I just played Beethoven's 6th and noticed that there were some deliberatly written parts for basses below the low E, I've noticed this in other Beethoven works as well. This brings me to the question of what basses they had in Germany at the time. Were they using 5 strings, or C extentions, or what?

trav

BUMP!!

The first mention of a 5 string orchestral double bass was in the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in 1880. Hans von Bülow used 5 string basses in a cycle of the Beethoven symphonies. In 1882, a 5 string bass was being used by Willy Krausse, principal double bass of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

Beethoven died in March in the year 1827 so 5 string basses probably weren't even a thought in people's minds for at least another 50 years. I'm not sure but I assume they just played notes below open E up and octive.

Pretty interesting thread, kind of puts me in the mood into doing some research about the topic.

I just played Beethoven's 6th and noticed that there were some deliberatly written parts for basses below the low E...


I'm not so sure - so for a start, bass is written an octave above where it sounds and in Beethoven's time it was really just a case of doubling the Cello part - although it was changing.....?

So were these parts deliberately written for extended range basses or just as a bass part roughly in the range of Cello without thinking about the "orchestration"...?

There was no "standard" orchestra then - like there is now and no standard format for DB - so Beethoven was unlikley to be thinking that he had a particular set of intruments to fit - he was just writing what he had in mind and he would have expected that parts would be altered for different forces available.

Pieces that were written for certain chamber groups would be altered all the time for different groups of instruments and Beethoven would expect this to happen - even in 20th C Orchestral scores, composers who are now actually thinking about what group of instruments will play, are giving options - things like "if Bass Clarinet is available" ...

I've noticed a real inconsistancy in his bass parts. Sometimes the notes have been changed to accommodate an E-string limitation, sometimes they go down to low-C. One bar in, I think, the 3rd has the celli play the accommodated line while the basses go down to a low-Eb.

I check a score and some questionable areas are the same as the Zimmerman book parts, some are different.

Maybe it was a bad publisher.

Well that's the other thing apart from what I mentioned above - in the intervening years, these scores must have been published and re-published many, many times - with human error and transpositions etc. etc.

I've noticed a real inconsistancy in his bass parts. Sometimes the notes have been changed to accommodate an E-string limitation, sometimes they go down to low-C. One bar in, I think, the 3rd has the celli play the accommodated line while the basses go down to a low-Eb.

I check a score and some questionable areas are the same as the Zimmerman book parts, some are different.

Maybe it was a bad publisher.

As much as I love my Zimmermann books, I think that it is time for some change. I'd love to have a new, crisp edition with "modern" bowing, contra-e notes/correct notes, and even a few fingering suggestions.

Just a suggestion...

I suppose then that Beethoven wasn't writing for a lower instrument at that time. Come to think of if wasnt Dragonetti still playing a 3 string? though that was a little earlier. I was just curious since it's not really a work where the bass is doubling the cello all the time.