THE DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPEAN BOWED INSTRUMENTS
up to the baroque: a closer look
[draft as of February 2002]
Ephraim Segerman

III: SUBSEQUENT FIDDLES

Ensemble fiddles in 16th century Italy
Around 1500, when Italian instrument makers adapted the vihuela (with a constructed body having a waist cutout) to have fewer strings, and to make a set of viols that included the original (with a half-metre string stop) plus double and intermediate sizes, they also made a similar small set that included the original plus half and intermediate sizes. These sets of small viole soon replaced the 3- and 4-string fiddles of the 15th century. Appropriate for their small sizes, these fiddles were tuned in fifths and fingered diatonically.

The earliest reported Italian pictures of viols were from the first decade of the 16th century. As with subsequent evidence, all of these show thin slots of varying shapes (C’s, S’s or straight) cut out of the soundboard between the waist cut outs on both sides of the strings. The earliest picture of French fiddles had a central rose (like the original vihuela) instead of the slots, and the earliest German fiddles and viols had not only the central rose but also the glued bridge of the original vihuela. Thus, if the others copied the Italian instruments, there must have been earlier Italian designs with these features for them to have copied. An alternative possibility is that the original vihuela spread to France and Germany before the Italians developed it into sets of fiddles and viols, and they adopted only the idea of sets after the Italians invented it.

The earliest name for the set of Italian fiddles we know of is violette da braccio & da arco senza tasti, meaning ‘small bowed arm viole without frets’, used by Lanfranco (1533)¹. By contrast, his name for viols was violoni da tasti & da arco, meaning ‘large bowed fretted viole’. Lanfranco’s soprano, contralto and tenore fiddles had three strings, and his basso had four. The third string of the soprano was in unison with the second of the contralto and tenore and with the first string of the basso. He gave no nominal string pitches, probably because that was irrelevant to the players since they didn't read musical notation.

This set of fiddles, usually called viole da braccio or violini (the latter always in the plural, and meaning, as violette did earlier, small viole) continued essentially unaltered until early in the 17th century. The same relative tunings were given by Zacconi (1592)² and Cerone (1613)³, except that a fourth string was usually (Zacconi) or occasionally (Cerone) added at the bottom of the middle sizes, and was occasionally (Zacconi) added at the bottom of the soprano.

Zacconi provided nominal pitches as well, which gave the lowest string of the basso as BB^b, which requires the string stop to have been at least 100 cm long at the usual Italian corista pitch standard. All of the 16th century paintings of fiddles shows them at about half such sizes, so we must conclude that the fiddles sounded an octave higher than the nominal pitches which they read when playing from music. So the actual pitches of the strings at corista were: basso: B^b,f ,c’,g’, contralto & tenore: (f),c’,g’,d” and soprano: (c’),g’,d”,a”. The calculated string stops would have been about 60, 40, 35 and 25 cm respectively⁴.

Soloistic fiddles in 16th century Italy
Throughout the history of European musical instruments, there have been many innovations that were intended to be improvements over what was previously available. These have been readily accepted if they allowed musicians to do things they felt were useful that they couldn’t do before, or made it easier or more convenient for them to do what they had been doing before. These innovations have not been readily accepted if it changed the sound quality that their instruments produced, no matter how ‘improved’ the sound might appear to later ears. This is because musicians and their audiences grew up with, and thoroughly enjoyed, the sounds their instruments produced previously, and any change in that sound would not be immediately perceived as any improvement.

This is amply illustrated in the adoption of new types of low bass gut strings that produced more harmonics in the sound, making it more focussed and richer. Musicians quickly adopted these strings to extend downwards the ranges of their instruments so that the new lowest string sounded just as dull as the old lowest string did, and were reluctant to change the type of string whenever it was acceptable previously. So when metal winding was invented around 1660, some violone players quickly used them to tune down to the the pitches of the contrabasso violone, and some basso viola da braccio players used them to tune a fifth lower, allowing them to play violone parts with more agility (thus acquiring the name violoncello, meaning ‘little violone’). Yet it took almost a century for a metal-wound violin 4th string to be commonly used in Italy.

When roped-gut bass strings became generally available in the 1570’s, we can understand that the viola da braccio family did not immediately adopt them, and can expect that the additional fourth strings on the smaller members reported by Zacconi could have been associated with adopting them when increased bass range seemed useful. The viols adopted them to allow 6-string viols to play with other instruments at the corista pitch standard. These strings also led to the development of the viola bastarda, a new soloistic instrument with variable (including extended) tunings that played, besides arpeggiated chords, highly divided versions of all parts, especially the bass. Il violino was a new soloistic fiddle that developed then, and it is likely to have performed a similar musical function.

