, six tenors, and eight basses made by him. Amongst the latter
there were several bass viols, like the viola da gamba. The instruments
made for Charles IX. by Andrea Amati were every one of them destroyed
during the French Revolution of 1792.[10]
Contemporaneously with Andreas Amati the manufacture of stringed
instruments was vigorously carried on by Gaspard da Salò, in Brescia.
In Germany, from the second half of the sixteenth century, LAUXMIN
POSSEN, in 1550, at Schongau, subsequently instrument maker for the
Hofkapelle at Munich; JOH. KOHL, who at the same time worked at Munich
and in 1599 was appointed Court instrument maker there, and also JOACHIM
TIELKE were successively celebrated. The latter lived, as Gerber informs
us, at Hamburg from about 1660 to 1730, and even made lutes of real
ivory and ebony, the necks of which were inlaid with gold and silver and
mother-of-pearl, but one especially with nine pegs of the most beautiful
tortoiseshell. Tielke, however, made also violins and excellent gambas.
One of these, a costly instrument which was formerly in the possession
of the Elector Joh. Wilhelm of the Palatinate,[11] was brought from
Mannheim to the Duke of Maxburg’s Museum at Munich, and thence into the
Royal Bavarian National Museum, where it is preserved as a treasure of
rare value. The peg-box, the fingerboard, the tail-piece, the sides,
and the back are all decorated with designs of flowers, foliage, and
tendrils, as well as symbolical and allegorical representations taken
from mythology, the subjects representing for the most part love and
music. These decorations and designs are inlaid work in tortoiseshell,
ivory, ebony, mother-of-pearl and silver.[12]
Another valuable specimen of a gamba made by Tielke in the year 1701,
which belonged to the famous cello virtuoso, F. Servais, has been
described and represented by A. J. Hipkins, of Edinburgh, in his lately
published work, “Musical Instruments: Historic, Rare and Unique.”[13]
During the second half of the sixteenth century there must have been a
considerable multiplication of the different kinds of violas then in
use, and especially of the bass viol, for Michael Prätorius mentions
in his “Syntagma musicum,” which appeared in 1614-1620, the following
examples:
1. Very large Bass Viol with four strings (corresponding to the modern
Contrabasso).
2. Great Bass Viol de Gamba in three different tunings, with five and
also six strings (also like the Contrabasso).
3. Small Bass Viol de Gamba, five different examples with six, four,
and three strings (answering in tone, in some measure, to the modern
Violoncello).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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