95: Scordatura-- "Mis-tuning"

 Yesterday’s post mentioned the Resurrection Sonata, one of 15 such sonatas that Hans Ignaz Franz Biber wrote, one for every mystery of the Rosary as it existed in his day. (If Biber had lived in a post-2002 world, he would know the 20 current mysteries.) Today, more than just mention the Resurrection Sonata exists, I want to look deeply at a feature of it, several other Mystery Sonatas, and plenty more string works of the period.

By default, from lowest to highest, a violin has strings G, D, A, and E; violas and cellos have C, G, D, A; and double basses have E, A, D, G. However, that is not the tuning in the Resurrection Sonata. Instead, Biber chose G, D, G, D—lowering the top 2 strings by a whole step each, so that the fourth string and the second string are an octave apart, as are the third and first.

He was by far not the only one to do this. The sixth cello suite, for example, is written for a violoncello piccolo, which is, in a sense, a hybrid of the violin stringing and of the viola/cello stringing: it uses, again, lowest to highest, C, G, D, A, E. That is, the bottom four strings are the strings of a cello or viola, and the top four (with 3 in common with the bottom four) are the strings of a violin. One suite earlier, the fifth, is written for a regular cello, but tuned C, G, D, G, instead of C, G, D, A. 

When a composer overrides the default tuning in this way, they are set to be placing the instrument in “scordatura”—literally, “un-tuning” or “mis-tuning” it. This technique was quite common in the Baroque era, but has, since then, become much less common. There are different reasons one might do this: ease of fingering by expanding or contracting the intervals between strings, to achieve a more resonant sound by having strings exactly an octave apart (see why this would be true by checking out my earlier article on the overtone series), to increase the range of the instrument, or for any other reason.

Normally, you almost reflexively ignore when an orchestra tunes before giving a concert, but in cases where you know scordatura is involved, hearing the open strings on their own in such a pure setting can give you an insight into the sound of this “mis-tuned” instrument. 

Listen, for example to these recordings of the Resurrection Sonata; if you listen carefully at the very beginning of most of these, you’ll hear the undeniable proof that the open strings are not the standard four, and that the artists have chosen to play in scordatura:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrta2W1sDoc&list=RDhrta2W1sDoc&start_radio=1

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYanHHEDHhY&list=RDKYanHHEDHhY&start_radio=1

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgSDn4NXJeo&list=RDBgSDn4NXJeo&start_radio=1

4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=At0VNSx0pq0

5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tkE4OFR28o&list=RD2tkE4OFR28o&start_radio=1


 


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