Zacconi, Virgiliano⁵ and Cerone dealt with il violino and the family of viole da braccio, and clearly treated them as completely separate entities. The tuning information given by Zacconi shows that il violino did not correspond with any member of that family. Sixteenth century sources mentioning violini refer only to a complete set of instruments (which could only be the viole da braccio), but those mentioning il violino refer to a solitary fiddle that would play with any other instruments except a member of the viola da braccio family. It appears that there was a class divide, with the viole da braccio and/or its players considered dance-band inferiors, while the violino played with the more respectable instruments like lutes, viols, winds and keyboards. Outside of Italy, Italian viole da braccio apparently were given more respect. They played with fully respectable instruments in Munich under Lassus in 1568. Andrea Amati apparently supplied instruments for a viole da braccio band that worked for the French Court.

The only 16th century evidence on violino tuning was given by Zacconi. He wrote that it had a first-position fingered range of 17 diatonic notes, and when he specified the limits of that range in the usual hexachord pitch names, it was from c to either a’ or a” (ambiguous in that notation). The latter represents either 13 or 20 diatonic notes, and is different from the number stated. He followed this with a diagram showing a range of 17 notes from g to b”. From another statement, that the violino was, as the viole da braccio were, generally tuned in fifths, we arrive at the tuning of g,d’,a’,e”. It appears that this was the usual type of violino.

The anomalous range of c to a’ or a” has been interpreted as referring to a specific larger size of violino that coexisted with the usual one. But Zacconi wrote as if he was referring to a single instrument, not a family of instruments of varying sizes, so an explanation that assumes this would be preferred. Assuming an a’ highest note implies a 3-string tuning of c,g,d’, implying a large size. More likely is an a” highest note, implying a d” highest string. With that 20 note range, four strings could be tuned in three sixths⁶, or five strings could be tuned in three fifths and a fourth (combinations of fourths and fifths were particularly common in tunings of the viola bastarda). This range would cover almost all the range of the usual violino plus an added fifth in the bass. Zacconi did not mention how many strings the violino had, and that could be because there was some ambiguity about it.

The usual tuning of the violino was the same as that of the dessus or treble member of the French fiddle family (violons), so that is probably where it came from. That French instrument was not uncomfortably large (as the other original violons were), so its size was probably not reduced when roped-gut bass strings became available. So its string stop would probably have remained at its original 37 cm required by a high-twist gut lowest string. If an instrument with this string stop used roped-gut basses, the lowest note would be d. It is possible that the bridge could be shifted so that it could go down to c giving full power, or not move the bridge but use a thinner string, which gives somewhat reduced power from a 25% reduction in string tension. With either of these adaptations, a fiddle of treble (dessus) size could substitute for the alto (haute-contra) member of the French fiddle set.

The violin appears then to have originated as an Italian adaptation of the French dessus de violon, which was the size of a modern viola, at about 37 cm string stop. The adaptation involved using the newly generally-available roped-gut bass strings to enhance bass sound and to tune in different ways: The usual tuning was the same as the original, from g to e”. A second way would be to shift the bridge or use a thinner 4th, and then tune in some way up from c. A third is not to move the bridge or a thinner 4th and tune up in some way from d. Either of the latter two ways could have been used to play the violino part in Giovanni Gabrielli’s Sonata Pian e Forte (1597), that goes below g.

When a violino was to be played only in the usual tuning, it could have been somewhat smaller. With this tuning, the string-stop limits would be 30-37 cm. Three-string viole da braccio with the middle tuning (c',g',d") had a string stop range of 30-41 cm, with the contralto being close to the 30 cm minimum. These could easily have been converted to small violini.

Before the appearance of the violino, soloistic fiddles played in Italy were the lira da braccio and the rebec. Such rebecs are often seen in Italian pictures earlier in the 16th century. That is probably what the ribechino was that was called for in the 1539, 1568 and 1586 Florentine Intermedii. It was quite eclipsed by the violino, and when Monteverdi apparently wanted to revive it’s sound in Orpheo (1607), he had to use the French version, played by the only soloistic fiddlers available, the violino players. He thus specified the violino piccolo alla Francese. After the rebec was replaced by the violino, there was a lingering use of rebec words to refer to any soloistic fiddle in Italian and Iberian terminology. This usage has survived to modern times in what the Portuguese have called the violin.

Italian fiddles in the 17th century
Emilio Cavalieri’s Rappresentatione di animo, et di corpo (1600)⁷ specified that a solo violino played the soprano part in an ensemble. This appears to represent a change of musical function from musical-line promiscuity strong in the lower range to a commitment to express the treble line. It is reasonable to associate this change with the introduction of the bass bar.

The amount of sound we hear depends crucially on how strongly the soundboard is pumped by the feet of the bridge. A bar or post under one foot inhibits its pumping motion and, by geometry, enhances the pumping motion of the other foot when bowing strings going over that other end of the bridge top. Since the middle of the 16th century, a bar under the bass foot had been used on viols with cross-bars under the soundboard, which would have had an unbalanced poor treble response without it. Also, it was known that the same kind of effect could be achieved by a soundpost under the treble foot. Some German viols in the 1530's had an integral soundpost and treble bridge foot going through a hole in the soundboard (like the Welsh crwth and the Greek and Cretan lyra). Having a soundpost was probably what made it possible to have a fourth lowest string on the smaller members of the French family of fiddles when such fiddles elsewhere only had three strings. The violino probably inherited a soundpost with its French-fiddle origins. It wouldn’t make any sense to inhibit the motion of both feet of the bridge at the same time, and this would be demonstrated if one tested the same kind of inhibitor under both feet. This may explain why it took half a century to discover that the particular combination of a soundpost under the treble foot plus a bar under the bass foot creates a balanced instrument with both the treble and the bass response enhanced.

