IMSLP Forums

Not sure if this is the right place to raise this question. If not, perhaps someone could redirect me.

I've uploaded some viol music and I notice there are categories for "Scores featuring the viola da gamba" and "Scores featuring the viol". However, people generally use "viola da gamba" and "viol" to mean the same instrument. Is there a reason for the two categories and would there be a simple way to make them into synonyms?

Thanks

Steve

When we started the tagging project a couple of years ago, I'm pretty sure we had only viola da gamba -- in fact the tagging page still doesn't list a "viol" category. I would agree that there should only be one, so the viol category would have to be integrated into the viola da gamba category, unless someone can give a reason why they were divided.

Would it be helpful to distinguish between viols of different ranges (treble, tenor, etc.), or is there not enough of a general convention to do that effectively?

I think we need more expert guidance on this. User Afolop (Albert Folop) has suggested that many of the works we have tagged for viola da gamba should really be for viol, and that the two terms are not synonymous. I'll leave a note on his talk page suggesting he might like to contribute to this discussion...

Regarding the suggestion about distinguishing between viols of different ranges (treble, tenor, etc.), I'm not sure this particularly helpful for solo music, because that is mostly for the bass viol, I think. Regarding consort music, it would be great to have it categorised according to the particular instrumentation, but this would need a lot of categories. 5-part consort music can be Tr, Tr,T,T, B; or Tr, T, T, B, B; or Tr, T, T, T, B; or B,B,B,B,B, etc, etc. Then there would be the same for 2, 3, 4 and 6 part music. In other word, it would be a great opportunity for editors (like me) to to make a complete pig's ear of it all

I reckon that the priority for now is to correct the current ambiguity of viol versus viola da gamba. I think there are also some sub-categories like "for 4 violas da gamba" (and also "for 4 viols"). This sub-categorisation is useful but again we need to settle on one name for the instrument unless someone has a good reason not to.

Oh...have just seen Davydov's comment about Albert Folop. Yeah, good idea to get his views. I think, in England at least, the two terms are used synonymously. eg the Viola da Gamba Society's website (http://www.vdgs.org.uk/who-TheSociety.html) begins "The Viola da Gamba Society was founded in 1948 with the aim of advancing the study of viols, their music, their playing, and their making."

Cheers

Steve

Here are some ideas:
The official name of the instrument and the entire family is 'viola da gamba'. This distinguishes it from the entirely distinct family 'viola da braccia', from which the modern orchestral viola is a descendant. In modern terminology, 'viola' refers solely to the latter family. Currently, the general term 'viol' is used most of the time for the viola da gamba instrument. The shortened term for the family name is 'gamba' to avoid any confusion with the orchestral instrument.. This also provides the plural 'gambas' which eliminates the awkward 'violas da gamba'.

Historically, the term 'viol' was universally used in the 16th and 17th centuries in the English school for the instruments, with the chamber ensemble being called a consort of viols. The common sizes were treble, tenor, and bass, with occasional inclusion of the very rare alto, great bass (or double bass), and later, descant sizes. When other instruments were introduced into the ensemble, it was called a 'broken consort'.

The French baroque used the terms (and sizes) par dessus, dessus, and bass, and called the instrument 'viola da gamba', usually referring to the bass size. They concentrated on solo music or at least very small ensembles.

The instruments have a fairly wide range so interior parts are frequently playable on either of two sizes, for example treble or tenor instruments. Modern usage frequently indicates this by the term 'A' (=alto part) which has no connotation whatsoever of requiring or even suggesting the alto viol instrument. Lower parts are so often playable on tenor or bass instruments that the situation is rarely specifically indicated (such as calling for tenor/bass viol). To indicate all of the possible combinations in a given situation would generate so many possibilities that it would only result in confusion to the reader.

And all of this is further confused by the modern societies of gamba players calling themselves 'The Viola da Gamba Society' of America, Great Britain (-UK), Australia, etc.

Recommendation:
1. Use the term 'viol' for the English chamber music instrument and generally use the term 'viola da gamba' only for the French baroque music. Thus 'viola' would refer only to the modern orchestral instrument.
2. Do not try to indicate alternate sizes of the instruments for a given part other than using the indication 'A' where considered necessary to indicate the general range of the part.

The only problem with your recommendations is that it is impractical to use two names for essentially one family of instruments and maintain consistency across the entire site, since the instrumental categories are maddeningly literal — we don’t, for instance, call an English horn a cor anglais depending on the nationality of the composer.

I would humbly suggest going with viol (however this may upset some die hard gambists).

