UPDATE (18 Dec 2006): Since I first wrote this page in June, I have learned a lot about the viola d'amore. Some of the information below is a little incomplete, or slightly misleading. I want to update the page and include a better catalogue of photographs of instruments that I've collected since June. It will have to wait a few weeks though. It will be done by the end of January.
For now, you should regard everything below as "more-or-less" correct -- but there are many nuances and complexities that need to be fixed.
Original text from June 2006
Recently I have had an absolutely amazing opportunity to work on a somewhat unusual instrument called the viola d'amore. I could tell you more about it, but all you need to know can be found on Tom Georgi's comprehensive web site.
Here's the short version, though. This is all off the top of my head, so there may be some errors...
The viola d'amore is essentially a baroque and classical-era instrument that usually has either twelve or fourteen strings. The thing that makes it special is that half of the strings are sympathetic -- they aren't played on. Their function is simply to resonate with the played strings (although some contemporary composers such as Georg Friedrich Haas have explored the idea of using the sympathetics in various novel ways).
The instrument spans (more or less) the range of both the conventional viola and the violin. The tradeoff for this enormous range is a certain lack of projection. The sympathetic strings help out a lot, but the sound of the instrument is somewhat softer and gentler than violins or violas. This is also thanks to the flat back of the viola d'amore, which is completely unlike the arched back of a violin, viola or cello. Another reason for its softer sound is that I bet the bass bar has to be an awful lot stronger than a violin or viola, in order to support the immense tension on the strings.
Because of the instrument's inability to cut through heavy orchestral textures, it fell out of favor in the nineteenth century, only to be "rediscovered" by Paul Hindemith and Henri Casadesus in the early twentieth century. Still, some instruments were made into the early 1800s in places like Mittenwald and Prague.
The "modern" viola d'amore -- one that's suited for playing Hindemith -- is much, much heavier and stronger than its baroque companion. It also has the ability to use a chin rest and a shoulder pad! Hindemith's viola d'amore concerto is in his set of "Kammermusik" and hardly ever gets performed anymore.
This page is going to be updated here and there over the next year as I make more discoveries about this beautiful and fascinating instrument. For now, I hope you enjoy the page and come back sometime to check on what I'm doing with it!
Playing the 7th Partita from Biber's Harmonia Artificiosa with Tom Georgi in Toronto
Half of the Toronto continuo section!
This is Alfred Mann's old viola d'amore. It's in terrible shape, and according to William Monical, was fatally flawed even before it was completed. However, the instrument appears to be of genuine early 19th-century Mittenwald extraction. Maybe Hindemith himself had a look at this instrument!
Another photo of the Alfred Mann instrument. It was probably never even even played upon, and served as a window decoration or conversation piece.
Here's the peg box on Alfred Mann's instrument -- apparently, it's badly out of proportion.
This is the instrument I'm borrowing. You can read more about its fascinating history here. Apparently it was once owned by Thomas Mann's son. Some of the music that Mann's son practiced made it into the novel Doctor Faustus!
The peg box. Notice how the sympathetic strings come up from underneath the peg box, whereas the thicker strings that are played on go into the box in the traditional way.
You can see that the Eberle instrument could take fourteen strings if it needed to, but since it's set up to play the Biber there are only twelve on it -- six that you play on and six sympathetics.
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Site launched 5 July 2002 Last modified on 18 December 2006 |