THE HISTORY
AND
PROBLEMS
OF VIOLA SIZE
Jacquelyn J. Schwandt
December 11, 2000
MHL 564
Professor Haefer
NOTE: There were problems opening this Word Perfect File and the Illustrations are therefore not included. I'll try again at another time.
The early history of the violin family is mysterious to modern players and historians because no known person in the sixteenth century passed on the information. Knowledge about the sixteenth century violin family that is accepted are some of the well-known makers, and that the violin probably developed after a long period of experimentation by luthiers.
The date the violin was created is not known precisely, but is generally accepted to be somewhere around 1530. Most of the evidence of when the violin family was created is in iconographic form. The earliest known painting of a violin appears in 1529-1530, and is entitled, Madonna of the Orange Trees, by Gaudenzio Ferrari (see picture).
Detail of Madonna of the Orange Trees
The painting shows an instrument of three strings, with small, crude design, but is definitely a violin. The instrument is played on the shoulder, has a waisted shape, and has the characteristic f-holes of the modern violin. Ferrari worked in northern Italy near the city of Milan. This is the area where the well-known violin maker Andrea Amati worked around the same time period.
Andrea Amati (c. 1511-1580) is the first famous violin maker that is known to this day, and he worked in the city of Cremona, Italy. Although it is speculated by many sources that he made violins as early as 1540, the earliest violin that is known today to be an Amati is in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England. The instrument is dated 1564, has the coat of arms for France depicted on the body of the violin, and is inscribed as belonging to Charles IX (reigned 1560-74).
Although there is no concrete documentation of this fact, it is widely believed by music historians that the instruments found with the French coat of arms decorated on them and attributed to Andrea Amati are a part of a set of twelve large and twelve small violins, six violas, and eight basses which were commisioned for Charles the IX in c.1563-64.
INSTRUMENT SIZE
In the mid sixteenth century, violins, violas and cellos were each made in varying sizes. Violins were made in small and large models. The small models had a body size of about 13 1/2-3/4 inches, and the large models had a size of about 14-14 1/2 inches. Between 1600-50, the violin adopted a standard body length of 14 inches, which was believed to be acoustically perfect. The cello reached a standard size in the time of Stradivari (1644-1737), who created the now standard medium-sized cello of 75-76 cm body length sometime between 1707-1710. Before the cello was set at a standard size, it varied between 73 and 80 centimeters in body length.
Sizes of instruments (body length)
Violin Cello Viola
c. 1550-1600 sm. model: 34.29-35.24 cm 73-80 cm alto model: 38.1-41.91 cm
lg. model: 35.56-36.83 cm tenor model: 43.18-50.8 cm
c. 1600-1700 generally: 35.56 cm 73-80 cm alto model: 38.1-41.91 cm
tenor model: 43.18-50.8 cm
c. 1700- 35.56 cm 75-76 cm 38.1-50.8 cm
VIOLA SIZE
In the sixteenth century, violas were made in two different models: alto (small) and tenor (large). The alto viola was 15-16 inches in body length, and the tenor had a length of 17-20 inches. The two different sized instruments are tuned the same (c, g, dí, aí), but because of the significant difference in size, they have quite different timbres. The alto instrument has a bright and nasal sound, particularly on the highest two strings, while the tenor sized viola has a deep, rich, sonorous tone.