The improvisation and elaborate decoration in its soloistic background gave the violino a special musical dimension to offer to its new role as a strong treble ensemble instrument. It had a full dynamic range (as well as pitch range) that could imitate the voice more accurately than previous stringed instruments, and that conformed with the philosophy of the time that voice imitation was particularly virtuous. Demand for it grew dramatically. Players often worked in pairs, and if one was playing in the usual tuning, and the other in an extended tuning, they could form a set like that of the viole da braccio by adding a bass. That could be a basso viola da braccio,with added bass bar, soundpost and roped-gut thick strings, which would tune comfortably an octave lower than the violino. Such a violino family did appear in some places, performing the functions of a viole da braccio set. Banchieri (1605, 1609)⁸ mentioned such a set of violini da braccio, with the primo violino per il basso tuned: G ,d ,a ,e’, the secondo violino accordi tuned: d,g,d’,a’, and the ultimo violino per il canto tuned: g, d’,a’,e”. (The low d in the tuning of the middle member is as low as a violino of original size could go without moving the bridge or using a thinner weaker 4th string).

The success of such sets of violini da braccio would have been a threat to the players of the viole da braccio. It seems that some of the latter responded by mimicking the violino set by playing at written pitch, using roped-gut lower strings consistently, adopting the soundpost, replacing the soprano member of the set with the contralto playing the top part, dropping the pitch of the tenore by a fourth, and dropping the pitch of the basso by a minor third. The resulting viole da braccio set was tuned basso: G ,d ,a ,e”, tenore: c ,g ,d’,a’ and soprano (formerly contralto): f ,c’,g’,d”. In this set, each member was tuned a fourth away from the next one.

With these changes, the viole da braccio became acceptable for respectable music in Italy, and two sets (totalling ten instruments), apparently with these tunings (deduced from the ranges of the parts), were used in Monteverdi’s Orfeo (1607). A pair of violini, with their players doubling on violini piccolo alla Francese, were also called for, but they did not play together with the viole da braccio. Within a few years, the violini and viole da braccio agreed to play together, as in Monteverdi’s Vespers (1610). This would have involved the original contralto ceding the soprano role to the violino, and tuning down to rejoin the tenore.

With the violino and the modified viole da braccio working together, we hear no more of violini with extended or lower ranges than the usual one. After a while, we also hear no more of a soprano viola da braccio, since this new set of da braccio instruments (with the violino playing the soprano parts and viole da braccio playing the others) became standard. The original soprano viola da braccio was revived much later in the 17th century by violino players as the violino piccolo.

The 16th century habit of using the terms violini and viole da braccio for any set of da braccio instruments continued with no ambiguity, but when specifying individual parts, the distinction was still strictly observed. This implies that the players wanted to maintain that distinction even though the viole da braccio had adopted the physical violino characteristics (of roped-gut basses, soundposts and bass bars) that previously distinguished them. The violino was still different: in its florid flamboyant non-democratic style of playing.

One important factor that led to the respectability of the viole da braccio in the first decade of the 17th century was that the gentleman amateurs acquired and learned to play them. They had been playing viols and strongly valued the deep bass sounds that the large viols produced. So they had made two unusually large bass fiddles that filled their possible ranges with roped-gut basses, each with five strings tuned in fifths. We don’t know of any special early Italian names for them. The large basso, with a 72 cm string stop, had the top four strings tuned an octave below the violino: C,G,d,a,e’.at the Italian corista standard. This was the bas-geig de bracio illustrated by Praetorius, but not listed in his tunings. A famous painting by Pieter Claesz⁹ in the Louvre depicts this instrument. There is at least one of these (cut down to cello size) amongst the surviving instruments with painted decoration implying that they were in the 'Charles IX' set made by Andrea Amati, who died before 1581. It is possible that this instrument was invented by Amati for use in the French court.

Praetorius did not illustrate the contrabass fiddle, but gave its tuning as FF,C,G,d,a, a fourth lower than the large bass. He called it gross quint-bass. At the corista Italian pitch standard, this tuning would be GG,D,A,e,b. It would have had a string stop of about 95 cm (the calculated range is 91-98 cm). The set of five violini illustrated by Virgiliano (c. 1600) had relative sizes that are appropriate for them being this instrument plus two each of the soprano and contralto viole da braccio. The tuning of this largest bass fiddle without its top b string (an octave below the usual basso da braccio) was given for Kircher's (1650)¹⁰ 'violone'.

