Music Practice Commons^™

Unearthing Forgotten Treasures: Anonymous Arias With Obbligato Violoncello At The Estense Library, Modena, Alessandro Sanguineti

Performance Practice Review

Recent studies regarding the first steps of the violoncello in North Italy at the end of the seventeenth century have been concentrating on the vast musical output collected by Francesco II, Duke of Modena, now held at the Biblioteca Estense Universitaria. Nonetheless, there is still a conspicuous number of anonymous manuscripts copied in Modena at the end of the seventeenth century containing opera arias which include several examples with obbligato violoncello. A connection has been made with one of these collections and a particular performance of L’Ercole Trionfante in Piacenza in 1688 with music by the composer and organist Bernardo …

"Stradivari" By Stewart Pollens, Peter Walls

Performance Practice Review

Peter Walls discusses and reviews Pollens 2010 work.

Pollens, Stewart. Stradivari. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

ISBN 978-0-52187-304-8

Italian Split-Keyboard Instruments With Fewer Than Nineteen Divisions To The Octave, Denzil Wraight, Christopher Stembridge

Performance Practice Review

Checklists of (1) surviving Italian harpsichords and virginals with split black keys; (2) similar instruments not known to survive but whose existence can be documented; (3) 26 Italian organs built during the period 1468-1665 that are known to have had split keys. Gives the ranges of these instruments when known. Discusses Frescobaldi's probable involvement with such instruments.

The Cimbalo Cromatico And Other Italian Keyboard Instruments With Ninteen Or More Division To The Octave (Surviving Specimens And Documentary Evidence), Christopher Stembridge

Performance Practice Review

An earlier article (abstracted as RILM 9191) established that the cimbalo cromatico had 19 keys per octave. No such instrument survives, but two show traces of having been such (including a harpsichord by Franciscus Faber, 1631). Luython's clavicymbalum universale described by Michael Praetorius, and other documented instruments in Graz and in Ferrara, Rome, and elsewhere in Italy, are discussed. Harpsichords and organs with more than 19 keys per octave clearly related in design to the cimbalo cromatico include instruments made by Domenico da Pesaro, Vincenzo Colombo, Vido Trasuntino, and designed by Gioseffo Zarlino, Nicola Vicentino, Francisco de Salinas, Fabio Colonna, …

Music For The Cimbalo Cromatico And The Split-Keyed Instruments In Seventeenth-Century Italy, Christopher Stembridge

Performance Practice Review

Related to the arcicembalo, the cimbalo cromatico was a type of harpsichord in use during the late 16th and early 17th c. While most keyboards were tuned in 12-note meantone temperament, limiting the number of available sharps (three) and flats (two), the cimbalo cromatico's 19-note keyboard contained separate keys for all sharps and flats. Though useful, the instrument lacked influence; composers tended to confine themselves to the meantone system, using the more widespread instruments with split keys for the extra notes needed.