The music in the 16th century and into the beginning of the 17th century was contrapuntal in texture and tended to favor the middle voices. The violins played the soprano part, and the cello played the bass part in a string ensemble. This left the middle parts to the violas. Sometimes there were as many as three middle parts to play. The smaller alto violas played the highest middle parts, and the richer sounding tenor violas played the lower parts of the mid-range. Albinoniís Sinfonie e concerti a cinque op. 2 (1700) has two parts marked ëAlto Violaí and ëTenor Violaí and are essentially viola I and viola II parts. The viola I part plays in a higher range of the instrument than the viola II part. Also, Handelís op. 3 no. 1 concerto has one part marked ëAlto Violaí and another ëTenor.í
Other documentation of this five-part string writing can be found in the French court music in the early 17th century. Marin Mersenne published an encyclopedic treatise called, Harmonie Universelle (1636). A section of the treatise is Traite des instruments, which described all of the musical instruments in use in France in the early 17th century. Following the lead of Jambe de Ferís treatise (1556), Mersenne listed the French names for the alto (small viola), and tenor (large viola) as haute contre and taille respectively. But Mersenne added a third member of the middle alto-tenor group which was called the quinte or cinquiesme. In Mersenneís description of les 24 Violons du Roy, he lists the number of players for each of the five parts of the Kingís string ensemble:
6 Dessus (Violins)
4 Haute-Contre
or Haute-Contre Taille
(Alto and Tenor Violas)
4 Taille
4 Quinte or Cinquiesme
6 Basse (Violoncellos)
The alto and tenor violas were called ìinstruments of the middleî by Mersenne. Twelve of the twenty-four instruments of the ensemble were violas, which accounts for the importance the French court placed on the viola.
EARLIEST MAKERS OF SURVIVING VIOLAS
The majority of instruments that survive today from the earliest period of violin making (c. 1550-1600) are violas. The prominence of the middle voices may account for the number of violas which have survived. Since the viola was needed to play up to three middle parts, it makes sense that more violas than violins or cellos were made at that time. The two most famous makers of the 16th century, Andrea Amati and Gasparo da Salo, have surviving examples of alto (small) and tenor (large) violas. Before going on, I should mention that not all of the instruments are proven without a doubt to be made by each of the makers. Some violas are believed, by expert opinion, to be by one of the two luthiers. Proving an over 400 year old instrumentís maker is almost impossible without concrete documentation.
One of the oldest known surviving violas by Andrea Amati is an alto viola with a label that reads, ìAndrea Amati, 1567.î It has a body length of 16 inches, and itís ribs (side pieces) have been replaced. A tenor viola by Amati is in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England. It is part of the group of instruments believed to have been ordered by Charles IX for the French court. Like the violin described earlier, the viola has the French coat of arms depicted on it. It has a label which states that the viola was completed in 1574 by Andrea Amati. The viola has an enormous body length of 18 1/2 inches, and is in itís original condition. (see picture below)
Tenor viola (ëCharles IXí) by Andrea Amati, Cremona, 1574
(Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)
FINDING THE ëIDEALí VIOLA
Most of the sixteenth century tenor violas which have survived are not in their original condition. They have been cut down in size to make them more playable, or have had the necks and fingerboards altered to facilitate modern playing.
Sixteenth and seventeenth century string players rarely played above the seventh position on the fingerboard (over the body of the instrument), so luthiers made the necks of the violins and violas straight, and the fingerboards short, at least 2 1/2 inches shorter than todayís modern instrument. (see figures below)
Compare the 16th century viola on the left, with the short fingerboard,
to the 20th century viola on the right, with a modern fingerboard
a) Violin by Jacob Stainer, Absam, Tyrol, 1668; note the arched
belly and back, short fingerboard with wedge, and short, straight neck;
b) violin (Stradivari model) by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, Paris, 1867;
note the comparatively flat belly and back, the more elongated fingerboard
with no wedge, and the somewhat longer, tilted neck
Most of the violas made in the 16th and 17th centuries have therefore been altered in the following ways to make them playable by todayís standards. The viola neck was made slightly longer and tilted back at an angle compared with the old instruments (see picture above). The fingerboard for the modern viola was lengthened and slightly widened on the bridge end to facilitate playing in the higher positions. Most of the large tenor violas from the 16th and 17th centuries have also been altered in terms of body size.
In the 18th century, most violists played on the smaller model violas (14 1/2-15 3/4 inches in body length) which did not have nearly the tone and strength of the old Brescian and Cremonese instruments, but they were much easier to play. Conductors and composers of symphonies, as well as violists wanted a fuller, richer, more resonant sound to come from the viola section of the orchestra, which the smaller violas could not provide. Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) in particular is quoted as saying:
Here it must be said that most of the violas at present in our French orchestras have not the necessary dimension. They have neither the size, nor as a natural consequence the tone power, of a real viola; they are mostly violins strung with viola strings. These Musical Directors should absolutely forbid the use of these bastard instruments, whose tone deprives one of the most interesting parts in an orchestra of its proper colour, robbing it of all its power, especially in the lower registers.
