Viol

The word "viol" is the general name for a group of fretted, bowed stringed instruments popular between about 1475 and 1750. Usually a viol has six strings. Played vertically, with the smaller treble and tenor viols resting on the leg of a seated player and the larger bass viol (or viola da gamba, "leg viol") on the floor like a cello, the viols were among the ancestors of the modern orchestral string section. Music for a group of viols or viol consort was an important early genre of independent instrumental music, common in Spain and France and flourishing especially in England, where consort music was something of an instrumental counterpart to the vocal madrigal, cultivated by amateur musicians. The three main sizes of viol were, from highest to lowest, treble, tenor, and bass, but many pieces for viols had five or six parts. The large market for such music resulted in the production of a large body of music for viols by Dowland, Tomkins, and other composers. Though the viol family was displaced by the instruments of the modern orchestra in new forms of Italian music in the seventeenth century, the viola da gamba survived well into the eighteenth century as part of the accompanimental continuo grouping; the basso continuo called for in Baroque scores was often "realized" by a gamba and a harpsichord. Along with recorders and other instruments of the Renaissance era, the viols were revived during the early music movement of the twentieth century.

Strings Instruments