Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken Smith
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.  |
Thanks for posting those references to the other thread. I just ran across that stuff and thought it was interesting to hear what people of their own time thought of those instruments.
I'm with you on the origins of the supposed "Bussetto" bass. I just noticed that the Viola d'amore Society of America says the viola d'amore first appeared around Munich, Salzburg, and Bohemia and only later appeared in Italy. Looking at a random selection of violas d'amore, it seems the vast majority of the old makers had German names, which would seem to support the theory of the German origin and production of that type of instrument. And of course, Mittenwald is quite close to Munich and Salzburg, so it isn't surprising to see some of the design elements I would associate with the viola d'amore in instruments from Mittenwald.
It looks like in your conversation with Michael Krahmer you have helped confirm what I have long suspected--that the entire reason we call rounded lower corners "busseto" corners comes from the very suspect attribution of that one old bass.
Do you have any idea why that bass would have been attributed to Busseto in the first place? Does it share any features with his known instruments?