1

The viola da gamba and the nineteenth century.

Johannes Boer (Utrecht)
Neumark : “ Meine Gambe! Nein, die lasse ich nicht!”
Jobs:” Das woll’n wir doch seh’n, Du thörigter Wicht. Ihr Leute, herbei! Nehmt den Kasten ihm ab, Und ihn werft
hinaus! Die Treppe hinab.”
(Die Bursche haben Neumark umringt und ihm mit Gewalt die Gambe und den Bogen abgenommen)

Scene from the opera “Georg Neumark und die Gambe” by

Julius Rietz performed in 1859 at the Hoftheater in
Weimar. One of the most beautiful instruments by Joachim
Tielke (see picture 1) was used in the performance but
most unlikely as a requisite on stage.

Sleeping Beauty
Most people who are familiar with the phenomenon “viola
da gamba” still have the idea that the instrument was
forgotten after Carl Friedrich Abel died and revived by
Arnold Dolmetsch.1 The viol, so to speak, missed the
nineteenth century and vice versa. This is supposed to be
logical because the whole concept of the viola da gamba
would not fit into the ideals of that age. Although this
might be correct superficially it misses the nuance of
deeper historical layers, which is the very essence of our
understanding the past. Understanding the twentieth
century revival of historic music, implies looking beyond
the headlines of the nineteenth century in this respect. Most
pioneers of the past age were so taken by their own
discoveries (and many still are) that they forget to put
themselves into a proper historical context as well.
A striking example is the remark of Christian Döbereiner
(1874–1961) in the preface of his book on the early music
revival of 1950.2 “K. F. Abel wurde von Goethe in
Dichtung und Wahrheit (II, VIII) als "der letzte Musiker,
welcher die Gambe mit Glück und Beifall behandelte"
aufgeführt. Dieser vormals berühmte Komponist und
Gambenvirtuose erhielt jedoch in mir insofern einen
Nachfolger, als ich die Viola da Gamba aus ihrem mehr als
hundertjährigen "Dornröschenschlaf" erlöste und Anno
1905 in München ein neuzeitliches Gambenspiel ins Leben
rief.”
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Döbereiner must have known that apart from the

word neuzeitlich, this was not accurate. His
approach to the gamba, fretless and with cello
pin and overhand bow grip, was indeed a
modern way of gamba playing, which became
common under cellists who picked up the viol in
the first half of the twentieth century.
Nevertheless we should not underestimate the
tremendous work he has done for the revival of
early music practice in general and the viola da
gamba in special. He was convinced that music
written for gamba did not suit the violoncello
and therefore had to go against the opinion of his
contemporaries3. One of his hallmarks in this
respect was the foundation of the Akademie der
Tonkunst München – "Deutsche Vereinigung für
Alte Musik" in 1905. Its main goal was the
reproduction of instrumental chamber music of
the seventeenth and eightteenth century in it’s
original form and on original instruments.
Döbereiner himself was initiated to the viola da
gamba ten years before by his cello teacher Josef
Werner (1837–1922), who played an original
Tielke instrument. Indeed someone who ‘woke
up’ the viol before him.

