* 1886 – Eric Coates, English composer and viola player ( d. 1957 )

Two closely related instruments include the baryton and the viola d ' amore, although the latter is played under the chin, viola-fashion.

The baroque concerto was mainly for a string instrument ( violin, viola, cello, seldom viola d ' amore or harp ) or a wind instrument ( oboe, trumpet, flute, or horn ).

* American ( U. S. A .)— Brown, Earle: Tracking Pierrot ( 1992 ; chamber ensemble ); Wharton, Geoffry ( works mainly in Germany ): ‘’ Five Pierrot Tangos ’’ ( n. d .; violin / viola, flute, piano / synthesizer, cello, clarinet, and voice ).

Towards the end of the 1930s, he made several tours in America as a viola and viola d ' amore soloist.

Kammermusik No. 6, for example, is a concerto for the viola d ' amore, an instrument that has not been in wide use since the baroque period, but which Hindemith himself played.

The viola d ' amore ( Italian: love viol ) is a 7-or 6-stringed musical instrument with sympathetic strings used chiefly in the baroque period.

The viola d ' amore shares many features of the viol family.

The 6 string viola d ' amore and the treble viol also have approximately the same ambitus or range of playable notes.

Intricately carved head at the top of the peg box are common on both viols and viola d ' amores as well ( although some viols lack them ).

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.

The first unambiguous reference to a viola d ' amore without sympathetic strings does not occur until the 1730s.

Largely thanks to the sympathetic strings, the viola d ' amore has a particularly sweet and warm sound.

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.

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 ".

However, the version with viola d ' amore was found in rehearsal to be impracticable, and Janáček re-cast the part for a conventional viola.

The viola d ' amore can regularly be heard today in musical ensembles that specialise in historically accurate performances of Baroque music on authentic instruments.

It was a natural choice for viola d ' amore where the tuning is not in the usual fifths.

The viola d ’ amore was usually played by violinists.

:: 6 Lessons for viola d ' amore and continuo

) He was a fine player of the viola da gamba, and composed important music for that instrument.

Abel was born in Köthen, the son of Christian Ferdinand Abel, the principal viola da gamba and cello player in the court orchestra.

This instrument also found its way to parts of Italy that were under Spanish domination ( especially Sicily and the papal states under the Borgia pope Alexander VI who brought many Catalan musicians to Italy ), where it was known as the viola da mano.

Though Paganini also commissioned from him Harold en Italie for viola and orchestra, he never performed it, and instead it was premiered a year later by violist Christian Urhan.

Hermann Ritter's ' viola alta ', which measured about, was intended for use in Wagner's operas.

Mozart, in his Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra in E flat, wrote the viola part in D major and specified that the viola's strings were to be raised in pitch by a semitone: his intention was probably to give the viola a brighter tone so as to avoid it being overpowered by the rest of the ensemble.

In 1980, Maurice Riley produced the first attempt at a comprehensive history of the viola in his History of the Viola, which was followed with a second volume in 1991.

In early orchestral music, the viola part was frequently limited to filling in harmonies and little melodic material was assigned to it.

If the viola was given a melodic part, it was often duplicated ( or was in unison with ) the melody played by other strings.

Hector Berlioz's Harold in Italy was written for solo viola and orchestra.

Dvořák played the viola and apparently said that it was his favorite instrument: his chamber music is rich in important parts for the viola.

In the early 21st century, the Ruby Gamba, a seven-string electric viola da gamba, was developed by Ruby Instruments of Arnhem, the Netherlands.

In the 15th century, the Italian word " viola " was a generic term used to refer to any bowed instrument, or fiddle.

It is important to note that the word " viola " existed in Italy before the vihuela, or first viol, was brought from Spain.

In Italy, " viola " was first applied to a braccio precursor to the modern violin, as described by Tinctoris ( De inventione et usu musice, c. 1481 – 3 ), and then was later used to describe the first Italian viols as well.

The use of the term " viola " was never used exclusively for viols in the 15th or 16th centuries.

The violin, or violino, was originally the soprano viola da braccio, or violino da braccio.

" Viola da braccio " was finally shortened to " viola " once viols became less common.