History and Development of the Viola da Gamba

The viola (/ˈvaɪəl/), viola da gamba (Italian: [ˈvjɔːla da (ɡ)ˈɡamba]), or informally simply “gamba,” is a member of a family of fretted string instruments, with a hollow wooden body and pegboxes that allow the player to raise or lower the tension on the strings to adjust the pitch of each string. The frets on the viola are typically made from gut and tied around the neck of the instrument to enable the player to stop the strings more cleanly. Frets improve the consistency of intonation and give stopped notes a sound that blends more naturally with open strings.

Violas first appeared in Spain in the mid- to late-15th century and became particularly popular during the Renaissance and Baroque periods (1600–1750). Early ancestors include the Arabic rebab and the medieval European vielle, but later direct predecessors include the Venetian viola and the Spanish vihuela from the 15th and 16th centuries, a six-string plucked instrument tuned like a lute (and also sometimes referred to as a “day viol”), which looked like, but was quite different from (at the time) the four-string guitar (an earlier chordophone).

Although the bass violas superficially resemble cellos, violas differ in many ways from instruments in the violin family: many violas have flat backs rather than curved, slanted shoulders rather than rounded, C-shaped sound holes rather than f-shaped ones, and five to seven strings instead of four. Other differences include tuning strategies (in fourths with a third in the middle, like a lute, rather than in fifths), the presence of frets, and underhand (known as “German”) bow grip as opposed to overhand (French) bowing.

All members of the viol family are played upright (unlike the violin or viola, which are held under the chin). All viols are held between the legs like the modern cello, hence the Italian name viola da gamba (literally “viola for the leg”). This distinguishes the viola from instruments in the modern violin family, viola da braccio (literally “viola for the arm”). A player of the viola is commonly referred to as a gambist, violist (/ˈvaɪəlɪst/), or violista da gamba. The term “violist” shares the same spelling but is pronounced differently, as it is more commonly used from the mid-20th century to describe a player of the modern viola, which may lead to confusion in printed contexts where it is unclear whether the reference is to a cellist or viol player.

Vihuelists began playing their flat instruments with a bow in the latter half of the 15th century. Over two or three decades, this led to the evolution of a completely new and specialized bowed instrument that retained many features of the original plucked vihuela: flat backs, sharp waist cuts, frets, thin ribs (at first), and identical tuning — hence its original name vihuela de arco (“vihuela for the bow”). The playing posture was influenced by examples of Moorish players of the rebab.

Stefano Pio argues that a reexamination of documents, in light of newly collected evidence, suggests a different origin from the vihuela de arco of Aragon. According to Pio, the viola (viola da gamba) originated and developed independently in Venice. Pio claims that the rapid development of Italian instrument makers — not Venetian (specifically excluding Lorenzo da Pavia) nor from Mantua or Ferrara (as shown in commissions by Isabella and Alfonso I d’Este for luthiers from other cities) — makes it unlikely that the vihuela de arco (which may have reached Rome and Naples after 1483–1487, as Johannes Tinctoris never mentions it) was responsible for the evolution of the instrument. Thus, during a ten-year period, a new family of instruments (the viola da gamba) emerged and spread in Italy. These were instruments of various sizes, some as large as the famous violas, “as large as a man,” mentioned by Prospero Bernardino in 1493.

Pio also notes that in manuscripts of early 15th-century music theorists like Antonio de Lena and treatises by Venetian Silvestro Ganassi, the fifth string of the viola da gamba is clearly called bordone (dron), though it is not a drone string and is played like the other strings. Pio argues that this inconsistency can only be justified by the assumption that in the late 15th century, a larger instrument evolved from the medieval viola (or violetta), with an additional string for an expanded low register, resulting from its increased size. The fifth string, present in some examples of these larger viols as a drone, was incorporated into the neck as the instrument grew. This was later replaced by a sixth string, the basso, to correct the lower sound produced by the instrument. Pio links the origin of the viola da gamba to the evolution of the smaller medieval violeta or vielle, which was originally fitted with a fifth bowed drone, though the name remained unchanged even as it ceased to perform this function.

Ian Woodfield, in his The Early History of the Viol, points out evidence that while the viola began with the vihuela, Italian instrument makers immediately applied their own advanced traditions to the early versions of the instrument once it was introduced to Italy.

At first, the viol family (“viols”) shared common characteristics but differed in the way they were played. The enlargement of the “viola” led to the creation of the viola and a definitive change in the way the instrument was held, as it became easier for musicians to play it upright. The first viol consorts, consisting of four players, were documented by the late 15th century at the courts of Mantua and Ferrara but were also present in the popular musical scene of Venice, known for the Scuola Grande di San Marco, by 1499. Venetian culture remained independent from Spanish influences and therefore did not know instruments like the bent vihuela de arco. Consorts of viol players, generally known as violoni, were established in Venetian Scuole Grandi around 1530–1540, although the highly traditional environment of these institutions suggests these groups may have been active in the broader urban context from the previous two decades (1510–1520). Some of these players were known to travel to distant countries, including Vienna, the Duchy of Bavaria, or the English Kingdom, where they were welcomed at the Tudor court and later influenced local English instrument-making.

Violas most commonly have six strings, although many 16th-century instruments had only four or five. Violins were (and still are) strung with gut strings of lower tension than those of violin family instruments. Gut strings produce a tone very different from steel, generally described as softer and sweeter. Around 1660, strings made from gut or silk cores wrapped with copper wire became available for the lowest bass strings on violas and many other string instruments.

Violas are strung similarly to early guitars or lutes, using movable wrapped and tied gut frets. The low seventh string was supposedly added to the bass viola by Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe in France (around 1640–1690), one of whose students was the French virtuoso and composer Marin Marais. The painting Saint Cecilia with an Angel (1618) by Domenichino (1581–1641) also shows what may be a seven-string viola.

Unlike members of the violin family, which are tuned in fifths, violas are usually tuned in fourths, with a major third in the middle, reflecting the tuning used on the vihuela de mano and lute during the 16th century and similar to modern six-string guitar tuning.

Violas were first constructed like the vihuela de mano, with flat top, back, and side plates glued or bent into shape. Some violas, both early and later, had carved tops similar to those more commonly associated with instruments in the violin family. The ribs or sides of early violas were generally quite shallow, reflecting the construction of their plucked cousins, the vihuela. The depth of the ribs increased during the 16th century and eventually resembled the greater depth seen in the classic 17th-century design.

The flat backs of most violas have a sharply angled or slanted bend near where the neck meets the body. This serves to narrow the back (and the overall depth of the body) at its top end to meet the neck heel in one plane. Traditional construction used animal glue, and internal joints were often reinforced with strips of linen or parchment soaked in hot animal glue — a practice also used in early vihuela constructions.

The viola’s peg boxes (which hold the tuning pegs) were typically decorated with intricately carved animal or human heads or the now-familiar spiral volute.

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