The Matthew Passion

Another highlight in the early days of the revival
was Döbereiner’s performance of the arias in
Bach’s Matthew Passion. It was conducted in
1907 by Felix Mottl without cuts and he
considered himself the first to play a seven string
Viola da Gamba since Bach’s days in the Aria
Komm süsses Kreuz. It was well received
according to the quotations of press reviews:”
Die Gamba verleiht der Aria ein Kolorit, wie es
vom Violoncello nie erreicht werden kann: "ein Klangwunder" nannte dieses in seiner
Charakteristik geniale Stück der frühere Konzertsänger und spätere Kritiker der "Münchener
Neuesten Nachrichten" SDZ, Hermann Ruoff”. Another critic had written: "Herr Döbereiner tat
sein Möglichstes, um ein heute nicht mehr Genießliches wenigstens erträglich zu machen."– (Mr.
Döbereiner did whatever he could to make something considered no longer digestible, at least
bearable.)
Something Döbereiner most certainly did not know is that a 15 year old girl took the challenge
more than a decade before he did. Hélène Dolmetsch, born in 1878 as the first child of Arnold
Dolmetsch, played the aria in London in 1894. Her father wrote in a letter: "I am going to
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accompany the recitatives of Bach's St. Matthew Passion upon the harpsichord at the Queen's
Hall on the (March)15th. Hélène will play the famous obligato for the viola da gamba, (Joseph)
Joachim the violin."4 Taking the fame of this violinist in consideration there must have been
some level in the girl’s playing. This is confirmed later by Edmund van der Straeten: "...his
daughter Miss Hélène Dolmetsch, appeared first as a performer on the bass viol which she treats
now with perfect mastery...”. 5
Another forerunner, but less fortunate, Döbereiner did not know of was an anonymous cellist
who participated in a historically informed (as Rutledge puts it) performance of the Matthew
Passion in Krefeld on Palm Sunday 1884. Instead of a seven-string bass viol, he had a five-string
instrument at his disposal, which was borrowed from the Snoeck Collection and had arrived with
a cracked belly and had to be repaired first. Obviously the performance left the impression one
can expect under such circumstances.6

Historical approach versus romanticising the instrument

It was by no means coincidental that the Dolmetsch girl approached the gamba playing closest to
what we would now consider historically informed. The interest of Arnold Dolmetsch in
historical facts of early music and his desire to reconstruct it was risen about the time she was
born. It boosted when he studied with Henri Vieuxtemps in Brussels and attended a so called
‘concert historique’ on the 25th of October in 1879, where he heard several historical instruments
with their typical repertoire. The viola da gamba was introduced to him a year before by Auguste
Tolbecque, who played a menuet by Boccherini, but left the impression something was not right
because it did not sound right to him.7
It could have been the reason why these men, who worked very much in the same frame of mind,
did not make contact on that occasion but only some twenty years later. Although he himself was
not historically correct in the eyes of Dolmetsch, Tolbecque criticised the founder of the so called
“Concerts Historiques,” François Fétis, in the introduction of his book on violin making.8
Tolbecque states that by the lack of people who mastered the old instruments Fétis turned the
gamba into a violoncello, the viola d’amore into a modern viola and the lute into a guitar. Fétis
himself later admitted his disappointment about the enterprise, although he was surrounded by
enthusiasm raised by the ‘pretended archaic performances, where the pleasure of the eyes added
much to the enchantment of the ears’.9 Indignant is the description by Tolbecque at the ‘final
blow’ the viola da gamba was given by someone not called by name, but who in this context
could be no other than Paul de Wit (1852–1925). ‘It is with real annoyance I read in the program
notes that because there would be no repertoire worth playing, the artist who is expected to let us
hear the instrument plays a romance by Mendelssohn just on the chanterelle.’ The reason for this,
according to Tolbecque, was that the viola da gamba needed to be worked on and life is to short
to play instruments of the present as well as those of the past. Although there might be some truth
in this observation, an ideological conflict is the more likely explanation in this case. Paul de Wit
deliberately choose to actualise the viola da gamba by playing contemporary repertoire. There are
several reports of him playing music by, what we now call Romantic composers, (such as the
Fourth Consolation by Franz Liszt) during his concert tours through Europe between 1883 and
1886. De Wit was a cellist who had studied with Adrien-François Servais and who’s career as a
virtuoso was blocked by his father and directed towards a music-publishing firm in Leipzig. It
was there that de Wit learned to know the great composers of his time, which influenced his later
choice of repertoire. In the mean time his interest in musical instruments was raised to such an
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extent that he had become an expert and founded in 1880 together with Oskar Laffert the
Zeitschrift für Instrumentenbau. He had started collecting instruments himself some years before
and the step towards making them sound again must have been a rather small one by the time part
of this collection was restored by Hermann Seyffarth. Thus we find a report of him playing
Robert Schumann’s Abendlied (originally piano four hands op.85/12) on the viola da gamba
accompanied by a piano for the ‘Tonkünstler-Verein’ in Leipzig on May 8th and 15th 1882.10
When François Gevaert, director of Brussels Conservatory organized demonstrations on old
instruments Paul de Wit participated with his viola da gamba by Vincenzo Ruggieri set with
diamonds.

