[45] Another inaccuracy in Fétis’s “Stradivari,” p. 46, is that the name of violino “had already appeared in Lanfranco’s work ‘Scintille’ of 1533.” This announcement has caused some confusion. Before Lanfranco’s work was accessible to me, I also in bonâ fide had made the same assertion in my “History of Instrumental Music of the Sixteenth Century” (p. 73), and I now correct it. The word “Violino” is not mentioned by Lanfranco, but in every case only the termination “Violone,” which is bass viol.
[46] See monthly Magazine for the History of Music, Year XVI., No. 3.
[47] The well-known violin maker, Aug. Riechers, in Berlin, possesses a violoncello by Gaspard da Salò (small size).
[48] The French call this kind of recitative accompaniment “le recitatif italien.”
[49] Accompanying the recitative with the cello was customary far into our century. I heard it in Italy at the representation of the old operas up to the year 1873. I am unable to say if the practice is continued. It has been abolished in Germany for the last ten years.
[50] The widespread opinion that Gius. Guarneri of the Gesù did not make violoncellos is unfounded. Aug. Riecher informs me that Major H——r, in Berlin, is in possession of a cello which is undoubtedly genuine. Yet it seems as if this member of the Guarneri family had only made a limited number.
[51] The above sketch is taken from Corrette’s Violoncello Tutor, which was published in 1741.
[52] In my paper “The Violin and its Masters,” second edition (Breitkopf and Härtel), I have given a more detailed account of it as well as of the productions of the Italian, German, and French masters, which it is unnecessary to repeat here. See also the fabrication of musical instruments in Saxon Voigtland, by Fürstenau and Berthold, 1876.
[53] Mattheson expresses himself about this in his original manner as follows: “The growling Violone (French, Basse de Violon; German, Grosse Bass Geige) is quite twice the size of the former, sometimes even more, consequently the strings, in thickness and length, are in proportion. They are of sixteen-feet tone, and most useful on the stage as a solid foundation for polyphonous pieces, such as choruses and similar things, as well as for airs and recitatives; its deep humming tone penetrates farther than the clavier and other bass instruments. It must, however, be heavy work if one has to practise this monster for three or four hours unceasingly.”
[54] Concerning this, I refer to my work “The Violin and its Masters,” second edition, 1883. (Breitkopf and Härtel, Leipsic.)