Peer-reviewed
From divisions to divisi improvisation, orchestration and the practice of double bass reduction
The practice of double bass reduction, or extracting a simplified double bass part from a given bass line, was a fundamental element of double bass playing in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Quantz, Corrette and Berlioz remain the most recognized sources on this subject; however, discussions of the practice also appear in numerous double bass methods and in periodicals dating from the first half of the 19th century. The responsibility for producing the simplified double bass part eventually shifted from performers to composers—often discussed in the context of orchestration—and the topic disappeared from double bass methods by the middle of the 19th century. This article explores the history of double bass reduction and its decline, as well as analysing the examples included in historical double bass methods. Examples are analysed in terms of function, rhythmic structure and pitch alignment, with the goal of illuminating how double bassists may reduce passagework in the basso continuo or shared cello and double bass parts commonly found in music of the 18th and early 19th centuries
Article, 2018
Early Music, 46, 20180801, 483
2018