Magical instruments and mystifications

It were mainly the extravagant instruments that attracted the ‘early’ viol players in the nineteenth
century. De Wit’s Ruggieri is one of them but certainly the famous Tieffenbrucker with a map of
Paris on the back (The ‘Plan de Paris’ Tieffenbrucker was said to be made for King François I)
should be mentioned. It was owned by Jean Marie Raoul (1766–1837) a lawyer and cellist who
wrote a method for the violoncello11 and played the Stradivarius that later became the instrument
of Servais. The alleged Tieffenbrucker, dated mysteriously 1521, was altered by Raoul into a
seven string viol with a larger measure. He had close ties with the violin maker Jean Baptiste
Vuillaume, who copied historical instruments. Vuillaume’s freedom of invention made many
instruments connected to his name doubtful in historical respect and there is certainly a large
amount of nineteenth century modification in them. As we know now this goes for many more
instruments, which were considered authentic at the time such as the (Giovanni Paolo) Ma(g)gini
of Auguste Tolbeque. The increase of demand by collectors of historical instruments encouraged
falsifications that now put us for very complicated authenticity puzzles.12 In this light it is less
surprising to read in the proceedings of the Royal Musicological Association of 1889, about the
availability of so many instruments. The proceedings contain a lecture on the viola da gamba
given by Edward John Payne (1844–1904) on March the fourth and give us a very interesting
look at the state of knowledge of that time. Payne suggests that it would be very easy to obtain
original instruments as he states: “I could have got fifty together this afternoon without difficulty.
(…) I could prove, (..) the art of playing it never died out in this country, but that the traditions of
the instrument have survived in a constant succession of amateur performers.”13 Although there
must have been a great deal of truth in this remark as far as the playing is concerned, it is hard to
believe that these fifty viols would have been original unaltered instruments. Therefore to many
gamba’s, especially the better instruments, were ‘updated’ into violoncellos.
Of course there were glorious instruments made by famous makers that were left untouched by
the ‘cellofication mania’, such as the richly decorated six string bass viol by Joachim Tielke
(fig.1) of Johann Ernst von Sachsen Weimar. This royal instrument even became a protagonist in
a historical opera about the Weimar Court “Georg Neumark und die Gambe” by Julius Rietz
(1812– 1877), mentioned at the beginning of this article. Being a cellist himself, Rietz was
without any doubt fascinated by the instrument and started composing the opera at the end of
1858. In a letter from the famous singer Pauline Viardot Garcia14 the opera is mentioned in
connection with Franz Liszt, who very well might have conducted it at the Court Theater of
Weimar. We know for sure that the Tielke gamba was played by Bernard Cossmann (1823–1911)
a cello virtuoso and friend of Liszt, who became member of the Court Chapel in the year after the
performances of the opera (25/05 and 09/06 1859). Unfortunately we have no idea what the
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music he played in the opera was like, because until now it is considered lost. The only indication
we have about the viol playing is in the libretto by Ernst Pasqué. Georg Neumark (1621–
1681)was a viol player and poet who worked at the Court of Count Johann Ernst von Sachsen
Weimar and composer of the famous choral “Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten”. In the crucial
scene of the opera libretto Neumark is said to sing and play at the same time the choral.( “Er
nimmt die Gambe, singt und spielt begeistert den folgenden Choral.”) Contrary to the chords that
we would expect from a viola da gamba part nowadays, a cantabile is the most likely to have
sounded in the music of Rietz.

