Developed to accompany the violin, the viola is tuned a fifth below it (losing the violin’s top E string, it acquires instead a bottom C string) and plays alto to the violin’s soprano. The viola was made as a slightly bigger violin, to be played in the same way. It has been argued that if the makers had ...
A bowed string instrument, the arpeggione was invented in Vienna by J. G. Stauffer in 1823–24. A kind of bass viol, with soundholes like a viol, it is waisted, but shaped more like a large guitar than a viol or double bass. Six-stringed and with metal frets, it was tuned E, A, d, ...
Originally (and still occasionally) known as the ‘violoncello’, or ‘little violone’, the cello is tuned in fifths like the violin and viola, running bottom to top, C, G, d, a, the same tuning as a viola, but an octave lower. There were early experiments with a smaller five-stringed instrument (with an additional E string ...
as the harpsichord and the chamber organ became essential in opera orchestras. As their bass notes were fairly weak, other instruments such as the cittarone, the theorbo and viola da gamba, were used to reinforce the bass notes and together these instruments formed a ‘continuo group’. In early opera, passages for solo singer and continuo alternated with ...
to write concertos and other concert hall works for it – among them an Adagio For Eight Concertinas in E and a Quintet in D for concertina, violin, viola, cello and piano by the Dutch composer Edouard Silas (1827–1909). Concertina Composers Other concertina composers include Giulio Regondi (1827–72), Richard Blagrave (1826–95), George Case, Wheatstone himself, Bernhard ...
The double bass is the only survivor from the viol family to have found a regular place in the orchestra. Like other members of the viol family, it initially carried frets – tiny knotted pieces of gut that measured out the fingerboard. As it was adopted into the violin family, it settled down as a four-stringed instrument, shed ...
opportunities offered by electronic technology – namely amplification and access to a broader palette of synthesized (or sampled) sound. Electric Stringed Instruments Stringed instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello and double bass, can all be effectively amplified through the use of built-in microphones or, more commonly, electronic pickups. Pickups are either magnetic – which ...
work well musically. The instruments need to form an effective team, combining their individual strengths in the most efficient way possible. For instance the string trio of violin, viola and cello tends to work better than that of three violas, as between them the violin, viola and cello possess a much wider range and a greater variety of ...
bridge to extra pegs in the pegbox. Among today’s Swedish folk fiddlers there is increasing use of a larger sympathetic-strung instrument, usually called a drone-fiddle, based on the viola d’amore. Other European regional violin relatives include the three-stringed, nearly flat-bridged viola and three-stringed bass played in the fiddle music of Hungary, Romania and other parts of Eastern ...
close together, he achieved an instrument on which chords and runs were possible. Although in 1791 Mozart composed a quintet (K617) for glass armonica, flute, oboe, viola and cello for the famous blind performer Marianne Kirchgessner (1769–1808), the instrument had fallen out of fashion by the mid-nineteenth century. Styles & Forms | Classical Era | Classical Instruments ...
performed. By the end of the fifteenth century, five-, six- and even seven-course guitars were being used. In Italy the six- and seven-course guitars were often referred to as viola da mano or ‘hand viola’, as opposed to the viola da arco or ‘bowed viola’. Playing Techniques One of the most common uses of the guitar was as a strumming ...
is a pipe with a plunger in the end so that the pitch can be changed in swooping slides as it is blown. In Benedict Mason’s (b. 1954) Concerto for Viola Section and Orchestra (1990), the percussionists whirl plastic tubes around their heads. Although both of these are aerophones, and could join the woodwind section, these instruments are always ...
waisted, flat-backed, fretted Spanish guitar and Portugal’s regional range of violas (also guitar-like but usually with five or six pairs of steel strings). One of these, the viola beiroa, has a further pair of shorter higher-pitched strings that run to machine heads attached where the neck meets the body. Waisted guitar-type lutes spread to Spain’s South and ...
the cello has created a position for itself within the orchestral string family as an emotional vehicle, less brilliant and showy than the violin, less mysterious than the viola, more heart-rending than the double bass. The full name of the cello is ‘violoncello’, a small violone or bass viol. However its original name ‘basso di viola di braccio’ ...
Just as the individual instruments were changing in the classical period, so the way in which they were grouped together was also changing accordingly. As virtuosity became possible on a wider range of instruments, so the domination of violins in the ensemble was reduced and the more balanced four-part string section (first violins, second violins, violas and ...
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