THE VIOLONCELLO

The name cello is an abbreviation of the Italian violoncello, which means "little violone", most probably not referring to the double bass but instead to the slightly larger (and now uncommon) instrument the bass violin which was sometimes tuned a whole step lower than the cello.The cello is most closely associated with European classical music, and has been described as the closest sounding instrument to the human voice.[1] The instrument is a part of the standard orchestra and is the bass voice of the string quartet, as well as being part of many other chamber groups. A large number of concertos and sonatas have been written for the cello. The instrument is less common in popular music, but is sometimes featured in pop and rock recordings. The cello has also recently appeared in major hip-hop and R & B performances, such as singers Rihanna and Ne-Yo's performance at the American Music Awards.[2] The instrument has also been modified for Indian classical music by Nancy Lesh and Saskia Rao-de Haas.Among the most famous Baroque works for the cello are J. S. Bach's six unaccompanied Suites. From the Classical era, the two concertos by Joseph Haydn in C major and D major stand out, as do the five sonatas for cello and pianoforte of Beethoven which span the important three periods of his compositional evolution. Romantic era repertoire includes the Concerto by Antonín Dvo--ák, Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor, and the two sonatas by Brahms. Compositions from the early 20th century include unaccompanied cello sonatas by Zoltán Kodály (Op.8), Paul Hindemith (Op.25) and W.H. Squire . The cello's versatility made it popular with composers in the mid- to late twentieth century, encouraged by soloists who specialized in contemporary music (such as Siegfried Palm and Mstislav Rostropovich) commissioning from and collaborating with composers. The cello has four strings, which are referred to either by number or by their standard tuning, which is in perfect fifth intervals: the A string (I, the highest sounding), D string (II), G string (III), and C string (IV, the lowest sounding). The A string is tuned to the pitch A3 (just below middle C), the D string a fifth lower at D3, the G string a fifth below that at G2, and the C string tuned to C2 (two octaves lower than middle C). The strings are one octave lower than the viola, and one octave plus one fifth lower than the violin.Some pieces require an altered tuning of the strings known as scordatura, The two most well-known examples are the fifth of Bach's 6 Suites for Unaccompanied Cello (C2-G2-D3-G3) and Zoltán Kodály's Sonata opus 8 (B1-F♯2-D3-A3). The sixth of Bach's 6 Suites for Unaccompanied Cello was written for an instrument with five strings tuned C2-G2-D3-A3-E4. This may be the violoncello piccolo, a smaller cello with five strings that fell out of use in the mid-eighteenth century.The range of the cello is limited at the lower end by the tuning of the lowest string; at the upper end it varies. A comfortable upper limit for professional cellists is C6 (two octaves above middle C), although up to one extra octave is available. The highest stopped pitch on the fingerboard is somewhere around F♯6, but some composers have written higher: for example, Zoltán Kodaly's Sonata opus 8 requires a B6 to be played in the concluding measures.Music for the cello is written in bass clef with changes to tenor clef or treble clef when necessary to avoid too many ledger lines. Composers before about 1900 usually followed an older convention which largely avoided use of the tenor clef, writing instead in the treble clef with notes sounding an octave lower than written; except when the treble clef followed a passage in tenor clef, when it was to be played at the written pitch. A late example of this usage is the trio arrangement attributed to Hans Eisler of the Serenade from Schoenberg's Septet op. 24.