The viola d'amore's origins remain one of early music's biggest head-scratchers. Far from presenting a clear lineage, the historical evidence has sparked decades of debate, with experts disagreeing about what instruments influenced its development and even what certain historical terms meant.
That chap Praetorius I mentioned in Part Two described the viola bastarda in Syntagma Musicum (1619), and this sits at the heart of this controversy.
The Traditional Interpretation (Kropf, 1916):
Lewis L. Kropf carefully examined Praetorius and found no mention of viola d'amore whatsoever. Instead, Praetorius described two distinct things:
The Viola Bastarda. A tenor-sized viol (four feet six inches long) used for a specific type of showing-off.
An English Innovation. A tenor viol (or lyra-viol if you happened to be English about it) that the English had gone and mucked about with by adding sympathetic strings. The English have been adding things to perfectly serviceable items since time immemorial. Just look at what they did to curry.
Veronika Gutmann's exhaustive study challenged nearly everything. She argued that 'viola bastarda' wasn't primarily an instrument type at all, but a specific type of showing off: a virtuosic style of playing variations that touched on all voices of a polyphonic piece.
According to Gutmann, Praetorius lumped together 'all the peculiarities of the viola da gamba that were communicated to him' under one chapter heading, creating confusion that has persisted for centuries. The sections on sympathetic strings, she suggests, refer to what would become the English lyra viol: a completely different instrument that should never have been conflated with Italian viola bastarda practice.
What Praetorius writes (Das XXI. Capitel.VIOLBASTARDA, in Sciagraphia Col. XX) is:
Although it is a type of Viola de Gamba, is it also tuned just like a tenor viola da gamba (which one can also use in combination for this purpose). But the body is somewhat longer and larger. I don't know whether it gets its name from the fact that it is, as it were, a bastard of all voices; since it is not bound to any single voice alone, but rather a good master takes the madrigals and whatever else he wishes to make music on this instrument, and seeks out the fugues and harmony with great diligence through all the voices, sometimes up high in the cantus, sometimes down low in the bass, sometimes in the middle in the tenor and alto, decorating them with leaps and diminutions, and treats them in such a way that one can clearly perceive almost all the voices distinctly in their fugues and cadences.
Or, if you insist:
Obschon es eine Art von Violn de Gamba ist / wird auch gleich also / wie ein Tenor von Violn de gamba gestimmet / (den man auch in manglung darzu brauchen kan) Aber das Corpus ist etwas länger und grösser. Weiss nicht / Ob sie daher den Namen bekommen / das es gleichsam eine Bastard sey von allen Stimmen; Sintemal es an keine Stimme allein gebunden / sondern ein guter Meister die Madrigalien, vnnd was er sonst aff diesem Instrument musiciren wil / vor sich nimpt / vnd die Fugen vnd Harmony mit allem fleiss durch alle Stimmen durch vnd durch / bald oben auffm Cant, bald vnten auffm Bass / bald in der mitten auffm Tenor vnd Alt herausser suchet / mit falcibus vnd diminutionibus zieret / vnd also tractiret, dass man ziemlicher massen fast alle Stimmen eigendtlich in ihren Fugen vnd cadentien daraus vernemen kan.
And then there's this bit:
Thus something particularly special has been invented in England for this purpose; that beneath the usual six strings, there are eight other steel and twisted brass strings lying on a brass bridge (just like those used on pandoras), which must be tuned in unison and quite purely with the uppermost ones. Now when one of the uppermost gut strings is touched with the finger or bow, the lowest brass or steel strings resonate per consensum simultaneously with vibration and trembling, so that the loveliness of the harmony is thereby as it were increased and expanded.
Jetzo ist in Engelland noch etwas sonderbares darzu erfunden: dass vnter den rechten gemeinen sechs Säitten / noch acht andere Stälerne vnd gebrebere Messings-Säitten / vff ein Messingen Steige (gleich die vff den Pandoren gebraucht werden) liegen / welche mit den Obersten gleich vnd gar rein eingestimmet werden müssen. Wenn nun der obersten dernern Säitten eine mit dem Finger oder Bogen gerühret wird / so resoniret die vnterste Messings- oder Stälerne Säitten per consensum zugleich mit gittern vnd tremuliren, also / dass die Liebligkett der Harmony hierdurch gleichsam vermehret vnd erweitert wird.
For the curious cats (Das XXVIII. Capitel.PANDORRA: Bandoer. in Sciagraph. Col. XVII):
The Pandore (perhaps something similar, if not the same as the πανδοῦρα or πανδωρὶς of the Greeks) was invented in England, in the manner of the lute, almost like a large cittern, with single and double, also four- or more strung with twisted brass and steel strings.
Pandoér (fortasse simile quid, si non idem fuit πανδοῦρα sive πανδοῦρις Græcorum) Ist in Engelland erfunden / nach der Lauten Art / fast einer grossen Cyther gleich / mit einfältigen vnd doppelt- auch vier- oder mehr-fach gebreheten Messings vnd stälenen Säiten bezogen.
The Farrant Attribution
One of the few points of agreement: Daniel Farunt/Farrant played a crucial role in sympathetic string development.
John Playford's 1661 Musick's Recreation on the Viol, Lyra-Way credits Farrant with designing an instrument featuring both playing strings and sympathetic strings arranged so that the latter 'vibrated beneath the main ones, creating what witnesses described as "a harmonious resonance."'