Musicians wanted the sound of the old tenor instruments, but while these instruments had the desired resonance, they were too large to be played comfortably by most people. The answer was to cut down the old tenor instruments to a size which would keep the sound of the instrument, and be easier to play. Before c.1780 a viola that was 16 inches in body length or longer was considered large; and a viola that was over 17 inches long was considered too large to be played comfortably. The tenor violas of the 16th and 17th centuries were made with body lengths of 17 to over 20 inches long. Many of these instruments were cut down to lengths of 15 1/2 to 17 inches. When the cutting was done in the hands of a master luthier, everything worked out beautifully, but when it was done by a lesser luthier, it sometimes provided disasterous results. There were two ways of shortening the length of the violas. One, the most widely used method, was to ìcut a crescent off each end as shown by the shaded areas in Plate 50. This of course, required an appropriate shortening of the ribs, resetting of the end blocks, and refitting the neck and fingerboard.î (see picture).
Reworking and Splicing Violas
1. Shortening the ends 2. Shortening the middle
to cut down viola to cut down viola
The other way was to cut a piece out of the center of the body (see picture above). This was much more difficult to do and most of the time left very noticeable scars on the viola.
The standard modern violin size is 14 inches in body length, whereas the modern viola ranges in size from 15-20 inches in length. The average viola is around twenty percent larger than a violin. The size difference does not compensate for itís pitch range, which is 1/5 lower in pitch. As a result many violas have a nasal or muted tone in comparison to the violin or cello.
EXPERIMENTS IN CREATING THE ëIDEALí VIOLA
In addition to cutting down the old tenor violas to a playable size, luthiers since the early 19th century have experimented with ways to create a more resonant viola in a smaller size. One of the first attempts in the 19th century was an instrument made by Michael Woldemar (1750-1816), who was a violinist, violist, composer, and teacher in Paris c.1800. His ìinventionî only consisted of adding a C string to the violin, which made a five-stringed instrument. This did nothing to solve the accoustical problems of the size of the viola, and many violists were already playing instruments which were violin-sized.
Also in Paris, a French scientist and Professor of Acoustics at the College de France, Felix Savart (1791-1841), commented on the problem of the violas size in his treatise, Memorie sur la construction des instruments a chordes et a archet (1819). He said the viola was much too small in relation to its intended tonal range. In order to make the viola proportional to itís tonal range, like the violin is, the viola would have to be 53 cm in body length. An instrument that size can not be played on the shoulder. He also experimented with some new shapes of instruments, like the example of the trapezoidal shaped violin. (see picture on next page)
Felix Savart: Trapezoid Violin
In 1833 B. Dubois, in France, built a violon-tenor, which was meant to be played between the legs, somewhat like a cello. His answer was to keep the length and size of the big tenor, but change the way it was played. It was strung with the strings G, d a, eí, and tuned one octave lower than the violin. The problem was, neither violists, nor cellists wanted to play the instrument. Violists did not want to play it because the technique is so much different from the violaís. Cellists didnít want to play it because the finger-spacings were much smaller, and the sonority was not as rich as the cello.