Around the middle of the 17th century, there is evidence for another large fiddle tuned in fifths being called 'violone'. It was sometimes more specifically called violone da braccio. In northern Italy, a large 4-string bass fiddle was used tuned to: BB^b,F,c,g¹¹. This was the French basse de violon that was made for export there, with a string stop of at least 80 cm. It is likely that it was played mostly by amateur gentlemen, since professional fiddlers (being of servant class, having to stand while playing and often had to play while walking) usually preferred more portable instruments. This instrument was considered to be equivalent to the usual violone (a double bass viol) in fulfilling its usual role as the ambiguous low bass/contrabass of string ensembles (this tuning lacks only the lowest three semitones of the usual violone).

The new availability of gut strings wound with metal in the 1660’s allowed shorter string stops while still having the lowest string sounding acceptably. So, while previously, to have a C low string, the string stop had to be at least 72 cm long, it could then be shorter. This allowed the small basso da braccio, with a string stop of about 62 cm, to acquire a low C string. Many did not change, and some added a fifth string and tuned like the earlier large 5-string bass: C,G,d,a,e’. Others just tuned down a fifth to: C,G,d,a, and concentrated on playing bass lines that were usually expected to be played on the violone. Since it was smaller than a violone but performed its musical role, it assumed the name violoncello. At the end of the 17th century, larger violoncelli (of modern size, with string stop about 68 cm) began to be made. This gave the instrument the power to perform adequately the role of the violone in large halls or churches. Some players, preferring the sound of an all-gut C string to one wound with metal, opted for a string stop of 72 cm, or a bit more, reviving the early amateur's instrument in a 4-string version. Modern early-music players have mistakenly assumed that surviving examples of these large cellos had been French basses.

As the 18th century progressed, both sizes of larger cellos gained in popularity, but the original smaller size, in both 4-string and 5-string versions, continued to be used, and they were sometimes then called violoncello piccolo¹² . If suspended diagonally, with the lower back against the right shoulder and the neck held downwards to the left, and bowed along the other diagonal, it was sometimes called viola da spalla (redundant tenor viols became 6-string viole da spalla). After the middle of that century, it seems that the quicker response of metal-wound basses became more important than the groggy masculine sound of all-gut basses. So the violino acquired a metal-wound 4th string, and the larger cello with an all-gut 4th went out of fashion.

Fiddles in France and England
A Paris woodcut showing the date MD.XVI.XIIII (presumably 1516) depicted four sitting philosophers playing small bowed instruments, the smallest held against the neck, and the others vertically between the knees.¹³ The way of holding the larger ones, the waist cutouts and soundboard roses (probably with a flat soundboard), show a close connection between these instruments and the original vihuela. Yet the sizes seem to progressively decrease from that of the vihuela, to half its dimensions, implying that they were fiddles of the same sizes and general pitch levels as the Italian ones.

The later French 16th century name for an ensemble fiddle was violon (plural violons). The ending of ‘on’ in a name implied ‘largeness’ in French as well as Italian, and indeed, when the earliest French tuning information on fiddles appeared in 1556¹⁴, the tunings imply larger sizes than the Italian (and original French) ones. They were a fourth lower, except for the bass, which was an octave lower. If we can associate the earliest use of the name violons with the development of the larger fiddle sizes, that development happened very early, around 1520¹⁵. Then we can suspect that the name violons was what remained from a longer name that implied that it was a larger version of whatever name the set of original sizes was called. The name for the original set of sizes was not used for very long, so it is not surprising that the few times that it could have been recorded are now lost. The size change was early enough for the derivation to be forgotten by 1556, when Jambe de Fer mistakenly stated that the Italian name for a fiddle was violon da braccio.

Since the English names for ensemble fiddles in the 16th century were variants of violon (with an ‘an’ or ‘en’ ending, as well as ‘on’), it is very likely that the English instruments were similar to the French ones.

All of the fiddles mentioned by Jambe de Fer had four strings. The tunings were basse: BB^b,F,c,g, taille (tenor) and hautcontre (alto): c,g,d’,a’ and dessus: g, d’,a’,e”. Assuming that roped-gut strings were not used, and that the ton de chapelle pitch standard was relevant, the calculated string-stop ranges would be 101-126, 53-56 and 37-37 cm. The La Volta painting of the Valois court c.1580¹⁶ shows three dessus de violons of this size and one basse of about 100 cm string stop in the fiddle band. Roped-gut strings could allow smaller instruments more convenient to handle, with string stops down to 80 cm on the basse and 42 cm on the hautcontre. The similar La Volta painting (from around the same time), traditionally showing Queen Elizabeth dancing with the Earl of Leicester, also with three trebles and a bass (and four strings on each), had a bass with about 80 cm string stop¹⁷., appropriate for a roped-gut BBb 4th. It is possible that one of the trebles used a roped-gut c to tune like a hautcontre.

