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Viola pomposa (violoncello piccolo) and viola d’amore: stringing

I made the two violoncelli piccoli in 2000 and 2001, for Lambert Smit and Simon Murphy. The idea originated with long standing customer and friend of mine Lambert Smit, and I suggest strongly that you consult his website, www.lambertsmit.com, for further reading. It was Lambert, by the way, who brought the idea and my instrument to the attention of Sigiswald Kuyken, who thereupon commissioned a few instruments by Dmitry Badiarov. And were it not for the dauntless propagation of the idea by Sigiswald, the project would by now have been virtually dead. The problem is that a 5-string instrument, with a stringlength of about 42cm, tuned like a cello, poses quite serious stringing problems. Problems that until recently nobody has been able to solve in a musically convincing way. And here the twain meet.

The viola d’amore was to become a historically correct recreation, metal stringing and all. But particulars about historical metal strings are extremely rare. On the other hand, the beautiful instrument in the Paris Instrument Museum by Schotchowsky proved, with a body length of 44cm, to be too big for my customer, the baroque violinist Arwen Bouw. So we had to figure out a stringlength and stringing that would suit her and allow for different tunings at the same time. With the indispensable help of her partner, clavier maker and restorer Paul Kobald, we were able to experiment with different strings, different stringlengths etc. until it became fairly obvious that a nice stringlength would be something in the region of 37,5cm. Armed with this knowledge I could begin to scale down the Schotchowsky amore to manageable proportions. And that turned out to be a body length of slightly under 40,5cm.

And then it struck me that we could do the same experiment for the gut stringing of the viola pomposa. We did, and it turned out that we could make much better lower strings, musically, than hitherto. How they will behave mechanically, what their lifespan will be, has to show yet, but the violoncello piccolo as a musically convincing instrument is almost within arm’s reach. They who are also in search of the real violoncello for the Bach suites can contact me, or Paul Kobald at claviertiger@mac.com on the new stringing prospects.

Since then two concerts have been given with violoncello piccolo (or “da bracchio”, the terminology is rather confused at the moment and has to settle yet) with the new stringing. One by Simon Murphy (www.newdutchacademy.nl) and the other by the ensemble “De Swaen” (www.barokensembledeswaen.nl). The latter, by the way, with lower strings by Peruffo, form Aquila Strings, who seems to have hit the same idea lately. Both concerts, to my far from unbiased ears, showed the VP in a convincing role, solo as well as accompanying the ensemble.