The viola is a fifth lower than the violin and an octave higher than the violoncello. Its strings are C, G, D and A. The C string is particularly resonant. The technique is the same as that of the violin; but the bow, though similar in size and shape, is less elastic.

To understand the viola we shall have to go back to the Fifteenth Century to examine a group of instruments that were the ancestors of the present family of Strings.

This was the Viol Family. There were four sizes of instruments. There was the Treble, or Discant (which always played the melody); the viola da braccio (played with the arm), or tenor; the viola da gamba (the leg viola), the bass viol; and the violone, or double-bass.

Another member of this family was the viola d’amore (the viola of love), a choice example of which appears facing page 50. It had “sympathetic strings.”

These viols were all tuned in thirds, or fourths, instead of fifths, as our modern Strings now tune.

And here we must pause for another moment to speak of an ancient viol-maker named Gaspard Duiffoprugcar (his name is spelled in many ways), who was born in 1514 and who died in 1570. He lived in that very brilliant period, the Renaissance, when Italian painters were producing magnificent works and when poets and dramatists were writing masterpieces every day. The rich lords and ladies who patronized these artists were very highly cultivated and accomplished; and Music was not the least of their pleasures. Every house of wealth had a collection of fine instruments, though this was before the days of Amati and Stradivari.

Duiffoprugcar lived in the Tyrol in the region of pines, in which instrument-makers had long been settled, and he made lutes and viols all his life. His instruments come so nearly to being violins that he is sometimes called the first maker of violins. But in his hands the violin did not quite reach the form that we find in Gasparo di Salò, who, as we have seen (see page 22) was the true creator of the violin.

Duiffoprugcar’s instruments are valued not only because they are old and rare, but also because they are works of art. They are often elaborately inlaid and carved, such as the one facing page 54. Another of his instruments, in the Brussels Conservatory, has the plan of Paris inlaid in colored woods on the back, while the scroll ends in a finely carved horse’s head. And still another has inlaid in the back a poetic Latin inscription, which is a riddle that could be applied to any stringed instrument. Translated, it reads as follows:

“I was living in the forest; the cruel axe killed me. Living, I was mute; dead, I sing sweetly.”

The tenor viol was the ancestor of our modern viola. It was the oldest of the viol family. It was very large and very hard to play, because it was so difficult to hold comfortably. But the instrument was too important to be sacrificed to the convenience of the player and the latter had to get along with it as well as he could; for, in the general plan of Mediæval Music, the tenor always sang, or sustained, the melody, or cantus. The need for a more manageable instrument to play the leading melody is one of the reasons that brought about the creation of the little violin which was destined to sing soprano. But at the time we are talking about there was no violin. This great, big, awkward tenor viol was called Violino! Then when the instrument-makers developed the little instrument that we call violin, they gave it the name violino piccolo, or little violin. The newcomer was really the little tenor viol! Both violino (or tenor) and its small companion, violino piccolo, were made in great numbers in Lombardy, whence they were sent to the wealthy houses throughout Europe. The makers, as we have seen, began to improve the violino piccolo to get more tone out of it. They also tried for sweetness; and the beautiful violin came into being to charm the world. In the meantime, violinos were made in two sizes—tenor and alto. After a time these two instruments were combined into one. Then the great, big, awkward tenor viol disappeared and the viola took its place.

Therefore the viola is sometimes referred to as the alto and sometimes as the tenor. Both names are correct.

The viola has been made in many sizes, from the huge instruments by Gasparo di Salò to instruments not much larger than the modern violin. The standard size is now about one-seventh larger than the ordinary violin.

Fine violas are rare. Those by Maggini, of which not a dozen exist, are especially valued. They are of a very high model: the corners short; the purfling double; the sound-holes short, wide, upright, under-cut on the inner edge and placed higher than on his violins; the wood is fine; and the varnish is golden brown.

A viola often has “sleepy places,” where the notes sound muffled; and it is also apt to have the dreaded “wolf.”[10]

It is often said that the viola is too large to be held like a violin and too small to be held like a violoncello. So it might be described as a half-and-half way instrument between the two.

Music for the viola is written in the Alto, or C, Clef (on the third line). The highest notes are, however, written in the Treble, Violin, Soprano, or G, Clef.

Important as the viola is in the Orchestra to-day, it was a long time before the beauty of its voice and its technical possibilities were recognized. It was only used to play subordinate middle parts, filling up time and helping along now and then with the bass. Never, never was it allowed to lift its sad, melancholy, tragic and religious voice. No matter how longingly it might listen to the other instruments singing a melody, or chattering to one another, it was doomed to silence. No composer would let it speak. Nobody ever dreamed that it had anything to say!

