Joseph Bonaventure Tillière

Joseph Bonaventure Tillière was a cellist and composer active in France during the second half of the eighteenth century. His birth is dated to before 1750 and his death to after 1790, although no further details are known with certainty. He belongs to a generation of instrumentalists trained in the school of Berteau, alongside Duport and Janson, which places him at the heart of French cello technique of the period.

In 1760 he appeared in the orchestra of the Prince of Conti, and in 1770 he was a member of the Académie Royale de Musique, performing with the orchestra of the Paris Opéra. His best-known pedagogical work is the Méthode pour le violoncelle, published in Paris in 1764. Unlike the earlier method by Corrette, which gave the cello a mainly accompanimental role, Tillière presents it as a solo instrument. He begins with scales, string-crossing exercises and third fingerings, and moves on to double stopping, work in higher positions and the use of the thumb, which he considers useful in the difficult passages of solo repertoire. He also sets out rules for bowing and articulation, and is among the first cellists to describe the bow strokes known as batterie and brisure, needed when notes lie on non-adjacent strings.

His sonatas have a melodic style and make full use of the instrument's technical resources: double stops, thumb position, the high register, arpeggios and string crossings. Virtuosic figuration appears mainly in the minuets with variations, and some sonatas include short written-out cadenzas. Tillière also exploited the resonance and tonal contrasts between stopped notes in the high or low registers and open strings.

His legacy rests mainly on his method, which remains a documented source on cello practice in pre-Revolutionary Paris, and on his sonatas and duets, most of them published in Paris.