The use of the five string instrument, for which it was composed brings a very different sonority and character to the suite. Also Mr. Jordan's knowledge is impressive. Thanks for posting this.
Hi, Andrew-glad you enjoyed the Prelude video! Your question (about what else can be played on the violoncello piccolo) has an enormous answer, beginning with several concertato-style obligato solos in Bach’s cantatas-and that’s just Bach, for starters.
Myles, you look in fine form. Is that a relatively new finger board? Tell the gang hello for me. I haven't picked up the fiddle in about 10 years...and no one has asked me to change my mind. Fancy that!
Dear Gordon-hoping you’re both well and in fine spirits. The piccolo cello does have a new fingerboard, as of this week; it doesn’t have the inlay you see here on the video, just a framed ebony board that, without splintering, can stand the rigors to which I regularly put it. The quartet is at long last a quartet again! We have a new violinist. His name is Philipp Elssner. All best to you and Dee!
Hi, John-You’re right, or at least, so wrote Philipp Spitta, Bach’s first biographer. The problem is, there are no references to a “viola pomposa” anywhere in the historical record previous to Spitta. The “violoncello” illustrated in Michael Praetorius’s 1619 book “Syntagma Musicum” has five strings-and an end-pin! It’s known Bach worked on a design for one with the Leipzig luthier Johann Christian Hoffmann, but that’s after 1720, when the cello Suites and violin Partitas and Sonatas were already written. He was probably looking to produce the ideal obligato instrument for several cantata arias calling for “violoncello piccolo,” and that’s probably the same instrument for which he conceived the Sixth Suite.
“Pomposa” refers to the Pomposa Abbey, a monastery outside Ferrara, where Guido Aretino (Guido d’Arezzo) formulated, among many other ideas, the Guidonian Hexachord (Ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la). The traditional violoncello piccolo is strung with five of those six pitches, but lacks the “fa.” Bach’s evident wish was to devise an instrument in the viola range with a low “F” string a fifth below the C, which would then have all six pitches, the lowest being a fourth above the open cello C. That turned out not to be technically / acoustically feasible, so he instead settled for the violoncelo piccolo, as may be seen in his indications, both in the suite and cantata manuscripts and original parts where he clearly intended a five-stringed cello.
The use of the five string instrument, for which it was composed brings a very different sonority and character to the suite. Also Mr. Jordan's knowledge is impressive. Thanks for posting this.
Beautiful.
Fantastic!
That’s terrific! So joyful. I wonder if Bach knew that this would be his last suite. What else can be played on this instrument?
Hi, Andrew-glad you enjoyed the Prelude video! Your question (about what else can be played on the violoncello piccolo) has an enormous answer, beginning with several concertato-style obligato solos in Bach’s cantatas-and that’s just Bach, for starters.
Fantastic! Kodaly next?
Myles, you look in fine form. Is that a relatively new finger board? Tell the gang hello for me. I haven't picked up the fiddle in about 10 years...and no one has asked me to change my mind. Fancy that!
Dear Gordon-hoping you’re both well and in fine spirits. The piccolo cello does have a new fingerboard, as of this week; it doesn’t have the inlay you see here on the video, just a framed ebony board that, without splintering, can stand the rigors to which I regularly put it. The quartet is at long last a quartet again! We have a new violinist. His name is Philipp Elssner. All best to you and Dee!
The Instrument With Five Strings-“Viola Pomposa”
Hi, John-You’re right, or at least, so wrote Philipp Spitta, Bach’s first biographer. The problem is, there are no references to a “viola pomposa” anywhere in the historical record previous to Spitta. The “violoncello” illustrated in Michael Praetorius’s 1619 book “Syntagma Musicum” has five strings-and an end-pin! It’s known Bach worked on a design for one with the Leipzig luthier Johann Christian Hoffmann, but that’s after 1720, when the cello Suites and violin Partitas and Sonatas were already written. He was probably looking to produce the ideal obligato instrument for several cantata arias calling for “violoncello piccolo,” and that’s probably the same instrument for which he conceived the Sixth Suite.
“Pomposa” refers to the Pomposa Abbey, a monastery outside Ferrara, where Guido Aretino (Guido d’Arezzo) formulated, among many other ideas, the Guidonian Hexachord (Ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la). The traditional violoncello piccolo is strung with five of those six pitches, but lacks the “fa.” Bach’s evident wish was to devise an instrument in the viola range with a low “F” string a fifth below the C, which would then have all six pitches, the lowest being a fourth above the open cello C. That turned out not to be technically / acoustically feasible, so he instead settled for the violoncelo piccolo, as may be seen in his indications, both in the suite and cantata manuscripts and original parts where he clearly intended a five-stringed cello.