The 'mistuned' cello: Precursors to J. S. Bach's Suite V in C minor for unaccompanied violoncello

This treatise investigates selected early solo works for violoncello that incorporate the use of scordatura, encompassing the extant repertoire from Domenico Gabrielli's Seven Ricercars for Solo Violoncello (1687) through Johann Sebastian Bach's Suite V for Unaccompanied Violoncello in C minor (BWV 1011)(1720).;Scordatura is any tuning of a string instrument other than its established tuning. The context for this definition is established through a discussion of the origin and evolution of the violin family to clearly ascertain what are considered to be established tunings. From the primary theoretical sources--Jambe de Fer, Mersenne, Praetorius, Zacconi, and Corrette--it is evident that the tuning of the violoncello, C-G-d-a, was established by the last quarter of the seventeenth century.;The earliest notated example of violoncello scordatura use is found in Luigi Taglietti's Suonate da camera a tre due Violini, e Violoncello, con alcune aggiunte a Violoncello Solo, Opus I (1697). Sonata II in this opus contains a solo "Capricio" for Violoncello which bears the instruction Discordatura, requiring the tuning C-G-d-g. The same tuning, accepted as an established tuning in Bologna and Modena in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, is examined through an analysis of Benedetto Marcello's Sonata ;Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, the most celebrated exponent of scordatura use in violin music, established a German tradition of scordatura which was continued in the violoncello repertoire by Jacob Klein Le Jeune and Johann Sebastian Bach. Jacob Klein used the transposition scordatura, D-A-e-b, in his VI Sonates a une Basse de Violon & Basse Continue, Premier Ouvrage, Livre Troisieme. Johann Sebastian Bach incorporated the "Italian" tuning, C-G-d-g, in his Suite V for Unaccompanied Violoncello in C minor (BWV 1011). Bach's use of this scordatura tuning in 1720 was the last example of this technique in the literature for unaccompanied violoncello until Zoltan Kodaly's publication of the Sonata for Unaccompanied Cello (Op. 8) in 1915.