We can make a good guess as to the motivation for French fiddlers to opt for larger instruments. Jambe de Fer wrote that 'we call viols those with which gentlemen, merchants and other men of virtue pass their time', while there are 'few people who play ... [the violons] except those that make their living from it'. The higher social status of the viol could have made the fiddlers want their instruments to be more like viols. This can explain both larger sizes (and lower pitches) and the increased overall pitch range of the set created by the bass dropping a fifth more than the other two tunings. The gap created by this increased overall pitch range is the obvious motivation for increasing the number of strings on the smaller sizes to four. The extension of the bass range of the smaller sizes could well have been facilitated by the insertion of a soundpost. Some German viols in the 1530's had the treble feet of their bridges going through holes in the soundboard acting as soundposts, so it was probably known that soundposts can enhance the bass.

Around 1600, the English started to change the name of their set of fiddles from variants of violons to ‘violins’. The term violin occurred in Venetian documents from 1576 onwards when referring to the soloistic violino¹⁸. The change of English terminology apparently reflected a growing interest in the fancy new style of soloistic bowed-instrument performance emerging from Italy. The viola bastarda was emulated on a small bass viol (probably originally made for vocal accompaniment) played ‘leero way’, and the violino was also emulated on the treble vyollen (apparently often rather unsuccessfully if we believe the scathing comments about attempts at playing it in plays of the period). The 17th century Italian fiddle band including the violino performed more dramatically than the French fiddle band, and it fascinated the English.

By then, the only difference in sizes and tunings between the French and Italian sets of fiddles was in the basses, and the English, at least outside the royal music establishment, apparently tended to use the handier Italian bass. The French themselves could have occasionally used the Italian bass. A French drawing of c.1650, showed boy angels playing three fiddles of dessus size plus a considerably larger instrument played in the viola da spalla position, apparently performing the role of a bass¹⁹. From it’s size, it could have been a large taille, tuned c,g,d’,a’ with a string stop of about 56 cm, or a basso viola da braccio tuned, perhaps more appropriately, a fifth lower, with a string stop of about 62 cm.

By the last decade of the 17th century in England, metal-wound strings were not yet used on violins, but they could be used on the 4th string of a bass violin²⁰, probably on the usual one with the small Italian size to tune like the large French one (used by the royal fiddle band) for playing French fiddle-band music. Early in the next century, most French violins had close-wound 4th’s and half-wound 3rd’s, though others still used all-gut stringing. At least till the 1740’s, the basse de violon still used all-gut stringing²¹. After the modern-size violoncello was developed in Italy around 1700, it was adopted soon in England, replacing previously-used bass violins²². It was used to some extent in France, but the basse de violon still dominated for much of the century. The Encyclopédie table of tunings (c.1770) has a note mentioning a Contre Bass tuned a fifth or an octave below the Basse.

Fiddles in Germany
Early in the 16th century, the Germans developed two types of sets of fiddles, with three strings on each size. One was the Spanish/Italian design of a viola with a cut-out waist and a rose between the cut-outs. It also had a glued bridge and frets. The other was a tear-drop shaped carved fiddle with the fretless fingerboard as the top surface of the body and a step downwards to the proper soundboard (with a clearly rounded bridge on it) near the body’s widest point. This instrument is a descendent of the 15th century dual-purpose fiddle, but there is no 16th century evidence of the use of a low flat bridge above the step.

Virdung (1511) illustrated one of those with the tear-drop shape. He called them clein Geigen. Agricola (1528), calling them klein Geigen, illustrated four sizes each of both types. The tunings given were Bassus: F,c,g, Tenor & Altus: c,g,d’ and Discantus: g,d’,a’. These were most probably pitches for reading, with sounding pitches an octave higher.

The three tunings in Gerle’s (1533) kleynen Geyglen were relative only, and differed from Agricola’s only that the bass was an octave below the treble, and that it had a fourth string a fifth below the third. The bass was illustrated, and its shape was tear drop, the bridge curved, the soundboard extended all the way to the neck narrowing and the fingerboard was overhanging.

Agricola’s second edition (1545) discussed two kinds of fiddles, the Polischen Geigen (from Poland) and kleinen handgeigen. The tunings of the two types was the same, differing from the first edition only in the bass, which was an octave below the treble, with an added 4th string tuned a tone below the 3rd. The calculated string stop ranges for these tunings, assuming a pitch standard of Catholic Chorthon, would be 41-55, 30-41 and 22-27 cm. The kleinen handgeigen were illustrated by the same drawings of tear-drop shaped fiddles as in the first edition. The Polischen Geigen were not illustrated. They replaced the fretted fiddles (with glued bridges) of the first edition. We can conclude that the strings were most probably bowed individually because they were stopped not by being pressed against a fingerboard but by being pressed sideways by left-hand fingernails (like the Indian sarangi is today).

No more evidence on tunings of fiddles has been reported for the rest of the 16th century in Germany. As mentioned above in the section on German viols, there were large bass and contrabass fiddles that played in mixed ensembles²³. There was increasing Italian influence. Italian viola da braccio players were employed in the Bavarian court in the 1560’s²⁴. The set of four real fiddles ‘played’ by cherubs standing on the capitals in Freiberg cathedral (installed in 1588) were made in Germany but were of Italianate design²⁵.

