On Sun, 8 Oct 2006 18:43:00 -0700, Davitt Moroney wrote:
>...If Bach indeed 
> wrote the cello suites for a "viola pomposa" (or "violoncello piccolo 
> da spalla"),

I don't think there is any conclusive evidence of this. I am familar 
with Badiarov and the present argumentation which is anythin but new 
and was also discussed and dismissed by Rubhardt as early as 1965. For 
my part, I cannot accept this, either. In particular, because Bach 
actually did write specifically for the Pomposa (violoncello piccolo)  
as a solo instrument and there the voice is part of the first violin 
voice:
Cantata No. 115, "Mache dich, mein Geist, bereit" 
Cantata No. 16, "Herr Qott dich loben wir"
there are others as well
kein Anspruch auf Vollstaendigkeit...
 
This does mate up with Kuiken's, Smits' and Badiarov's assumptions 
about the Pomposa.
But they are not for the cello or to be played by the cellist. 
There is no autograph of the sonatas, but the three copies are from 
Anne Magdelena Bach, Johann Peter Kellner and an anon copy from the 
late 18th.c. Both the AMB and JPK copies can be seen as authenticated. 
The sonatas 1-5 do not go beyond the 4th position and cannot possibly 
be proof of any argument, either for the Pomposa or against the 
playability during B's lifetime. The 6th does go beyond as seen by a 
modern cellist without ANY knowledge of the historic cello for the 
simple reason that it is for a 5-string cello (or Pomposa? = same 
tuning). With a 5-string, the position playing is no more difficult 
than the other 5 sonatas. THe sonata as a whole is ahelluva lot more 
difficult!
BTW, what to do with Boccherini, born 9 years befor JSB died. Did he 
drop from a different star?
Or Abel (born 1723, friend and partner of JCB); his  Gamba sonatas 
routinely use thumb position, another reason why he stopped using frets.
Just for the records, so-caled thumb position, the use of the thumb to 
stop a string beyond the nut(capo daster), was and is used even in the 
first position.

The playability arumentation is a rotten apple. What to do with 
Shubert's Arpeggione Sonata?
It is not playable on the cello without extensive rewriting, and that 
is not just editing as in the Bach 5th and 6th. The guitar tuning 
allows double stops that are not possible on the cello at all. One 
reason why it is often played with the viola; the stops are better 
possible due to the smaller size, an argument also used for the 
Pomposa. Why not just break down and play it on the Arpeggione?

snip
> (The proof of the pudding is in the playing.)
check out the recording I mentioned. 

So much for what'shername's "proof"

> We have an original "viola pomposa" at Berkeley, built by Bach's 
> friend Christian Hoffmann of Leipzig and dated 1731 

Heinemann's Pomposas followed a Hoffmann restored.

b