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How is corde vuote played?
Choose the open string rather than fingering the same pitch on another string, or let open strings ring as drones beneath stopped notes and bowed figuration. A numeral 0 can indicate an open-string fingering, but an open circle is also used for harmonics, so typography and the score legend must disambiguate them. Open strings are bright and resonant, while ordinary left-hand finger vibrato is unavailable because no finger stops the sounding length.
How does corde vuote sound?
A brighter, fuller, more resonant tone with stronger fundamental and longer sustain than a stopped note — but plainer, since vibrato cannot be applied. Ringing open strings add a halo of overtones beneath a chord and project clearly; their bare, un-vibrato'd colour is exactly what composers reach for in folk-fiddle evocations and stark sonorities.
In context
Open strings contrast a clear, sustained, vibrato-less ring with the warmer colour of stopped and vibrated notes. Bartók uses open strings as drones and ostinati in violin writing, and scordatura can retune a string specifically to make a desired pitch available open; the existing Rite of Spring example points to the retuned cello A string used for the final G-sharp. Write corde vuote out: c.v. belongs to con vibrato in the retained score evidence, while 0 is a fingering sign rather than a text abbreviation.
Music theory and score context
See also
- corda / corde vuote (open string) — Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music, Encyclopedia.com
- String Writing 2: Open Strings and Vibrato — ALevelMusic.com
- Scordatura (retuning strings to ring open) — Wikipedia
- Vienna Symphonic Library Academy — Violine
- University of Georgia DMA — Performance-practice issues in Bartók’s Sonata for Solo Violin