(It.).
A small violin on which high violin parts were played from the late 16th century to the 18th. Its function is comparable to that of a piccolo flute; however, the size of the now obsolete instrument continues to be debated. It is classified as a bowed lute (or fiddle) in the Hornbostel-Sachs system.
The violino piccolo was variously pitched up to a 5th higher than the full-size violin (hence sometimes called in German Terzgeige, Quartgeige etc.) to accommodate high parts, which could then be played principally in the 1st position. Although violin virtuosos played in the 6th or 7th position by the end of the 17th century, the average violinist normally did not exceed the 3rd or 4th position. The violino piccolo was therefore specified when composers wished to extend the range of the violin upwards. As shifting became a standard part of violin technique in the 18th century, the violino piccolo, as it was originally conceived, became obsolete.
Violini piccoli existed as early as the late 16th century; several claine discant violins are listed in an inventory, dated 1596, of the collection in Schloss Ambras, near Innsbruck (Schlosser, 1920). Michael Praetorius (2/1619) noted that the instrument was common in his day. His treatise demonstrates that the Klein Discant Geig was significantly smaller than a full-size violin, having a body length of 26·8 cm (according to Besssaraboff’s 1941 interpretation of Praetorius’s scaling). It had four strings, was tuned in 5ths, and was pitched a 4th higher than the full-size violin.
The dimensions of Praetorius’s Klein Discant Geig closely match those of an unaltered violino piccolo (body length of 26·6 cm) that was made in the shop of the brothers Antonio and Girolamo Amati (1613, Cremona), and is preserved in the Shrine to Music Museum, University of South Dakota, Vermillion. A number of violins, with body lengths of 23–27 cm, survive by makers such as Cati, Giuseppe Guarneri, Klemm, and both Antonio and Omobono Stradivari. They are similar in length to a modern 1/4-size violin, but built for an adult hand rather than for teaching children; they have distinctly thicker necks, slightly wider fingerboards, and somewhat larger pegboxes than children’s instruments.
The earliest music specifically calling for the violino piccolo is Monteverdi’s opera Orfeo (1607). J.S. Bach specified the violino piccolo in three compositions: Cantatas nos.96 and 140, and the First Brandenburg Concerto. Many present-day violinists choose to perform these parts on so-called ⅞-size violins, rather than on smaller instruments. Numerous examples of ⅞-size violins with body lengths of about 34 cm (only 1 or 2 cm less than the size of standard violins), survive from the 17th and 18th centuries, but no persuasive arguments have been offered to clarify the use for which they were originally intended. Clearly, they are not the Klein Discant Geig described by Praetorius nor could they represent the violino piccolo described by Leopold Mozart in his Violinschule (1756). All the bowed string instruments known to Mozart are described in the introduction to his tutor. He notes that the violino piccolo is smaller than the ordinary violin and is capable of being tuned to a much higher pitch. Most significant is his remark that violini piccoli were no longer needed to play the high violin parts since by then violinists were accustomed to shifting into higher positions. Therefore, Mozart notes, the small violins were used instead to train young boys. These remarks suggest that the violino piccolo in the mid-18th century was significantly smaller than a ⅞-size violin and was more likely the size of the 1613 Brothers Amati instrument.
Concertos, sonatas, orchestral suites and cantatas featuring the violino piccolo were composed as late as the third quarter of the 18th century. Composers whose works call for it include Dittersdorf, Doles, Erlebach, Förster, Fux, Harrer, Janitsch, Krause, Pfeiffer and Rosetti.
M. Praetorius: Syntagma musicum, ii (Wolfenbüttel, 1618, 2/1619/R; Eng. trans., 1986, 2/1991)
A.Moser: ‘Der Violino Piccolo’, ZMw, i (1918–19), 377–80
J. Schlosser: Die Sammlung alter Musikinstrumente (Vienna, 1920/R)
N. Bessaraboff: Ancient European Musical Instruments (Cambridge, MA, 1941), 301, 353–6
D.D.Boyden: ‘Monteverdi’s violini piccoli all francese and viole da brazzo’, AnnM, vi (1958–63), 387–402
L. Sirch: ‘Violini piccoli all francese e canto alla francese nell’ Orfeo (1607) e negli Scherzi musicali (1607) di Monteverdi’, NRMI, xv (1981), 50–65
P.Liersch: ‘Bericht über die für die Bachgedenkstätte gearbeitete Kopie des Violino piccolo Cati 1741’, Cöthener Bach-Hefte, iii (Köthen,1985), 57–64
M.D.Banks: ‘The Violino Piccolo and Other Small Violins’, EMc, viii (1990), 588–96
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