Photo: This bass is a characteristic and well-preserved example of the maker’s work. The scroll is in the maker’s usual style with a rounded heel peg-box. The smaller body size makes it easily accessible in all registers and therefore extremely versatile. Tonally, it is surprisingly powerful with excellent projection.
GIUSEPPE BALDANTONI – b. 1784 d. 1873
Born in Ancona on the Adriatic Sea, Giuseppe Baladantoni was active as a violin maker there from about 1820. He was greatly influenced by Antonio Bagatella’s “Rules for the Construction of Violins, Violas, Cellos and Violones,” the earliest published Italian work on bowed instrument design.
With his treatise, Bagatella included general schematic drawings of what he considered to be an “ideal” outline for the proportions of bowed instruments which, in fact, closely resemble the silhouette of a guitar. It is quite clear that Baldantoni based his model upon these schematics. In his work “Gli Strumenti ad Arco,” Isaia Bille praised Baldantoni for his fine double-basses.
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