Bows without arrows …

I have to address, once again, something that I find quite maddening: the question of underhand and overhand double bass bows in baroque music.

Actually, this shouldn’t even be a question.

By now – and I have talked about this extensively – any bass player who takes early music and authenticity seriously must know that during the baroque era, the classical era, and even part of the romantic era, underhand double bass bows were the only trick in town. Overhand or “French” bows did not exist, as far as I have been able to tell, before the 1840s at the very earliest. Read More