The famous French luthier, Jean Baptiste Vuillaume (1798-1875), constructed a Contralto in 1855. The body length was 16 1/4 inches, which was well in the range of playability, but the bouts were extremely wide, which made the contralto almost impossible to play above the third position. (see picture below)
Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume: Contralto, 1855
During the 19th century in Germany, Hermann Ritter (1849-1926) was a well known virtuoso violist. He commissioned Karl Adam Horlein to build the Viola Alta to his specifications which he arrived at after years of acoustical research. The Viola Alta has a body length of 18.9 inches, which is the maximum length he believed he could play. Richard Wagner was a great fan of the Viola Alta and hired Herman Ritter to play in the premire of Der Ring des Nibelungen in 1876. Ritter was a very big man and could handle such a large instrument, but most other violists of the time found the Viola Alta way too large to play comfortably, not unlike the old tenor violas of Brescia and Cremona. He tried to solve the problem of violists having trouble reaching the higher positions (because of the enormous body) by adding an e-string in 1898. Mainly because so few violists could play the instrument, the Viola Alta fell out of favor. (see picture below)
Karl A. Horlein: Ritter Model Viola Alta, 1875
It was not until the 20th century that the solo literature for the viola began to take off, and as a result luthiers kept experimenting to find the ideal viola that was easy to play and had a rich sonority. The one person most responsible for the change in attitude for the viola was the viola virtuoso, Lionel Tertis. Through his virtuosic and artistic playing, as well as his quest for the ìperfect viola,î he has left a lasting legacy for all future violists.
Lionel Tertisí skill and artistry as a violist is well documented by other performers as well by former students. As one former student stated:
He produced a wonderful sound, impeccable intonation, and played with great conviction...Tertis was, in my opinion, the most successful at projecting his splendid tone above the whole orchestra. This was not just in the loud passages, for he also produced the most wonderful pianissimo playing, which again stood out form the orchestral accompaniment.
The result of this proven mastery of the instrument was that many composers wanted to write music for the viola and Lionel Tertis. Some of the composers who wrote music especially for Tertis are Arnold Bax, William Walton, Gustov Holst, Ralph Vaughn Williams, and Arthur Benjamin. Not all of the works written for viola by these composers are considered great pieces, but Tertis promised to play the pieces in public if the composers would write them, and after playing them in public, he passed the music on to his students to learn.
Because so much music was being written for solo viola, and violists were beginning to gain more respect as solo musicians in the 20th century, the quest was still on to make an ideal viola that was comfortable to play and resonant in tone.
In 1937, Lionel Tertis began experimenting with dimensions and size in order to develop a new viola. He ended up with a viola that was 16 3/4 inches in body length, and which he said was ìan instrument of practical size for playing under the chin, capable of producing what is one of the glories of the viola, namely, a grand C string sonority, which cannot be achieved on smaller (so called) violas.î Tertis promoted this new viola through performances by himself and his well-known viola playing friends, such as William Primrose, and it has become known as the ìTertis Model.î
In 1977, another violist and music historian, Franz Zeyringer culminated his research into the ìideal violaî by having an instrument made which matched his specifications as to what the perfect viola would be like in terms of acoustics, playability, and visual appeal. His viola had a body length of 16 1/4 inches long, which is slightly shorter than the ìTertis modelî viola.
END NOTE
The correlation between the number of violas made in a given time period to the worth composers and other musicians placed on the viola is no coincidence. In the 16th century, violists were in great demand since the music of the time favored ìinstruments of the middle.î Luthiers made two different sizes of violas to cover the middle voices, so many more violas were made to accomodate the demand. As the change in harmony went from a five-part to a four-part texture, the demand for violas and violists waned. The violin was the instrument of choice because of itís soprano voice and display of virtuosity. Violists remained in the backround for over a century before composers began to notice the potential of the viola in chamber, symphonic, and solo music. As the need for better players developed, so too did the need for a viola which could be easily played and had a great resonance. In the 21st century, attempts at making the ìideal violaî continue as does demand.
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bender, Hans. The Tenor Violin, Past, Present, and Future. American String Teacher, Fall, 1969. (ML27.U5 A8356)
This article is a description of the tenor viola and what possibly led to it's decline in
European music. A general history of the string family is given as well as where in this
history the tenor viola is glorified by players and composers.
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Berlioz, Hector. Treatise on Instrumentation, Enlarged and Revised by Richard Strauss, Translated by Theodore Front. New York: Kalmus Publishing, 1948. (MTB482 1948)
This book describes all of the instruments of the symphony orchestra, their idiomatic tendencies, and how best (in Berlioz's opinion) to utilize them in the orchestra. Very innovative when it was written.