It is remarkable that only half a century after the last family member of the viola da gamba, the
arpeggione was invented15 some revivers made a complete mystification of the gamba family by
mixing it with these collateral instruments. In a discussion of the Royal Musicological
Association after the lecture by Payne, mentioned above, the most bizarre ideas about
sympathetic strings on gamba’s popped up. This is probably due to Payne’s introduction of the
arpeggione as a ‘very slightly disguised viola da gamba’ and his presentation of the baryton with
the sympathetic strings taken off. The reason was that:“… they make a great noise ... the trouble
of keeping them in playing order. Life … is not long enough for instruments with sympathetic
strings.”16 The chairman of the meeting was convinced that in Purcell’s time the viola da gamba
was the type with sympathetic strings that would give the effect of a pianoforte with the pedal
kept down all the time while playing. This would explain the mockery of the catch on the viola da
gamba Purcell wrote.

Edmund van der Straeten reports of the French cellist Jules Delsart (1844–1900) playing a gamba
with six sympathetic strings.17 Delsart was a cellist of high esteem and the first to play César
Franck's Sonata for cello but should be mentioned here mainly as a member of ‘La Scociété des
Instruments Anciens’ which also included the Belgian viola d’amore virtuoso Louis Van
Waefelghem. The impact of that instrument on composers and audience (in the Romance of Les
Huguenots by Meyerbeer to begin with) preceded in some ways the revival of the viola da gamba
to a larger public. It is very well possible this pushed part of the revivers such as Delsart in the
direction of the ‘viola da gamba d’amore’ or other ‘romantic’ derivations. The whole atmosphere
around the Société with van Waefelghem was one of historic exotism and romanticing of the past.
The combination of instruments (with hurdy-gurdy) and the repertoire they played consisted
mainly of polite entertainment.

Sources and Progressions

It is striking that we often find the music of Louis de Caix d’Hervelois on the programs of the
early viol revivers. Also Edward Payne put him on the program as illustration of French gamba
music to his lecture, because it gave him the opportunity to demonstrate music for two viols. He
had a copy of this music at his disposal that once belonged to Carl Friedrich Abel, annotated and
provided with fingerings by the old master himself.
The pièces de viole by Caix d’Hervelois were also the first gamba pieces to appear in a modern
edition. Even though a transcription for cello was included in the score, it is to be noticed that
Durand published two sets of pieces as early as 1907 in a relatively faithful edition.18 In the same
year the Scherzi Musicali of Johan Schenck appeared in a modern edition edited by Hugo
Leichtentritt for the ’Nederlandse Vereeniging voor Muziekgeschiedenis’ published by Breitkopf
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& Härtel in Leipzig. If we keep the appearance of Auguste Tolbeque’s l’Art du Luthier and
Alfred Einstein’s standard work on German viol music19 in mind, we might conclude the first
decade of the twentieth century showed a rich harvest of research on the viola da gamba that had
been done in the preceding decades. Many sources of music in manuscript and older prints were
unveiled and some of the treatises were common knowledge to the pioneers such as Edward
Payne. Playford's “Introduction to the Skill of Musick” was one of the favorite books of his
childhood. Christopher Simpsons ‘Division-viol’ was on his table when he lectured for the RMA
and also Tolbecque quotes from this book as well as from Jean Rousseau, Danoville and Hubert
le Blanc.
As far as the music is concerned a great deal of manuscript research had been done by a man who
died when this first harvest became available to a larger public. Johannes Klingenberg (1852–
1905) was a cellist who spent all his spare time and vacations to copy music for the viola da
gamba in German libraries. Edmund van der Straeten admired in Klingenberg that he was always
prepared to share his findings with other people who dedicated themselves to the instrument.
After the devastation of two world wars the remains of Klingenberg’s copies have become almost
as valuable as primary sources.
With all this available knowledge in mind it is difficult to understand for us now that Dolmetsch
stood alone in his battle for a historical performance. The fruits of his investigations laid down in
his impressive book on interpretation of early music20 found only a small group of enthusiasts at
the time, and it stayed in the circle of amateur players. Meanwhile the professional virtuosos like
Christian Döbereiner and Paul Grümmer (1879–1965), who believed in a progression of a
‘modern’ cello-like gamba playing, dominated the first half of the twentieth century and
published their methods21 while making a school of modern players. It was only in the nineteen
thirties that people like Josef Bacher and August Wenzinger bended the movement towards a
more historical approach. In a time where the benefits of their work have grown into common
ground to such an extent that the ‘cellized’ gamba has vanished entirely, it might be useful to
reconsider this nineteenth century heritage. What are we doing with the repertoire specially
written for the romantic gamba? Or what to think about the influence of nineteenth century
aesthetics on restoration of top instruments and the reliability of the entire heritage of old
instruments? It is conceivable that the nineteenth century was an important part of the history of
the viola da gamba, which will only be discovered when we have changed our minds about the
revival.

