The violoncello ( VY-ə-lən-CHEL-oh, Italian pronunciation:[vjolonˈtʃɛllo]), often simply abbreviated as cello ( CHEL-oh), is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G2, D3 and A3. The viola's four strings are each an octave higher. Music for the cello is generally written in the bass clef, with tenor clef, and treble clef used for higher-range passages.
Georg Philipp Telemann was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. He is one of the most prolific composers in history, at least in terms of surviving oeuvre. Telemann was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the leading German composers of the time, and he was compared favourably both to his friend Johann Sebastian Bach, who made Telemann the godfather and namesake of his son Carl Philipp Emanuel, and to George Frideric Handel, whom Telemann also knew personally.
The six Cello Suites, BWV 1007–1012, are suites for unaccompanied cello by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). They are some of the most frequently performed solo compositions ever written for cello. Bach most likely composed them during the period 1717–1723, when he served as Kapellmeister in Köthen. The title given on the cover of the Anna Magdalena Bach manuscript was Suites à Violoncello Solo senza Basso.
The Brandenburg Concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach are a collection of six instrumental works presented by Bach to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt, in 1721. The original French title is Six Concerts Avec plusieurs instruments, meaning "Six Concertos for several instruments". Some of the pieces feature several solo instruments in combination. They are widely regarded as some of the greatest orchestral compositions of the Baroque era.
Scordatura is a tuning of a string instrument that is different from the normal, standard tuning. It typically attempts to allow special effects or unusual chords or timbre, or to make certain passages easier to play. It is common to notate the finger position as if played in regular tuning, while the actual pitch resulting is altered. When all the strings are tuned by the same interval up or down, as in the case of the viola in Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra, the part is transposed as a whole.
A viola concerto is a concerto contrasting a viola with another body of musical instruments such as an orchestra or chamber music ensemble. Throughout music history, especially during the Baroque, Classical, Romantic eras, viola was viewed mostly as an ensemble instrument. Though there were a few notable concertos written for the instrument in this time period, these instances were quite rare and the instrument continued to be ignored. However, during the 20th century, the instrument was revitalized thanks to the work of a number of violists and composers, which led to the commission and composition of many more viola concertos, expanding the repertoire significantly.
Bowed string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by a bow rubbing the strings. The bow rubbing the string causes vibration which the instrument emits as sound.
Anders Erik Birger Eliasson was a Swedish composer.
The Sonata for Arpeggione and Piano in A minor, D. 821, was written by Franz Schubert in Vienna in November 1824. The sonata is the only substantial composition extant today for the arpeggione. The sonata was composed in November 1824, about a month after Schubert had returned to Vienna from his second stay in Zseliz. It has been adapted to other string instruments, especially the cello. It can be played on the GuitarViol which is a Modern Arpeggione.
Bass violin is the modern term for various 16th- and 17th-century bass instruments of the violin family. They were the direct ancestor of the modern cello. Bass violins were usually somewhat larger than the modern cello, but tuned to the same nominal pitches or sometimes one step lower. Contemporaneous names for these instruments include "basso de viola da braccio," "basso da braccio," or the generic term "violone," which simply meant "large fiddle." The instrument differed from the violone of the viol, or "viola da gamba" family in that like the other violins it had at first three, and later usually four strings, as opposed to five, six, or seven strings, it was tuned in fifths, and it had no frets. With its F-holes and stylized C-bouts it also more closely resembled the viola da braccio.
Giovanni Benedetto Platti was born possibly 9 July 1697 in Padua, then belonging to Venice. He was an Italian Baroque composer and oboist. He died 11 January 1763 in Würzburg.
New Collegium is a baroque orchestra and chamber ensemble based in The Netherlands. The orchestra was founded in 2006 by Brazilian/Italian harpsichordist Claudio Ribeiro.
Piccolo Quintet is short for the Quintet op. 26 of Graham Waterhouse, composed in 1989 for piccolo and string quartet and published by Zimmermann in 2002 as Quintet for piccolo, 2 violins, viola and violoncello.
The concerto for two harpsichords in C minor, BWV 1060, is a concerto for two harpsichords and string orchestra by Johann Sebastian Bach. It is likely to have originated in the second half of the 1730s as an arrangement of an earlier concerto, also in C minor, for oboe and violin. That conjectural original version of the concerto, which may have been composed in Bach's Köthen years (1717–1723), is lost, but has been reconstructed in several versions known as BWV 1060R.
The violetta was a 16th-century musical instrument. It is believed to have been similar to a violin, but occasionally had only three strings, particularly before the 17th century. The term was later used as an umbrella for a variety of string instruments. Some of the instruments that fall under its umbrella are the viol, viola, viola bastarda, viola da braccio, viola d'amore, violetta marina, tromba marina and the viola da gamba, viola pomposa, violino piccolo, violoncello, and the violin. Many of the instruments within this family contained anywhere from three to eight strings, either had frets or did not, was built with either very narrow ribs or wide ribs, and most unique of all either did or did not contain sympathetic strings. Sympathetic strings, are strings that sit below the regular strings and vibrate, or resonate, in sympathy with the strings above them as they’re played. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, one of the earliest inceptions of the term came from G.M. Lanfranco, a lesser known 16th century Italian composer, who uses the term “violetta” in one of his books titled Scintille di musica in 1533.
The violoncello da spalla, known informally as the cello da spalla, is a small cello played braced against the shoulder.
Johann Pfeiffer was a German violinist, concert master and composer of the late baroque period.
The Triple Concerto, BWV 1044, is a concerto in A minor for traverso, violin, harpsichord, and string orchestra by Johann Sebastian Bach. He based the composition on his Prelude and Fugue BWV 894 for harpsichord and on the middle movement of his Organ Sonata BWV 527, or on earlier lost models for these compositions.
