We all know its rich, growling tone. But what is the history of the cello? Here is the story behind this majestic string instrument.
History of the cello: when was it invented?
Like the violin, the violoncello (cello for short) first emerged in northern Italy, sometime in the early 16th century.
What was the idea behind the design?
Initially known as the bass violin, the cello was designed to reinforce the bass line in ensembles: hence its size and heft. In many ways it was similar to its ancestor, the viola da gamba, not least because both instruments are held between the legs (in fact ‘viola da gamba’ translates as ‘viol for the leg’). But the cello has fewer strings, amongst other differences.
How has the instrument evolved over time?
For one thing, it has shrunk! The original bass violins were quite a bit bigger than their descendants, and typically had five strings made of sheep and goat guts.
Around the late 17th century, Bolognese makers began to exploit the recently-invented wire-wound strings to create another kind of cello: a smaller beast capable of playing virtuosic passages. It was at this time that the cello - previously restricted to ensemble work - came to be regarded as a solo instrument.
Is that the end of the story?
No. For a while there was cello chaos, with sizes, names, and tunings of the instrument varying by geography and time. Significantly, Bach’s 6th suite for unaccompanied cello was written for a 5-string cello known as the violoncello piccolo, with the higher 5th string enabling the composer to extend the range of the music without forcing the cellist to play high up on the fingerboard.
From 1710, however, an Italian chap called Antonio Stradivari started building celli around the same size as the instrument we know today, somewhere between the size of the original bass violins and those created by the 17th century Bolognese makers. As a result, he is often credited with standardising the dimensions of the modern-day cello.
Who are the other famous cello makers in history?
Although he didn’t actually invent the cello, the earliest megastar of cello making (back when cello-making could actually make you a megastar) was Andrea Amati - the first known member of the celebrated Amati family of Italian luthiers. The instrument he made for the French ruler Charles IX in the sixteenth century is the oldest surviving cello in the world.
Aside from the Amatis and Stradiveris, other big Italian luthiers (ie a stringed-instrument maker) included Giuseppe Guarneri, Gasparo da Salo, Matteo Goffriller and Domenico Montagnana.
What was the first piece of music written for cello?
It’s hard to pinpoint the very first piece, but Domenico Gabrielli was one of the first composers to treat the cello as a solo instrument. His Seven Ricercare for Violoncello Solo (written in 1689) are among the first works to be published for a lone cello.
Antonio Vivaldi, Francesco Geminiani and Giovanni Bononcini also wrote for the cello but Bach’s Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, written somewhere between 1717 and 1723 is probably the first major work ever written specifically for the cello.
How has the playing style evolved through history?
While the earliest celli were restricted to playing bass lines in ensembles, the technical innovations of the 17th - 19th centuries allowed them to flourish as solo instruments. Two significant developments were François Tourte’s invention of the modern bow - built to a longer, more concave design - in the late 1700s, as well as the addition of the spike (endpin) to the cello’s body in the 1830s. All of which paved the way for the louder and smoother playing style that we associate with Romantic music.
By now, the cello has burrowed its way into all sorts of musical genres, from jazz to pop to R&B. It has its own style: Cello Rock - a subgenre of rock music. And I don’t know if it’s mere coincidence, or something in the water, but the last decade has seen a surge in the number of musicians, including Ayanna Witter-Johnson, Abel Selaocoe and Matthew Sharp, who simultaneously sing and play the cello, traversing multiple musical styles. Perhaps this is the beginning of a whole new musical genre, in which the voice and cello becomes a single fused entity? Let’s wait and see.
