❧ Violoncello 1

Gunn wrote more about the cello than any other instrument. His Theory and Practice of Fingering the Violoncello appeared in two significantly different editions. These, along with the collection of Scots airs published as an appendix, are considered here; his essay on harmony on the cello is discussed with other shorter works in Chapter 4.

Violoncello 1 was the most substantial eighteenth-century publication about the cello in any language, and the most intellectually ambitious of any instrumental tutor up to that time. It was published in 1789, first advertised on 26 February 1789 as published ‘this day’. Other sources support this date. The title page of Gunn's translation of Borghese's L’art musical, itself dated 1790 on the title page, already describes him as the author of Violoncello 1. Gunn himself refers to it twice in Harp (1807), stating that the Dissertation on stringed instruments, which begins the work, was ‘published on my removing to London, in 1789’, and that it was written ‘eighteen years ago’, which again means 1789. A review in the British Critic of his 1802 Essay (Harmony) referred to the cello treatise as being published ‘several years before our review began’, and this periodical only began publication in 1793. This point is emphasised because in 1793 Violoncello 1 was reviewed in the Musical Review (perhaps there was a reissue), and this appears to have suggested 1793 as the date of publication to several writers. The confusion may also have arisen because the same issue of that journal reviewed Gunn's 1793 publication The Art of Playing the German-Flute as well, and both books were reviewed consecutively in the Critical Review that year, where Violoncello 1 was dated 1793. Reuss's Alphabetical Register (1804) picked up the 1793 date, and Fétis repeated it; it has persisted in the cello literature until the present day. Violoncello 1 was sold by the author from his London address of 1 Bennet Street, Rathbone Place, and it was supplied by him to both Birchall, and to Forster, where subscribers could collect their copies.