Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Glynn
There is a picture of a Seitz bass with rounded lower corners towards the bottom of this page. Again, probably a little late for what you are looking for. Of course, that page also show the famous "Bussetto" formerly belonging to Rainier Zepperitz.
As I've mentioned on that "other" bass site, I believe the rounded lower corners and f-hole designs on that instrument are derived from the viola d'amore family. Another thread here showed a bass by Woodbury and Burditt that also shows some of these more exaggerated viola d'amore type features (for example, compare it to this viola d'amore), but with standard f-holes. This bass makes me wonder if at least part of the inspiration for the rounded lower corners on many early American basses came from true viola d'amore style instruments, rather than simply Mittenwald basses with rounded lower corners. Here is a modern reproduction of a violone made in Nuremberg in 1640 with strong viola d'amore features as another comparison to the Woodbury and Burditt instrument.
Incidentally, while looking up some stuff on Woodbury and Burditt (and it seems their basses may have been actually made by William Conant) I found this interesting notice from the " Fourth Exhibition of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association" in 1844, mentioning a musicial instrument competition that included instruments from Woodbury and Burditt, Prescott, Dearborn and others. This notice from their first exhibition in 1837 mentions basses and cellos by Prescott, the Dearborns, J.B. Allen, and Henry Prentiss. It also mentions that, regarding the basses and cellos: "They have been constructed upon such models of instruments of foreign manufacture, as the makers chanced to meet with; and, where these models have been departed from, the changes have all been made without reference to any other use of the instrument, than as mere accompaniment to the voices in common psalmody."
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First off, I have copied the American text references and copied them to my
History of the American Bass thread for others to see there.
Now on the two basses from Japan you post I have seen them several times. I even went as far to ask Michael Krahmer of Pollmann face to face at the ISB to ask why he/they use the term 'Busseto/Bussetto/Busetto (pick your spelling). The maker G.M. del B. came from the
town of Busseto in Italy. I even
started a thread about the use of this name Busseto as well in the Forum. Michael told me it was because of this bass pictured that his father Gunther believes to be real.
In the Raymon Elgar books of the 1960's he revers to this as 'lower rounded corner' and nothing more. Somewhere this bass showed up and the old violin/lute maker G.M. del Busseto is suddenly a bass maker!
Look carefully at the upper and lower bouts of that bass? Klotz school from Mittenwald ALL the way in my eyes. I think that bass is an old German bass from Mittenwald or that area and has nothing to do with Italy. The form is nothing like anything ever seen from Italy and this maker is not known for making anything within the larger instruments.
So, in my mind, both the Seitz and this so called Bussetto Bass are from the same school of making with maybe a century or so between them.
Just my opinion.
