Books › The M. Steinert collection of keyed and stringed instruments : with various treatises on the history of these instruments, the method of playing them, and their influence on musical art, 1893 › scan 145
Scan 145
The M. Steinert collection of keyed and stringed instruments : with various treatises on the history of these instruments, the method of playing them, and their influence on musical art, 1893
4 lines. Read by computer on 29 August 2026. Printed page 143. See the scan on archive.org.
1may be either sung or played on the viol. For this reason also very little is heard at that time about the double bass. This instrument merely served as a sub-bass in octaves to the voice or bass viol. This trio of viols, tuned as prescribed by the "Regola Rubertina" of 1542, remained unaltered in use for a century and a half as the basis of chamber music.
3The viols with sympathetic metal strings received the name d'Amore, not in order to express their special aptitude for expressing amorous accents, but on account of the sympathetic vibrations of the open metal strings stretched over the belly in unison with those on the finger-board. They were in use in Italy and Germany in the 17th and 18th centuries. These instruments are invariably made with flaming sword sound holes, and often have a rose under the finger-board. The sympathetic strings of fine brass or steel wire are attached by loops at the bottom block above the tail pin, are then carried through small holes drilled in the lower part of the bridge under the finger-board, which is hollowed for that purpose over an ivory nut immediately below the upper nut into the peg. The sympathetic apparatus was of two species, the diatonic consisting of 6 or 7 strings, and the chromatic consisting of 12 or more strings. In the former the strings were tuned to the diatonic scale, the lowest note being generally D, the intervals being adapted to flattening or sharpening to the key of the piece being performed. This, however, was not necessary for the chromatic species, there being twelve strings, one for each semitone in the scale and thus furnishing a sympathetic augmentation to every note played. In the time of Bach and Vivaldi it was tuned by fourths and a third like the tenor viol. In imitation of the Viola de Gamba a seventh string was added in the beginning of the last century, and ultimately the so-called "Harp way" tuning of the Lute and Viola de Gamba was generally adopted. The latter tuning is used in the well-known obligato part in Meyerbeer's "Huguenots." The Viola d'Amore is a singularly beautiful instrument, but the inherent difficulties of execution are
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