Il violone impertinente
Federico Bagnasco (violone), Roberto Stilo (violone), Francesco Olivero (theorbo, guitar), Marco Crosetto (harpsichord, organ)
rec. 2024, Confraternita dei Santi Rocco e Sebastiano, Cumiana, Italy
Reviewed as a download
NovAntiqua NAD8 [47]

The history, nomenclature and use of low string instruments during the 17th and 18th centuries is a rather complicated and confusing affair. That has been demonstrated in the various publications of the scholar Marc Vanscheeuwijck, who plays the cello himself. Cellist Bruno Cocset has recorded music from the baroque period on all sorts of low string instruments. As several such instruments coexisted, it is not always clear which a composer had in mind, as the nomenclature in particular causes much confusion. As Federico Bagnasco rightly states in his liner-notes to the present recording, “The same name can refer to very different instruments, just as the same instrument can be referred to by different names”.

This disc is devoted to the violone, the name given to various instruments in the 17th century. Bagnasco plays a violone in D, which was also known as violone in contrabasso, contrabassa da gamba, Gross-Bass Viola da Gamba and Deutsche Violon. The instrument played here has six strings, a fret and is tuned an octave below the bass viol (low D-G-C-E-A-D). Such instruments were seldom used in a solo role; rather, they participated in the basso continuo.

Thus, the programme here offers music largely intended for other instruments. The notes emphasize that players of the double bass from the 19th and 20th centuries, looking for earlier repertoire to play, often turned to pieces for cello or for violin. As he acknowledges that arrangements were a common practice in the baroque period, he points out the differences between the double bass (with four strings and no frets) and the violone. With this programme he aims to give back, so to speak, such arrangements to the instrument closer to the time the original music was written.

The programme opens with a canzona for a low instrument by Frescobaldi. The composer only indicated “basso solo” without specifying the required instrument. That is left to the performer, and this means that it can also be played on, for instance, the sackbut (a then popular instrument, today known as trombone). I assume it is played here an octave below the notation, as it is also often played on the bass viol (and sometimes the cello, which is anachronistic).

It is followed by two sonatas which have been attributed to Giovanni Lorenzo Lulier, who was nicknamed ‘Giovannino del Violone’. The word ‘violone’ may refer here to what we now know as the ‘baroque cello’, attesting again to the confusing use of names for low string instruments. The attribution is based on the fact that these two sonatas have been preserved together with a sonata by Lulier. Bagnasco mentions that the contribution is false for stylistic reasons. Their titles refer to the violone, but the music is scored for an 8-foot instrument. The sonatas are quite different in structure and character. The Sonata in A minor is notable for the indication staccato/staccata in three of the five movements.

The Sonata XI in G minor by John Eccles is an example of a piece for violin, which was popular among performers of later times, not only players of the violin and the double bass, but also of bassoon, saxophone and tuba. In these sonatas, which were published in 1720 in Paris, Eccles reused material by other composers. In the Sonata XI the second movement is taken from the Invenzioni da camera Op. 10 by Francesco Antonio Bonporti (1672-1749).

Also popular among players of the double bass are the sonatas for cello and basso continuo by Benedetto Marcello, which were also often used as pedagogical material for cellists. They were published as his Op. 1 around 1732 in Amsterdam and as his Op. 2 in London in that year. The Sonata II in E minor has the conventional structure of a sonata da chiesa. Notable is that the last movement is in moderate tempo: andante.

In the 1950s the Sonata in F for two cellos by the Dutch composer Willem de Fesch was published in a version for double bass and piano. Its inclusion in the programme is a good illustration of the way it has been put together. It is performed here again in an arrangement, but then for two violones. The information with regard to this piece raises questions. The liner-notes say, “It was originally the eleventh of twelve sonatas (Op. 1 Amsterdam 1715), the second half of which was for two cellos”. However, the second half of the set does not contain a sonata in F, and the fifth of them – which should be the No 11 of the entire set – is in A minor. The titles of the movements are different and, as far as I could check, the music as well. I have not been able to identify this piece.

The programme closes with a piece for viola da gamba without accompaniment by Carl Friedrich Abel. Bagnasco states that the Sonata in G “was considered one of the first examples of solo instrument music with which a double bass player could tackle an ancient language on his own”. It is one of many pieces that Abel wrote for one of his aristocratic pupils, in this case the Countess of Pembroke. This explains why it is technically not very complicated.

Federico Bagnasco sums the purpose of this recording up thus: “The project Il violone impertinente aims to create a small short circuit with this fake Baroque double bass repertoire, taking these pieces back to their original source, drawing on manuscripts or early prints, and drawing on the experience of historically informed performance practice, playing them on a double bass that is a copy of an antique instrument with a Baroque frame”. The starting point of this project is quite original, and, as mentioned, inspired the choice of pieces.

The performances are very good, and Bagnasco, whom I can’t remember having heard before, is an excellent violone player. The fast pieces are performed with much zest, including a fine sense of rhythm and an effective application of dynamic accents, whereas the slower pieces are expressively played. The playing of the pieces an octave lower than notated could create an imbalance with the basso continuo part, as Bagnasco observes, but the basso continuo players have taken care of that, and have a good presence. Robert Stilo is Bagnasco’s perfect partner in De Fesch. There is just one issue: the playing time is disappointingly short. I would have liked to hear more, which is a compliment to the performers.

Johan van Veen
www.musica-dei-donum.org
twitter.com/johanvanveen

Contents
Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643)
Canzon I à bass solo
anon
Sonata in A minor
Sonata in F
Henry Eccles (c1670-1742)
Sonata XI in G minor
Benedetto Marcello (1686-1739)
Sonata II in E minor
Willem de Fesch (1687-1761)
Sonata XI in F
Carl Friedrich Abel (1723-1787)
Sonata in G (WKO 155)