1997 Viola d’amore, crafted by Eric, Nancy and Hans Benning, Benning Violins.
The viola d'amore shares many features of the viol family. It looks like a thinner treble viol without frets and sometimes with sympathetic strings added.[2] The six-string viola d'amore and the treble viol also have approximately the same ambitus or range of playable notes. Like all viols, it has a flat back. An intricately carved head at the top of the peg box is common on both viols and viola d'amore, although some viols lack one. Unlike the carved heads on viols, the viola d'amore's head occurs most often as Cupid blindfolded to represent the blindness of love. Its sound-holes are commonly in the shape of a flaming sword known as "The Flaming Sword of Islam" (suggesting the instrument's development was influenced by the Islamic World).[citation needed] This was one of the three usual sound hole shapes for viols as well.[3] It is unfretted, and played much like a violin, being held horizontally under the chin. It is about the same size as the modern viola.
The viola d'amore usually has six or seven playing strings, which are sounded by drawing a bow across them, just as with a violin. In addition, it has an equal number of sympathetic strings located below the main strings and the fingerboard which are not played directly but vibrate in sympathy with the notes played. A common variation is six playing strings, and instruments exist with as many as fourteen sympathetic strings alone. Despite the fact that the sympathetic strings are now thought of as the most characteristic element of the instrument, early forms of the instrument almost uniformly lacked them. The first unambiguous reference to a viola d'amore with sympathetic strings does not occur until the 1730s. Both types continued to be built and played through the 18th century.[4]
Largely thanks to the sympathetic strings, the viola d'amore has a particularly sweet and warm sound. Leopold Mozart, writing in his Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule, said that the instrument sounded "especially charming in the stillness of the evening."
The first known mention of the name viol d'amore appeared in John Evelyn's Diary (20 November 1679): "for its swetenesse & novelty the Viol d'Amore of 5 wyre-strings, plaid on with a bow, being but an ordinary violin, play'd on Lyra way by a German, than which I never heard a sweeter Instrument or more surprizing..."
Range
As on the treble viol, the register above the octave (d) on the top string would seldom be used except in contemporary music. The viola d'amore was normally tuned specifically for the piece it was to play - cf. scordatura. Towards the end of the 18th century the standard tuning became Open D Major: A, d, a, d', f♯', a', d".
Use
The bridge on an early 18th-century instrument, showing both sets of strings.
The instrument was especially popular in the late 17th century, although a specialised viola d'amore player would have been highly unusual, since it was customary for professional musicians to play a number of instruments, especially within the family of the musician's main instrument. Later, the instrument fell from use, as the volume and power of the violin family became preferred over the delicacy and sweetness of the viol family. However, there has been renewed interest in the viola d'amore in the last century. The viola players Henri Casadesus and Paul Hindemith both played the viola d'amore in the early 20th century, and the film composer Bernard Herrmann made use of it in several scores. It may be noted that, like instruments of the violin family, the modern viola d'amore was altered slightly in structure from the baroque version, mainly to support the extra tension of steel wound strings.
Leoš Janáček originally planned to use the viola d'amore in his second string quartet, "Intimate Letters". The use of the instrument was symbolic of the nature of his relationship with Kamila Stösslová, a relationship that inspired the work. However, the version with viola d'amore was found in rehearsal to be impracticable, and Janáček re-cast the part for a conventional viola.[5]Sergei Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet features a viola d'amore as well.
The head of an early 18th-century instrument, featuring blindfolded Love.
Scordatura notation was first used in the late seventeenth century as a way to quickly read music for violin with altered tunings. It was a natural choice for viola d'amore and other stringed instruments not tuned in the usual fifths, especially those whose intervals between strings are not uniform across their range. Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, Antonio Vivaldi and Johann Joseph Vilsmayr (a student of Biber), among others, wrote pieces for violin with one or more strings retuned to notes other than the usual fifths. Given that the viola d’amore was usually played by violinists and that many different tunings were used, scordatura notation made it easier for a violinist to read the music.
Scordatura notation exists in a number of different types. Treble clef, alto clef and soprano clefs are all used by different composers. Bass clef is typically used for notes on the lower two or three strings (6 or 7 string instruments) and usually sounds an octave higher than written. In scordatura, one imagines that one is playing a violin (or in some cases a viola, where alto clef is used) tuned in the normal fifths. Scordatura notation informs the player not about what note will sound but rather about where they should place their fingers; therefore, it may be referred to as a tablature or "finger" notation.
In Biber's Harmonia Artificiosa no. VII, a different version of scordatura notation is used. Biber uses a nine line staff. The clefs used are based on alto clef (imagining that you are playing a viola). The piece is written for a six-stringed instrument. The upper part of the staff supposes that you are playing on the upper four strings and the lower part that you are playing on the lower four strings (still imagining that you are reading the four strings of a viola in alto clef). This does mean that there are two ways of notating notes on the middle two strings but it quickly becomes apparent, when playing, what the correct reading should be.
The Misprision of Transparency (2001) by Aaron Cassidy
Film and Television
Bernard Herrmann's score for On Dangerous Ground (1951) makes extensive use of the viola d'amore for the female protagonist's theme. The performer of the instrument Virginia Majewski receives a credit in the film's opening titles.
James Newton Howard's score for After Earth (2013) uses a quartet of violas d'amore to provide eerie soundscapes, performed by Pamela Goldsmith, Roland Kato, Jennie Hansen and Adriana Zoppo.
Note: The papers of Walter Voigtlander contain 142 arrangements and transcriptions of works for the instrument.[7]
Pedagogical works
The Modern Viole d'Amour Player, Systematically Arranged Material for the Studie of the Viole d'Amour for the Violin Player by Walter Voigtlander (written before 1914). This is a basic pedagogical method, which starts the player from the most elementary elements of the instrument and progresses to a fair level of difficulty. It contains adaptations of violin and viola exercises by many well-known pedagogues. In addition, the work contains a supplement with many solo works and orchestral soli, by many composers, including his own 42 Studies (see below[7]). Available as part of The Walter Voigtlander Collection of Viola d'Amore Music, ca. 1890–1930 at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (see finding aid[7]).
42 Studies transcribed for the Viole d'Amour for the Violin Player, and Viola Studies for Self-Study by Walter Voigtlander. It has annotations in both German and English. It is the more advanced of his two pedagogical works, being intended, according to Rosenblum,[8] largely for his own use. Exercises from well-known violin and viola method books are extracted and modified for the viola d'amore.[7] Available as part of The Walter Voigtlander Collection of Viola d'Amore Music, ca. 1890–1930 at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (see finding aid[7]).
16 Studi-Capricci for Viola d'amore by Aurelio Arcidiacono (1915-2000) These are advanced etudes, music eminently suitable for performance. Published by Amore Publications (1990)
^Rosenblum, Myron. “Walter Voigtlander: a true viola d'amore pioneer in America.” Newsletter. Viola d'Amore Society of America V.4, No.1 (May 1980), pp. 12-14.
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