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Boyden, David D. The History of Violin Playing from its Origins to 1761. London: Oxford University Press, 1965. (ML850.B7)
This book describes the history of the violin in three main aspects: the violin itself,
violin music, and technical matters in playing the violin. The book is divided into four
main parts, each covering a span of fifty years.
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Boyden, David D. The Hill Collection. London: Oxford University Press, 1969. (on loan)
This book describes and shows the stringed instruments collected by W. Henry, Arthur F., and Alfred E. Hill. The book gives histories of each instrument.
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Boyden, David D., et al. The New Grove Violin Family. New York: Norton, 1989. (ML750.V56x 1989)
This book is based on entries of New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments
(London, 1984), and The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London, 1980).
It contains extensive information on each instrument of the Violin family, including
origins, repertory, evolution, and technique of playing.
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Chazanoff, D. "Gasparo da Salo, Inventor of the Violin." American String Teacher. 36: 27-8, no. 3, 1986. (ML27.U5 A8356)
This article is a biography of the life and work of Gasparo da Salo. The text gives
some insight as to what made his instruments sound so exceptional.
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Dilworth, J. "Unfinished Journey." The Strad. 107: 482-4+, May, 1996. (ML750.S7)
This article ponders many aspects of the viola's evolution, such as it's origins, why
so many early violas have survived while many classical period violas have not, and why
the viola is not one standard size.
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Leipp, Emile. The Violin. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969. (ML800.L3613)
This is a history of the violin itself, in terms of it's construction and dimensions.
The construction of the violin is considered as well as the acoustics.
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Nelson, Sheila. The Violin and Viola. New York: WW Norton, 1972. (ML800.N4x)
This is a history of the Violin and Viola in terms of the makers, teachers,
performers, and composers. The chapters are arranged in chronological order of fifty year
sections.
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Riley, Maurice W. The History of the Viola, vol. 1. Ann-Arbor: Braun-Brumfield, 1980. (my book)
This book is a history of the Viola, from it's origins through 1980. It includes
information on makers, performers, repertoire and teachers of the viola.
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Sandys, William. The History of the Violin. London: William Reeves, 1864. (ML755.S32 1964)
This is a history of the violin and other bowed stringed instruments from very
ancient times through the 19th century. It describes use of the stringed instruments, and
prominent makers and composers for the instruments.
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Sheppard, Leslie. "The Creation of the Tenor-Viola," The Strad, vol. 91, Dec. 1980. (ML750.S7, copied from another library)
This article deals with the different sizes and problems relating to the viola. It disscusses different ways violists and luthiers attempted to create an ideal instrument.
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Stowell, Robin, ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Violin. Cambridge: University Press, 1992. (my book)
A history of the Violin from it's origins through the 20th century, with sections
devoted to physics of the violin, performers, repertoire, and teaching. Contains an
appendix of principal violin treatises.
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Tertis, Lionel. "The 'Tertis Model' Viola," The Strad, April, 1956, p. 468. (ML750.S7)
This article puts to rest any notions people may have had that Lionel Tertis may have been doing self-promotion of the "Tertis Model" viola for his own gain. Included are descriptions his research into an ideal viola, and how his viola was received by other prominent violists in his time.
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Witten II, Laurence C. "Apollo, Orpheus, and David: A Study of the Crucial Century in the Development of Bowed Strings in North Italy 1480-1580 as Seen in Graphic Evidence and Some Surviving Instruments." American Musical Instrument Society. pp. 5-55, vol. 1, 1975. (ML1.A527)
This article gives a scenario of the evolution of the present day violin family by
tracing the principal uses of it's Northern Italian predecessors from the years 1480-1580.
Witten concentrates on the division of these instruments into three classes, or categories,
which eventually end up with the dominant violin form.
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Zeyringer, Franz. "The Problem of Viola Size," Journal of the Violin Society of America, vol. 5, 1979-80, pp. 18-36 n4. (ML1.V298, copied from another library)
This article discusses the history of the viola, the problems of it's size, scientific acoustical considerations, and finally an instrument which Zeyringer commissioned to culminate his research findings.
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