The First Authors of Inventing and Setting Lessons this way to the Viol, was, Mr. Daniel Farrant, Mr. Alphonso Ferrabosco, and Mr. John Coperario alias Cooper: The First of these was a person of much Ingenuity for his several Rare Inventions of Instruments, as the Poliphant and the Stump, which were Strung with Wire; And also of his last, which was a Lyra Viol, to be strung with Lute Strings and Wire Strings; the one above the other; the Wire Strings were conveyed through a hollow passage made in the Neck of the Viol, and so brought to the Tail thereof, and railed a little above the Belly of the Viol, by a Bridge of about ½ an Inch: These were so laid that they were Equivolent to those above, and were Tun'd Unisons to those above, so that by the striking of those Strings above with the Bow, a Sound was drawn from those of Wire underneath, which made it very Harmonious. Of this sort of Viols I have seen many, but Time and Disuse has set them aside.
Kropf notes the timeline aligns with Praetorius's mention of English innovations, supporting a connection. But Gutmann would argue Farrant/Farunt's invention relates to the lyra viol tradition, which she insists must be kept separate from Italian viola bastarda practice.
The Great Wire vs. Gut Debate
The early history of the viol d’amore suggests a cautious journey from ear-shredding wire-strung contraptions to the decorous, honey-voiced instrument we are now assured was always meant to happen (and not a moment too soon).
In 1679, John Evelyn described 'a viol d'Amore of 5 wyre-strings,' apparently without calling for medical assistance. Jean Rousseau steps in in 1687 like, nah man, complaining that wire-strung treble viols emitted a 'nasty tone under the bow' and 'very acid sound.' Martin Heinrich Fuhrmann's 1706 account similarly characterised the 'Viol di Lamour' as 'a Geige with wire strings,' thus confirming that the instrument’s early charm lay mainly in its optimism about future improvements.
Salvation arrived in the early-eighteenth century when luthiers finally admitted defeat and began retrofitting these wire-strung offenders.
Out with the wire, in with the gut. And add metal sympathetic strings, by hammering tuning pins into pegboxes that never asked for them.
Instrument or Technique?
Curt Sachs laid it down like this: the viola bastarda was its own thing, baby. A full-blown organological entity. A 'hybrid' of the viola da gamba and lira da gamba families.
Then Gutmann slid in with a remix. Diggin' through those Italian sources (Dalla Casa back in '84, Rognioni, 1620) revealed that 'alla bastarda' primarily described a virtuosic playing technique involving touching all voices of a polyphonic composition; large leaps across the instrument's range; moving freely between high, middle, and low registers; throwin' in slick contrapuntal extras.
She found that when those Italian cats talked 'viola bastarda,' they meant violas da gamba played with that bastarda swagger. The music was always monophonic (unlike the chords found in lyra viol music) and written in standard notation (not the tablature used for lyra viol).
Enter Thurston Dart, brandishing a white flag. Dart proposed that both camps might be right after all: bastarda could denote a virtuoso manner of playing, while also being loosely applied to viols of a size particularly handy for such athletic displays. This diplomatic solution allowed everyone to keep their dignity intact.
Englische Violet
Durkin returns to the chat with the englische violet, an awkward teenage phase in the viola d'amore's evolution. Unlike the baryton, it boasted a closed neck and a rather showy double pegbox. Players initially cradled it in the lap, though fashion soon insisted on shoving it onto the shoulder. From this unruly cocktail emerged the modern viola d'amore: gut playing strings from the venerable viols, sympathetic strings pinched from both baryton and englische violet, a shoulder-playing habit borrowed from violinists, and a viol-shaped body.
The Unstable 'Viola d'Amore'
The term 'viola d'amore' has proven to be notoriously slippery when examined across time and geography. In the late seventeenth century, it could refer to wire-strung viols without any sympathetic strings, as evidenced by John Evelyn's 1679 reference. The name may have simply indicated a viol played with particular expressiveness or emotional character.
By the early eighteenth century, the scene had grown more complicated: wire-strung survivors continued to circulate even as gut-strung versions with sympathetic strings began to appear. During this transitional period, the name viola d’amore seems to have migrated from older instruments to the newfangled models.
By 1724 the 'modern' incarnation of the instrument had at last graced English shores. An ad popped up mentioning instruments crafted by R. Meares, including 'Viol d'Amours' listed alongside 'Baratones.' The age of the sympathetic-string was definitively underway.
The String Count Chaos
Perhaps nothing better illustrates the instrument's unstable identity than the bewildering kaleidoscope of string configurations that one encounters across its storied history.
Early specimens limped along with five wire strings, as in Evelyn's account.
The Baroque standard typically employed six to seven playing strings lavishly paired with an equal number of sympathetics.
By 1736, the inventive spirit had led Alletsee’s englische violet to heights almost fantastical: seven playing strings and ten sympathetics, while some eighteenth-century examples boasted up to fourteen total strings. Enough to make any violinist reach for smelling salts.
Christian Urhan’s 1832 'standardisation' gambit sensibly settled on seven-and-seven, though it had been quietly trialled a century before.
The instruments of Barcelona offer a particularly vivid window into this shapeshifting identity. One venerable specimen, originally strung with a veritable forest of fourteen strings, was later reduced, as if by pruning for aesthetic clarity, to a mere six, with all sympathetic strings summarily abolished.
The only conclusion one can draw is that no single 'correct' viola d'amore ever strode the stage of history. Instead, the instrument was continually reimagined by makers and players according to whatever needs, aesthetic preferences, or extravagant notion of elegance happened to strike at the time.
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