In terms of specifying ranges, one of our team had already proposed we should have tags for viol consort and a suggestion of the range breakdown (treble, tenor, bass) is very welcome. (The use of coarser-grained voicings than for vocal music of the period seems to to be an outcome of the compass of the instrument being more adaptable than choirs were likely to treat voices: as you mention, the tenor viol can be used to cover anything played on an alto, within reason; likewise the bass can play anything for the tenor.)

Cheers, Philip

Hi Albert

Thanks for replying.

I absolutely agree that the viol-type instruments deserve to be kept quite distinct from the modern viola and its relatives.

Also, I'm sure you are correct about the historical and geographical distinctions between the terms "viola da gamba" , "gamba" and "viol". However, a lot of potential users of this site (including me ) use the terms interchangeably nowadays. Certainly the Viola da Gamba Society seem to (I have a shelf of their journals called "The Viol" right here); Alison Crum (one of the leading players and teachers in Britain) seems to use the term "viol" in preference to "gamba" (see http://www.alisoncrum.co.uk/); I'm sure I could find lots of other examples of informed people using both terms to describe the same instrument.

My own preference would certainly be to choose one term to describe this instrument, rather than to define our terminology on historical and geographical distinctions. I'm not sure whether it is a fair comparison, but we wouldn't have separate categories for "recorder" and "blockflöte"; so should we try to distinguish "viol" and "viola da gamba". For me, one of the deciding factors is whether you could look at a pile of these instruments and divide them into those which are viols and those which are violas da gamba. (I don't think this can be done.) Although I'd argue for a single name for the instrument, I really don't care whether it is "viol" or "viola da gamba".

That's just my view, but if the consensus is to retain both terms, I think we need a kind of "mini-style-guide" to explain the categorisation to help editors and we should provide some helpful pointers to readers of the site. For instance, your recommendation would clearly put the consort music of Byrd, Dowland, East etc into the "viol" category, and Marais into the "VdG" category. But what about, say, Johann Hermann Schein, who was neither English nor French?

Cheers

Steve

I would certainly recommend using the name 'viol' in general. I was just suggesting that maybe the use of the instrument in French Baroque music is so distinct that the name 'viola da gamba' could be used for just that. I don't work with that repertoire so I wouldn't push that use at all. Incidentally Christopher Simpson in 'The Division Viol', published in 1665, has a table of nomenclature which lists 'viol' for England, 'viole' for France, and 'viola' for Italy. His book doesn't ever mention the term 'viola da gamba' or 'gamba'. As for Schein and the rest of Europe, they followed the English in general.

Viola da gamba could be used in a limited non-categorisation way, say, in the Instrumentation field of a work page. But it would be necessary to use one and only one name for the heading and category system, even though it might look wrong for certain repertoire.

And I’m not even touching the recorder versus blockflöte contretemps. Not even when equipped with a forty-foot baton.

PML

And of course the German name is 'Gambe'. Then you get to the name of the player: If the player of a viol is a 'violist' (a term which Christopher Simpson uses) then you bump into the player of the modern 'viola'. Most people today call the viol player a 'gambist'.

Regarding Schein: I was just using him as an example. The point I was trying to make is that we don't want to have to make a complex judgement about categories whenever a new piece of music is added to IMSLP: we need a simple policy that can be understood by editors who may not be experts in the field. For examples where would we categorise the viol music of, say, Bach, Handel, Kevin Volans, John Tavener, or Douglas Leedy? They are neither English Renaissance nor French Baroque.

If we are indeed going to have a simple policy, the main contenders seem to be

1) Refer to the instrument as the "viol" throughout.
2) Refer to it as "viola da gamba" throughout.
3) Use "viola da gamba" for French Baroque music and "viol" for everything else.

Are there any other practical options?

Personally, my preferences would be expressed by the order in which I have placed the options (ie a preference for calling it the "viol", followed by "viola da gamba"). However, I am not strongly pushing my personal preferences....what I really want is a clear policy, whatever it may be.

How do we go about reaching consensus on this, please?

Thanks

Steve

Thanks to everyone who's contributed to the above discussion. If we take it that "viol" and "viola da gamba" are alternative names for the same instrument, would there be any objections to changing "viola da gamba" to "viol" in our categorization scheme? This would, for example, rename the category "For 2 violas da gamba" to "For 2 viols", and "Scores featuring the viola da gamba" to "Scores featuring the viol".

No objections from me. I support the change.

It seems like Stephen West’s option 1) is the only practical site-wide option, and I am glad to add to Al’s endorsement. Option 3) ignores the technical issue that the use of “viola da gamba” on certain repertoire pages (French Baroque) would have to be squared up against categorisation under the name of “viol” on the very same page. Like the example of the English horn/cor anglais, pages become slightly awkward if one part of a work page calls the instrument a gamba but the category system spells out “viol”.

PML