A collection of fiddle tunings and scaled illustrations was given by Praetorius (1619,1620). The tunings were at the Cammerthon pitch standard, which was a tone higher than that assumed for the fiddle tunings previously considered here. Drawing 8 of plate XVI shows a Klein Geig/ Posche genant and drawings 1 and 2 of plate XXI show Kleine Poschen/ Geigen ein Octav höher. These were rebecs with the first two having three strings, and the third four. The string stops were 18, 23 and 27 cm respectively, with the third narrower and more elongated than the others. The first two can be associated with the a’,e”,b” and g’,d”,a” tunings in the tuning tables. The third only fits the violino tuning in the table, g,d’,a’,e”. The text associates at least the first of these as the pochette played in France. This is the only evidence of a French fiddle at this high pitch, and so identifies the violino piccolo alla Francese in Monteverdi’s Orfeo as a rebec.

The table includes tunings for the Klein Discant Geige: c’,g’,d”,a”, the Discant Viol[a], Violino: g,d’,a’,e” and Tenor Viol[a]: c,g,d’,a’. The string stops on the illustrations were 23 cm (called Discant Geig ein Quart höher), 30 cm (called Rechte Discant-Geig) and 35 cm (called Tenor-Geig). The Klein Discant Geige was the original treble fiddle of the 16th century Italian and later German fiddle sets, and the Discant Viol[a], Violino and the Tenor Viol[a] were the current treble and alto/tenor fiddles in such sets. These string stops were smaller than Italian ones because of the higher pitch standard.

The table includes two 4-string tunings for the Bass Viol[a] de Braccio, neither of which was illustrated. The first was F,c,g,d’ (G,d,a,e’ at the Italian pitch standard), and appears to have been the normal Italian basso viola da braccio. The second was C,G.d,a, which has a calculated possible string-stop range of 66-98 cm. This range includes the over 80 cm range of the French basse de violon. We know that Praetorius was trying to be comprehensive. He surely knew about this instrument, and this seems to be the only place that he could have included it. His tuning for it was two tones higher than the pitches the French tuned it to.

The Bas-Geig de bracio that Praetorius illustrated had five strings and a string stop of 72 cm. It filled the possible range for gut stringing, so its tuning at his pitch standard could only be BB^b,f,c,g,d’. It seems to have been the Italian amateur’s bass fiddle tuned C,G,d,a,e’ at the Italian pitch standard. This 5-string bass was not listed in the table, but a 5-string contrabass called Gross Quint-Bass was listed (and not illustrated). The tuning given was FF,C,G,d,a, and it has a calculated string-stop range of 91-98 cm. This contrabass fiddle also seems to have been an Italian amateur’s instrument (apparently illustrated by Virgiliano). At the Italian pitch standard, the tuning would have been GG,D,A,e,b.

The other pieces of 17th century German evidence come from southern low-Chorthon pitch areas. The tunings of Hitzler’s (1628) fiddles were Discant: g,d’,a’,e”, Alt: c,g,d’,a’, Tenor: F,c,g,d’ and Bass: C,F,c,g. The first two were the standard instruments throughout Europe. The Tenor was apparently the Italian basso da braccio. This is the only early instance when this instrument was called a ‘tenor’. The Bass was apparently the French basse de violon with the lowest string tuned up a tone. The A. S. manuscript from the middle of the century gave the same first two tunings (the second serving for Alt and Tenor) as Praetorius and Hitzler, and the Bass tuning was C,G,d,a, as in Praetorius’s tone-higher tuning of the basse de violon.

In 1687, Steer²⁶ described a Fagott-geige (bassoon fiddle), which was a tour de force of metal-overspun strings. It was tuned like a bass C,G,d,a, but was the size of a tenor geig. The bassoon in the name seems to have referred to the buzzing sound that it was reported to produce from its overspun strings. From about 1725 a 5-string version of this instrument appeared, called viola pomposa, tuned like the 5-string violoncello piccolo (with a high e’). This inspired the invention of a violino pomposa of violin size tuned an octave higher (combining the violin and viola tunings). It was not widely used unless we take seriously the octave of the pitches notated in the viola pomposa repertoire, which would imply this tuning.

Leopold Mozart (1756)²⁷ listed the dozen bowed stringed instruments he knew of. He numbered them as 1:- the almost obsolete little pochette or Kit, 2:- a practice violin with a board instead of a body, 3:- a small violin (half or quarter size) played by children, and no more used (as the Violino Piccolo) to play concertos (ordinary violins could play the music in higher positions), 4:- the violin, 5:- the Bratsch (from braccio) or Viola, that plays alto and tenor, 6:- the Fagott-geige, 7:- the violoncello, 8:- the Violon (violone) in different sizes with appropriately different tunings, tuned (played?) an octave below the violoncello, usually with 4 strings, sometimes 3 strings, larger ones 5 strings (these used frets), 9:- the Viola di Gamba with 6 or 7 strings, 10:- the Viola di Bordone (baryton), 11:- the Viola d’Amore with 6 bowed gut strings (the lower ones covered with metal) and ‘steel’ sympathetic strings and 12:- the English Violette which differed from the viola d’amore by having 7 bowed strings and 14 sympathetic strings. He also mentioned the trumpet marine with one thick gut string and 3-cornered body.

