Viola d'amore


The viola d'amore is a 7- or 6-stringed musical instrument with sympathetic strings used chiefly in the baroque period. It is played under the chin in the same manner as the violin.

Structure and sound

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. 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". This was one of the three usual sound hole shapes for viols as well. 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 without sympathetic strings does not occur until the 1730s. Both types continued to be built and played through the 18th century.
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 : "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 on the top string would seldom be used. 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: A, d, a, d', f', a', d".

Use

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.
Sergei Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet features a viola d'amore as well.
The viola d'amore can regularly be heard today in musical ensembles that specialise in historically informed performances of Baroque music on authentic instruments.

Scordatura notation

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, 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 and usually sounds an octave higher than written. In scordatura, one imagines that one is playing a violin 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. 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. 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.

Repertoire

;Baroque period
;Modern works
;The viola d'amore is also used in :
;Film
Note: The papers of Walter Voigtlander contain 142 arrangements and transcriptions of works for the instrument.

Pedagogical works

The sînekemani is one of the members of the viol family, which was very popular in Western Europe, and known in almost all the countries of Europe by its Italian name, viola d'amore, meaning "love fiddle." It was most likely brought to Istanbul by European diplomats. Until its arrival, the single bowed instrument in Turkish classical music was the kemân. Because the viola d'amore was played resting against the breast, the Turks called it the sînekemani.