The viola da gamba was a central instrument in European music from the late 15th century well into the late 18th. In this comprehensive study, Bettina Hoffmann offers both an introduction to the instrument -- its construction, technique and history -- for the non-specialist, interweaving this information with a wealth of original archival scholarship that experts will relish. The book begins with a description of the instrument, and here Hoffmann grapples with the complexity of various names applied to this and related instruments. Following two chapters on the instrument's construction and ancestry, the core of the book is given to a historical and geographical survey of the instrument from its origins into the classical period. The book closes with a look at the revival of interest in the 19th and 20th centuries.
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viii | |
Abbreviations |
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xiii | |
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1 | (1) |
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1.1 What exactly is a viol? |
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1 | (3) |
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1.2 What is the viol called? |
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4 | (7) |
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4 | (3) |
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7 | (2) |
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9 | (1) |
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10 | (1) |
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10 | (1) |
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10 | (1) |
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1.3 What are the instruments of the viol family? |
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11 | (2) |
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1.4 How is the viol tuned? |
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13 | (2) |
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1.5 What does the viol sound like? |
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15 | (10) |
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25 | (36) |
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26 | (5) |
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2.2 The neck and fretboard |
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31 | (2) |
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33 | (1) |
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34 | (1) |
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35 | (6) |
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41 | (5) |
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2.7 Frets and temperaments: problems of compatibility |
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46 | (15) |
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61 | (17) |
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61 | (1) |
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62 | (1) |
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63 | (2) |
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3.4 Some technical details |
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65 | (1) |
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66 | (2) |
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3.6 Musical and social fields of application |
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68 | (2) |
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3.7 The innovations of the early Renaissance |
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70 | (8) |
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78 | (106) |
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78 | (8) |
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78 | (3) |
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81 | (1) |
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82 | (3) |
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85 | (1) |
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4.2 A new instrument achieves recognition in Europe (ca 1510-50) |
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86 | (19) |
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90 | (11) |
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Italy 98 Other European countries |
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101 | (4) |
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105 | (13) |
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`To sing, and to play on all kinds of instruments' |
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105 | (1) |
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105 | (3) |
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108 | (3) |
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111 | (4) |
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Idiomaticisation and soloism: the viola bastarda |
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115 | (3) |
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118 | (28) |
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118 | (1) |
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Viol-tunings in 16th-century treatises |
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119 | (21) |
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140 | (4) |
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The tuning of the viola bastarda |
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144 | (2) |
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146 | (7) |
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4.6 Viol structures and viol makers |
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153 | (1) |
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153 | (5) |
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158 | (8) |
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The road to standardisation |
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166 | (18) |
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184 | (149) |
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184 | (1) |
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184 | (6) |
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190 | (1) |
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190 | (3) |
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Italian viol music in Italy |
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193 | (4) |
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Miscellaneous theoretical accounts |
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197 | (1) |
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Interchange across the Alps |
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198 | (2) |
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200 | (1) |
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The Golden Age (ca 1600-60) |
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200 | (6) |
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The instruments: "Three sorts of Baß-Viols" |
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206 | (3) |
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209 | (5) |
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214 | (2) |
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The music: "Three manners of ways in playing" |
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216 | (1) |
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217 | (2) |
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219 | (3) |
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222 | (1) |
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223 | (3) |
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The end of the Golden Age: amateurs and foreigners |
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226 | (4) |
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230 | (1) |
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230 | (6) |
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236 | (1) |
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237 | (2) |
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239 | (2) |
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The high school of the viol |
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241 | (5) |
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246 | (10) |
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256 | (2) |
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258 | (2) |
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260 | (3) |
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The decline: the pardessus de viole |
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263 | (3) |
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5.4 The German Empire and the Netherlands |
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266 | (1) |
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266 | (1) |
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The viol consort: "Sonderlich mit Violn de Gamba, In mangelung aber de Bracio " |
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267 | (2) |
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The viol consort: instruments, tunings and measures |
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269 | (7) |
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The solo viol: the shaping of an idiom |
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276 | (12) |
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288 | (4) |
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Musical functions: the repertoire |
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292 | (7) |
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Instruments and lutherie after ca 1650 |
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299 | (4) |
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303 | (30) |
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333 | (20) |
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6.1 Italy in the second half of the 18th century |
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333 | (1) |
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6.2 The first half of the 19th century |
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334 | (3) |
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6.3 The last decades of the 19th century |
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337 | (6) |
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343 | (5) |
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348 | (5) |
Glossary of technical terms |
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353 | (13) |
Bibliography |
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366 | (18) |
Index |
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384 | |
Bettina Hoffmann is German and lives in Florence where she pursues an active career both as a performer on the viol and baroque cello and as a musicologist. She has given concerts all over Europe and America, participating as a soloist and with her ensemble Modo Antiquo at major festivals and venues. A significant discography (more than 70 CDs for Deutsche Grammophon, Naļve, Brilliant Classics, Tactus and others) is especially notable for Idées grotesques with works by Marin Marais, Scherzi Musicali for viola da gamba by Johann Schenck, and the first complete recording of the works by Diego Ortiz and Silvestro Ganassi. Two CDs of her ensemble Modo Antiquo have been nominated for Grammy Awards. She is the author of the Catalogue of solo and chamber music for viola da gamba (LIM, 2001) and has edited critical facsimile editions of the Regulae Concentuum Partiturae of Georg Muffat and of works for viol and for cello by Antonio Vivaldi and Domenico Gabrielli (Bärenreiter-Verlag, S.P.E.S.). She discovered and edited the only German treatise on the viol currently known to us, Instruction oder eine anweisung auff der Violadigamba. Bettina Hoffmann is professor of viola da gamba, baroque cello, performing praxis and baroque chamber music at the Conservatorio Arrigo Pedrollo di Vicenza and the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole.