A ‘Soundposted‘ Renaissance viol
I was asked to make a ‘reproduction’ of early Even though the instruments do not seem to
renaissance viol by a player who was not be very accurate representations,we took the
satisfied with the sound of other flat top ‘tenor’ viol on the right as the reference to
instruments he owned. He wanted a more work from, as it has been depicted with more
powerful instrument, so he asked for one of detail than the rest.
these instruments where the treble bridge leg From this instrument we got the overall
acts a soundpost. proportions between neck and soundbox
length, choosing a 565mm stinglength for a
It is based on a on a wall painting in the tenor and 375mm for the treble.
Knights' Hall from the Goldegg Castle in
Southern Austria. These paintings are
atributed to Hans Bocksberger (or
Bocksperger) the older (c.1536). He might
have learned with his father and perhaps made
some learning years in Italy.His style points
both German and Italian elements1.
One of the characteristical features of this
instrument is the bridge.
The treble leg goes down on to the back
trough a hole on the soundboard. This makes
the sound closer to an instrument with a
soundpost (closer to a baroque viol) )even
though the treble string gives a weaker sound
Photo by Heinz Kaiser, Kulturverein SCHLOSS GOLDEG
than the rest (At least in this case, where the
soundboard is evenly thicknessed and there is reinforced with linen strips. The soundboard is
no longitudinal bar). glued on ribs using no linings at all.
This kind of bridge/soundpost is also depicted
'on the title pages of the superius, altus and
bassus part books of the copies in theBasel
Universitätsbibliothek of 'Reutterliedlin'
printed by Christian Egenolph in Frankfurt am
Main (1535)' (below) according to E.
Segerman in his article ‘The development of
European bowed instruments’2 See below.
The ribs are inserted in the neck, which goes
inside the body and works as a top block.
This is not such an uncommon feature as it
seems at a first tought. It is found in many
traditional instruments from eastern europe to
south america. There are also bass instruments
with this feature in Castello del Principe
(Museo Civico) di Merano3 and scattered in
some places as Slovakia, the southern part of
Poland, other parts of Tirol, eastern part of
Germany, the Italian Alps or Slovenia.
Bridge is positioned quite low on the
soundboard and it is clearly curved.
It looks quite high for the idea we have of
rennaissannce viols.
This instrument shares some features with the
vihuela de mano.
It has been built on a board using no mould.
Each rib being a separate piece bent with heat
(as stated on the violeros ordinances)4 instead
The neck in not angled backwards, it is in the
of carving the soundbox from a block or
same plane as the soundboard. To get the
sawing the ribs in one continuous piece from a
string height, the fingerboard is wedge shaped,
board (carved ribs) a common way of
giving a thick neck close to the body joint as
building at that time(as can be seen in some
we can see in the painting.
extant lira da Braccio and some viol
paintings).
It has no corner blocks and the joints are
The soundboard is flat with two small
transversal bars aligned with the
corners.(Impossible to say what the original
has but this is something we can see in the
extant vihuelas and for example in the
Grünewald isenheim altarpiece).
The bow is very light and with not many
hairs. It has no nut.
Hairs are inserted in a mortise on where the
nut would be(on a baroque bow) and it goes
trough a hole in the stick at the tip.
Held as the musicians on the painting do it The tuning choosen for the tenor has been g c'
works quite nicely (once one gets used to play e' a' d'' taken from the Munich University
with a nutless bow). Library 4º Cod, ms. 718 dated (1523/4) which
comes to be the same as Gerle gave in his
Musica Teusch (Nuremberg 1532).
1
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Bocksberger_
der_%C3%84ltere
2
http://www.nrinstruments.demon.co.uk/Bowed2.
html#footnote28
3
MOENS, Karel ‘ La nascitá del violino nei Paesi
Bassi del sud: alla ricerca di un luogo dove
collocare l`inizio della storia del violino’ en
/Claudio Monteverdi, omperatore della musica/,
Rovereto, Academia Roveretana di Musica
Antica, 1993.
4
Ordinances for the craft of Joiners and ‘violeros’
from Sevilla 1572
Ander Arroitajauregi Aranburu http://fondosdigitales.us.es/books/search/digitalbook_vi
ew?oid_page=143259
anderviols@gmail.com Livro dos Regimentos dos offiçiaes mecanicos da mui
excelente e Sempre leal Cidade de lixbona Anno
MDLxxij
http://vihueladearco.blogspot.com/ A Viola de Mão em Portugal (c. 1450-c.1789). Manuel
http://web.jet.es/arroitaja/ Morais
Nassarre. Revista Aragonesa de Musicología XXII
http://ifc.dpz.es/publicaciones/biblioteca2/id/9