But it was there all the time. Patient old viola, just used for the tutti passages, where every voice speaks, or screams, or cries, at once. Sometimes in rare delight it was allowed to play in unison with the violoncellos, and, more rarely, in unison with the violins.

But Mozart—to whom Music owes so much—discovered the possibilities of the viola!

Mozart gave the viola its proper place in the Orchestra, making it something more than a large violin filling up a gap between soprano and bass. He made it important in his Trios and lifted it into prominence by writing a Concerto for violin, viola and Orchestra! The next time you hear Mozart’s magnificent Don Giovanni listen for the viola, when Zerlina is singing her aria, Vedrai carino. The viola has a great deal to say in this tender love song and says it as beautifully and as tenderly as Zerlina herself.

The viola became of great importance in Beethoven’s Trios, Quartets and Quintets; and, to its joy, it was allowed to take a prominent part in the Orchestra! First it was permitted to sing with the violoncellos and bassoons, as in the Egmont Overture, and then actually to play with the violoncellos the exquisite melody in the Andante of Beethoven’s C minor Symphony (the Fifth). The first critics who heard this Symphony noticed to their amazement that the violoncellos gained roundness and purity of tone from their association with the viola!

There are many places in Beethoven’s Symphonies where the violas are conspicuous; and they are always noble as well as beautiful. The violas also play with the violoncellos in the Choral finale of the Ninth Symphony.

Hector Berlioz, always original, did a fine thing for the viola by writing a big solo part for it in his Harold Symphony, which describes Byron’s wanderings of Childe Harold in Italy. The viola impersonates Childe Harold.

Wagner saw what fine use Beethoven had made of this instrument; and with his wonderful gift for understanding the character, quality and color of every instrumental voice in the Orchestra, Wagner was impressed with the possibilities of the viola.

There are new original passages and splendid melodies for the viola in all of Wagner’s music-dramas (a student could find great profit and pleasure by taking the orchestral scores of these works and following the viola part from beginning to end), but one instance will suffice to emphasize the important use Wagner made of this instrument.

The next time you hear the Overture to Tannhäuser listen for the motive of the Venusberg! This phrase, which Lavignac so aptly says “recalls Weber when he is fantastic and Mendelssohn when he is fairy-like,” is given to the viola! Here in this melodious passage Wagner showed that the quiet, old, sedate viola could be wild, playful and fiery. And Wagner was the first to exhibit the viola in such a rôle.

Tschaikowsky’s Pathetic Symphony has a splendid part for this instrument. Elgar also gives the viola much to do in his works; and Richard Strauss, carrying Wagner’s fantastic ideas still farther, made the viola impersonate Sancho Panza in the Don Quixote Variations, where he treats it elaborately, whimsically and delightfully.

But very likely none of these composers would have thought about this instrument had it not been for Berlioz, who said: “Of all instruments in the Orchestra the one whose excellent qualities have been longest misappreciated is the viola. It is no less agile than the violin. The sound of its strings is peculiarly telling. Its upper notes are distinguished by their mournfully passionate accent; and its quality of tone, altogether of profound melancholy, differs from that of other instruments played with a bow.

“The viola has, nevertheless been long neglected or put to an unimportant and ineffectual use,—that of merely doubling in octave the upper part of the bass. Its quality of tone so strongly attracts and captivates the attention that it is not necessary to have in the Orchestra quite so many violas, as second violins; and the expressive powers of its quality of tone are so marked that in the rare occasions when the old masters afforded its display it never failed to fulfil their intentions. Melodies on the high strings of the viola have a marvellous beauty in scenes of a religious and unique character.”

These ideas, so new when they were written in the early days of the Nineteenth Century, set composers thinking. They began to realize that they had a color and quality of tone on their orchestral palette of which they had been unaware. The question was how to paint with it. Wagner boldly dashed forth with the Venusberg motive and showed how agile and fanciful the viola could be.

To-day the viola’s beautiful tone is perfectly understood. “Every skilful violinist can in a few weeks acquire the ability to play the viola fairly well; but the true virtuoso of the viola must study his instrument long and carefully. In like degree as the violin is biting, incisive and masterful, the viola is humble, wan, sad and morose. Besides using it to fill in the harmony composers take advantage of those qualities to obtain expressions of melancholy and resignation for which the instrument is incomparable; for its range of sentiment runs from sad reverie to agonized pathos.”[11]