Viol - History

History

Vihuelists began playing their flat-edged instruments with a bow in the second half of the 15th century. Within two or three decades, this led to the evolution of an entirely new and dedicated bowed string instrument that retained many of the features of the original plucked vihuela: a flat back, sharp waist-cuts, frets, thin ribs (initially), and an identical tuning—hence its original name, vihuela de arco; arco is Spanish for "bow". An influence in the playing posture has been credited to the example of Moorish rabab players. The viol is unrelated to the much older Hebrew stringed instrument called a viol (literally, "skin"). This ancient harp-like instrument was similar to the kinnor or nabla. A careful and different re-examination of documents in the light of newly collected data, strongly suggests a different theory opposed to that one that sees its origin from the vhiuela de arco from Aragon: the viol (viola da gamba) had its origins and evolved independently within Italy and the Venetian context. According to this new theory it does not appear plausible that the vihuela de arco, which possibly arrived in Rome/Naples after 1483-1487 (Tinctoris does not mention it prior to this time) underwent such a rapid evolution by Italian instrument makers – not Venetian (circumstances specifically excluded by Lorenzo da Pavia), nor Mantoan or Ferrarese (as the Isabella and Alfonso I d' Este continued requests of instruments in other cities testify) – so that within a ten-year span it produced the birth and the diffusion in Italy of a new family of instruments (viole da gamba or viols) which comprised instruments of different size, some large (the famous violoni ‘big as a man’ mentioned by Prospero Bernardino in 1493). Initially "viole" shared common characteristics but differed in the way they were played. The increase in the dimensions of the "viola" determined the birth of the viol and the definitive change in the manner the instrument was held, as musicians found it easier to play it vertically. The first consort of viols formed by four players was documented at the end of the fifteenth century in the courts of Mantua and Ferrara, but was also present within the popular Venetian music ambient (Scuola Grande di San Marco, 1499), which was extraneous to the foreign Spanish influence and consequently to the instruments of those lands (vihuela de arco). Groups of viol players, generally called Violoni, were established in the Venetian Scuole Grandi around 1530/40, but the highly traditional environment of these institutions suggests that these groups had already been active in the urban context during the previous two decades (1510-1520). Some of these players were known to have traveled to distant lands, including Vienna, the Duchy of Bavaria or the Kingdom of England where they were welcomed at the court of the Tudors and subsequently influenced England’s local instrumental production. There is one more element to consider in the birth of the viola da gamba that poses a challenge to its hypothesized origin from the vihuela de arco. Both in the manuscript of Antonio da Leno and in the treatises of Ganassi and Lanfranco, the fifth string of the viola da gamba is called uniquely Bordone (drone). In fact, it is not a drone since it is just like the other strings placed inside the neck of the instrument. This inconsistency is justifiable only assuming the invention, during the last part of the fifteenth century, of a larger instrument derived from the medieval violetta to which were gradually added other strings to allow a greater extension to the low register that resulted from its increased size. The fifth string, already present in some specimens of these violette as a drone (Bordone), was incorporated into the neck when they were expanded in size. This was then surpassed by a sixth string, named Basso, which fixed the lower sound produced by the instrument. The origin of the viola da gamba is tied to the evolution of a smaller instrument that was originally fitted with a fifth string drone (the name remained unchanged even though it ceased to perform this function), which was precisely the medieval violetta or vielle. It is worth noting that the vihuela was never fitted with a drone string. .