When discussing the violin, Mozart advocated strict equal tension between the strings. He also mentioned that the 4th string was thicker than the 3rd, which was thicker than the 2nd, which was thicker than the 1st. With equal tension, these thickness relations are met by all-gut strings, and can only possibly be met with metal wound strings if the windings were open wound, i.e. widely spaced. Either just the 4th or both 4th and 3rd could be overspun this way. If metal winding was generally used, he would probably have mentioned it, as he did with the viola d’amore. It is likely that he was deliberately ambiguous.

Previously, Majer (1732)²⁸ wrote that the biggest violin string was gut, most often overspun with silver. It is unlikely that the stringing of his violin was strung in far from equal tension, so this implies that in his experience, the 4th was usually open wound. It appears that both an all-gut and an open-wound overspun 4th had strong adherents in the 18th century. Some Germans still preferred an all-gut 4th in the 19th century. A writer from as late as 1855 stated that an all-gut violin 4th was preferred to a metal-wound one by discerning players²⁹ .

CONCLUSION

The historical theories presented above concentrate on initial development, general construction, tunings, sizes, string types and aspects of performance not usual today. Different histories would focus on different issues that interest their authors. Readers may well think of some different theories that explain all of the relevant evidence as well as, or better than, those presented here. For the advancement of bowed-instrument history, let these theories be presented. That would much more constructive than just complaining that the theories presented here are not supported well enough to be convincing.

APPENDIX - Attitudes in Historical Scholarship

Those who consider themselves to be historical scholars include a large number who consider that they deal with facts, speculations and mysteries. As in every-day life, facts are what we know and can believe to be true, speculations are ideas about what we hope to know and keep an open mind about, and mysteries are things about which we may never know. When applied to scholarship, a fact is either evidence or a generalisation that is already accepted as true (or most probably true) by all those that matter in the field. A new fact is evidence or a generalisation that is so well supported by evidence (and not so contrary to expectations) that such acceptance is inevitable. A speculation is an idea presented as a candidate for such acceptance that is not so well supported by evidence. Individual pieces of evidence that are not supported by other evidence are considered suspect, so they can be ignored or dismissed as ‘unreliable’, especially if they are inconsistent with the speculation presented. There is democracy in speculations. These are opinions that everyone is entitled to have, and to promote for acceptance as probable history in the scholarly literature. A mystery is an historical question for which there is no answer that is accepted or expected, irrespective of whatever relevant evidence exists.

When they read this paper (which attempts to be fairly comprehensive), these scholars will find many ‘facts’ that are familiar (and acceptable), and many unfamiliar ‘speculations’ that they may or may not find ‘convincing’. The reason given for not being convinced probably would be that the 'speculations' are unexpected and so need more direct (or at least more) supporting evidence to be believable.

In principle, everyone (except for a post-modernist, who sees truth only as a matter of belief) accepts that fundamental in scholarship's search for truth is objectivity and the evidence. But judgement cannot be avoided in this process. That is subjective, and so should be kept to a minimum. Consequently, many historical scholars confine themselves to research which collects, organises and presents evidence (the facts), and they consider that connecting up the facts into a story of history is just speculation, which only gains validity if everyone who matters believes it probably is true. Others have great trust in their own judgements, promoting their theories of what is the truth, highlighting non-contradictory evidence as support, and either ignoring contradictory evidence or rejecting it as untrustworthy. Neither of these approaches is good historical scholarship. The former provides the raw material, but only respects a formulation of the story of history if it is agreed by a consensus. The latter violates the principles of objectivity and respect for the evidence.

This paper was written with a completely different approach to historical scholarship, one that is usual in scientific scholarship but not in historical scholarship. In it, there are no ‘facts’ other than the evidence, which must be trusted without being believed. Essential are ‘theories’ which are generalisations that go beyond the evidence. A ‘valid’ theory must be able to postulate reasonably probable explanations for all of the evidence. ‘Speculations’ are those ideas about issues on which there is no evidence. ‘Mysteries’ are only issues about which so little is understood that sensible speculations cannot be made.

Theories attempt to approach truth without claiming that it has been found. What is claimed is that a theory approaches truth more closely than another if it can explain all of the relevant evidence in more probable ways. A theory so chosen over all others is to be respected as the best that scholarship can do at the time with the evidence available, but belief in it must remain tentative. A better theory or more evidence can always possibly change the choice of which theory best explains the evidence. Prediction of how ephemeral a theory’s choice might be, or a consensus for its acceptance, are not criteria for judging its success. When scholars suspect that a theory chosen this way is untrue, they focus their efforts on seeking more evidence that has the potential of changing the choice and/or on generating an alternative theory that at least matches it in evidence-explaining ability.