1
Except of course those who read the excellent articles on the subject, published by John Rutledge.
Rutledge, J. ‘Towards a History of the Viol in the 19th Century', EM 12 (1984), pp. 328–436.
Rutledge, J. 'Paul de Wit. Reviver of the Viols', JVdGSA 23 (1986), pp. 19– 26.
Rutledge, J. 'The Fretless Approach to Gamba Playing', JVdGSA 28 (1991), pp. 21–47.
Rutledge, J. 'Late 19th-Century Viol Revivals', EM 19 (1991), pp. 409–418.
2
Christian Döbereiner, Zur Renaissance Alter Musik, Tutzing 1950.
3
A remark he had to take from a colleague:”Ja, Döbereiner, wie kann man so runterkommen und wieder Gamba
spielen.” same p.11
4
See Margaret Campbell, Arnold Dolmetsch:the Man and His Work, London and Seatlle, 1975.
5
Edmund van der Straeten, The History of the Violoncello, the Viola da Gamba, their Precursors and collateral
instruments…, London, 1915. p.119
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6
Rutledge, EM 1991
7
Campbell, p. 134.
8
Auguste Tolbecque, L'Art du Luthier, Niort 1903 Chapter ‘Notice historique’
9
idem, p. 16
10
‘Bericht über den Tonkünstler-Verein zu Leipzig erstattet vom Vorstande. zweites Vereinsjahr. Anfang Juni 1881
bis Mitte Juni 1882, Leipzig
o. J.’ pp. 8 and 11 I thank Dr. Bernhard Appel for this information.
11
Jean Marie Raoul, Méthode de violoncelle, contenant une nouvelle exposition des principes de cet instrument, à
ceux de l’étude de la double corde, Paris.
12
Karel Moens, 'Authenticiteitsproblemen bij oude strijkinstrumenten.' Musica Antiqua 3 (1986), pp. 80–87 and
105–111.
13
Edward John Payne,’The Viola da Gamba’, Proceedings of the Royal Musicological Association 1889/90. pp. 91–
107
14
T. Baker, ‘Pauline Viardot to Julius Rietz: Letters of Friendship’, MQ, I (1915), pp. 350ff
15
read the article of Pierre Jaquier p. ? of this book
16
Payne, p.101
17
Edmund van der Straeten, in the London Musical Courier 1/7/1897.
18
Edition Classique A. Durand & Fils, Paris 1907. The solo part is like the original but of course the figured bass
realisation was, as one could expect, like a new composition.
19
Alfred Einstein, Zur deutschen Literatur für Viola da Gamba im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert. (Publikationen der
Internationalen Musikgesellschaft, Beihefte, Zweite Folge, Heft I) Leipzig,1905.
20
Arnold Dolmetsch, ‘Interpretation of the music of the XVII and XVIII centuries’ London, 1916.
21
A reprint of Grümmer’s method is still in stock at the respectable Foyles Music Shop in London.