  T THE old Bass Viol (French Basse de Viole) derives its name of Viola da Gamba (leg viol) from its having been held between the knees of the player, whence the German "Kniegeige." Shakspeare speaks of it as "viol-de-gamboys" in Twelfth Night—where Sir Toby Belch in his panegyric on Sir Andrew Aguecheek says, "He plays o' the viol-de-gamboys, and speaks three or four languages word for word without book, and hath all the good gifts of nature." Domenichino's famous St. Cecilia is represented as playing upon a viola da gamba. It was the bass of the chest (or family) of viols. A quotation from the recently published autobiography of the Honourable Roger North, who was born in 1653, aptly describes the domestic use of those once admired instruments. He says his grandfather, Dudley, third Lord North, when at his country seat in Norfolk, "would convoke his musical family ... and for important regale of the company the concerts were usually all viols to the organ or harpsichord. The violin came in late and imperfectly. When the hands were well supplied the whole chest went to work, that is six viols, music being formed for it which would seem a strange sort of music now, being an interwoven hum-drum." Roger North became himself a proficient upon both treble and bass viols. The splendid example here drawn is the work of Joachim Tielke, who made it at Hamburg in 1701; it formerly belonged to the famous violoncellist, F. Servais. In perfect preservation, it has a beautifully carved ivory peg-box, which is surmounted by a woman's head, with an incised finger-board beneath. There are no frets, which is unusual with viols, as they were fretted instruments, but it would be of course easy to attach them. The back is of rosewood alternated with ivory; and the ivory tailpiece forms a caduceus. Two views are given of the This was called the Harp-way sharp; when the fifth string was tuned to B flat the tuning was called Harp-way flat—Harp-way, indicating the facility thus afforded for arpeggios. Bach's solemn cantata, "Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit" (God's time is the best of all times), opens with the viola da gamba, but, early in the eighteenth century, composers replaced the Viola da Gamba with the violoncello. The last noted performer upon it was Carl Friedrich Abel, who died in 1787. Of late years it has been taken up again for its own special qualities, which should preserve it for at least occasional use. The late Henry Webb, at the suggestion of Professor Ernst Pauer in 1862, was perhaps the first to adopt it again. He had to obtain instruction in the fingering of the instrument from an old man of eighty-six. The fingering is practically that of the lute, and, as Mr. E.J. Payne has pointed out in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Art. "Violin"), it was the command of the six-stringed finger-board which the lutenists had attained by two centuries of incessant practice that was transferred by them to the Viola da Gamba, both instruments being thus common to the same players. Owing to this fact the bass viol remained in use much longer than the other members of the viol family. At the present time Mr. Payne, Herr Paul de Wit of Leipsic, and Mr. E. Jacobs of Brussels, have reintroduced the Viola da Gamba to the notice of the musical public. Mr. Jacobs played upon one furnished with sympathetic strings, with great success in the Historical Concerts given, under the direction of Mr. Victor Mahillon, in the Music Room of the London International Inventions Exhibition of 1885. The instrument here represented belongs to the Museum of the Brussels Conservatoire. |
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