This way of performing scholarship leads to better history. There is greater fidelity to the evidence, since each individual piece of evidence requires reasonable explanation. There is greater objectivity, since it is much easier to be objective in judging the historical probability of an explanation showing how a piece of evidence could have become what it is, than in judging the probability of a theory being true. The latter is to be mistrusted since we can’t help preferring some theories to others, for a variety of reasons. It also leads to more history since theories can be formulated and evaluated on almost all historical questions on which there is any amount of evidence. What is required is imagination to formulate the historical questions needed to fill the gaps in the story of history, to explore possible theories that might do that, and for each to provide reasonable explanations for evidence. Also required is much discipline in being fair in comparing the historical probabilities of the explanations that different theories offer, and courage in rejecting attractive theories that cannot offer explanations as good as other theories.

¹ G. M. Lanfranco, Scintille di musica (Brescia, 1533).

² L. Zacconi, Prattica di musica (Venice, 1592).

³ D. P. Cerone, El Melopeo y Maestro (Naples, 1613).

⁴ The conclusions here differ from that given by D. D. Boyden in his The History of violin Playing from its Origins to 1761 (O.U.P. 1965). The problems with his analysis are discussed in E. Segerman, 'Review: "Monteverdi's Violini piccoli alla Francese and Viole da brazzo" by D. D. Boyden', FoMRHI Quarterly 101 (Oct. 2000), Comm.1738, pp.28-32.

⁵ A. Virgiliano Il Dolcimelo (c.1600) manuscript in the Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale, Bologna. A description of the contents of this manuscript by E. Segerman is in FoMRHI Quarterly 97 (Oct. 1999), Comm.1672, pp. 26-8).

⁶ His statement that the tuning of violini was in fifths could easily have been statistical (omitting 'most'), since he stated that viols had six strings, while actually a minority at the time had five.

⁷ E. Cavaliere, Rappresentatione di anima, et di corpo (1600).

⁸ A. Banchieri, L’organo suonarino (Venice, 1605) and Conclusioni nel suono dell’ organo (Bologna, 1609).

⁹ Still-life with Musical Instruments, reproduced in A. Kendall, The World of Musical Instruments (Hamlyn, 1972).

¹⁰ A. Kircher, Musurgia Universalis (Rome, 1650). His tuning diagrams for all other bowed instruments gave string pitches an octave higher than the actual tuning, and it is assumed that this also applied to his ‘violone’.

¹¹ G. Zannetti, Il Scolaro (Milan, 1645). Also, G. M. Bononcini, Della Sonate da Camera, e da Ballo, Opera Secondo (Venice, 1667), No 37 and 38. Here the ‘violone’ part was given with a scordatura tuning of C, G, d, g (i.e. with the lower three strings tuned up a tone) .

¹² The bass line in some Bach cantatas was written in treble clef, apparently for a violinist to play on a bass tuned an octave down.

¹³ reproduced in D. D. Boyden (1965) op. cit. Figure 1, p.13.

¹⁴ P. Jambe de Fer, Epitome musical (Lyons 1556).

¹⁵ ‘Pour le trompettes et vjollons de Verceil’ is mentioned in Torino, Archivio di Stato, Tesoreria generale Savoia, reg. 181, c. 194 (1523), cited in R. Baroncini, ‘Contributo alla storia del violino nel sedicesimo secolo’, Recercare VI (1994), pp. 61-190.

¹⁶ reproduced in D. D. Boyden (1965), Plate 13.

¹⁷ reproduced in D. D. Boyden (1965), Plate 14.

¹⁸ R. Baroncini, ‘Contributo alla storia del violino nel sedicesimo secolo’, Recercare VI (1994).

¹⁹ reproduced in D. D. Boyden (1965), Plate 32.

²⁰ mentioned in the Talbot ms.

²¹ E. Segerman, 'Strings through the ages III: viola, bass violin and 'cello stringings', The Strad 99/1176 (April 1988), pp.295-9

²² R. North, Roger North on Music ... Essays ... c.1695 - c.1728 (London, 1969), ed. J. Wilson, p.304; North commented on the great improvement in the quality of bass violins since his youth, which is likely due to the introduction of the violoncello.

²³ e.g. woodcuts by Jost Amman in G. Kinsky, A History of Music in Pictures (Dent 1929), p.81.

²⁴ M. Troiano, Discorsi della trionfi, giostre, apparati (Munich 1568), mentioned in D. D. Boyden (1965), op.cit. pp.62.

²⁵ T. Flemming, 'Die Akte Freiberg', Concerto 53 (May 1990). See also G. Lyndon-Jones. 'Real Instruments and Fake Putti', FoMRHI Quarterly 77 (Oct. 1993), Comm.1186, p.21.

²⁶ D. Steer, Grund-richter ... Unterricht (Ulm 1687)

²⁷ L. Mozart, Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule (Augsburg 1756).

²⁸ J. F. B. C. Majer, Museum Musicum (Nürnberg 1732).

²⁹ H. W. von Gontershausen, Neu-eröffnetes Magazin musikalischer Tonwerkzeuge (Frankfurt, 1855), p.241. Quoted in C. Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments (Norton 1940), p. 361