Known for its warm and reverberant timbre, the viola d'amore ("viol of love") occupies the tenor tessitura of the viol family. Ordinarily, the instrument's bowed strings number seven, although this may vary, with six strings being nearly as common. As if to enhance the instrument's supernatural charm, luthiers customarily carve the "head" of the viola d'amore in the form of a Cupid's head. The head of the Roman God of Erotic Love sits atop the Viol of Love, blindfolded; one might call this "poetic luthiery." Unlike other members of the viol family (such as the viola da gamba), the viola d'amore is not fretted, and hence technique does not depart substantially from that of the violin family of chordophones. Frequently, the sound holes carved into the body of the viola d'amore assume the shape of the "flame of Islam" or "sword of Islam", lending some credence to the theory that the instrument's name actually derives from "viol of the Moors", although the etymology "viol of love" remains more widely accepted.
In more antique specimens, catgut (i.e., sheep or goat intestine-derived) strings predominated, but modernity standardizes modern exemplars of these instruments with chrome steel strings, a uniformity predicated on both technical superiority and an appeal to ethics. This shift from gut to steel strings, though driven by technological and perhaps ethical necessity, poses new problems for historically-informed performance, as the resulting sonority of steel strings departs considerably from gut strings. The former is less delicate and rigid than the latter, thus one might concede that the experience of bowing a steel-stringed viola d'amore utterly fails to replicate the richness of its gut-stringed forebear.
Nevertheless, the distinctly overtone-rich, particularly resonant quality of the viola d'amore emerges from the sympathetic strings located below those directly bowed, and these strings range in quantity from seven to fourteen. So named because they vibrate "sympathetically" with the strings above them that are directly bowed, the sympathetic strings might provide a clue as to the cryptic name of the instrument. These strings, analogous to the damper pedal on a pianoforte which releases the dampers from all the strings -- which thereby permits the sustaining of a pitch beyond its natural decay while allowing all the strings to vibrate "in sympathy" with those struck (sounding richer overtones as a result) -- garners the viola d'amore a legendary status despite its relative obscurity with the final triumph of the violin family over the viol family in the late 18th century. The unfortunate neglect alluded to above only partially reversed with the 20th-century revival (or perhaps affectation?) of historically-informed performance practices, but the age of mass online communication continues to accelerate knowledge and appreciation of this "lovesome" instrument.
Standards of open string tuning of the viola d'amore evade uniformity. According to Johann Georg Albrechtsberger (1736-1809), Ludwig van Beethoven's musical composition instructor and a renowned composer of "old-fashioned" polyphonic music, custom dictated the tuning of the bowed strings to the following sequence of pitches -- A, D, A, D, F#, A, D. In contrast, Johann Mattheson (1681-1764), in his time renowned as a composer as well as a writer and theorist on music, contends that the tuning of the viola d'amore should conform to the pitches of the C major or C minor triad. Contemporary sensibilities prefer Albrechtsberger's tuning to Mattheson's, although, as is typical with early music performance practice, the impulse to "scordatura" tuning (i.e., tuning strings to pitch sequences other than those prescribed in common practice) frequently arises.
Curiously, 17th and 18th-century English conceptions of the viola d'amore differ from those on the continent. In the land of viol consort music, the viola d'amore appeared later in the 17th century, and descriptions treat it as a less common instrument. Unlike the seven-string continental standard, English accounts attest five strings. However, this does not negate the overwhelming evidence from the continent of the viola d'amore's most common construction and characteristics. Notably, the Servite Friar and composer Attilio Ariosti (1666 to 1729) attributed to the brief ascendancy of the viola d'amore in England before its total marginalization later in the 18th century. London publication of his "Cantatas, and a Collection of Lessons for the Viola d'Amore", consisting of six viola d'amore solo sonatas, trailed by 12 years his (apparently) unanticipated inclusion of the viola d'amore in a recital inserted between the acts (presumably of Jean Baptiste Lully's tragedie en musique) "Amadis" in 1716. Despite Attilio Ariosti's efforts early in the 18th century, which merited inclusion in the writings of England's preeminent music historian Charles Burney (1726 to 1814), fashions radiating from Europe soon induced the same disregard of the viola d'amore in England.
At its heyday, the viola d'amore garnered the attention of a large swathe of compositional luminaries, from Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber (1644-1704) to Christoph Graupner (1683-1760), both of whose works featuring the instrument conform to concertante or chamber music categories. In the oeuvre of Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) we find viola d'amore scoring transcending the classifications of sacred and secular music, this composer devoting several concerti to the instrument as well as including it in a number of liturgical pieces and oratorios. Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) follows the lead of Vivaldi, while Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) famously calls for the viola d'amore as a solo instrument in his "Passio secundum Joannem" ("St. John Passion" or "Johannes Passion"; first performed April 7, 1724) as well as in several cantatas.
With the decline of the popularity of the viola d'amore, its gradual relegation to the past in the face of ever-accelerating "progress", (secular) works featuring this sympathetic viol still issued from the pens of such post-Baroque figures as Johann Joachim Quantz (1697-1773), Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), and Carl Stamiz (1745-1801). Joseph Leopold Eybler (1765-1846) constitutes the last significant figure to compose for the instrument prior to its mid-19th century partial revival. Unlike the works of his Classicist counterparts, Eybler sees fit to include the viola d'amore in both sacred and secular works.
To the once incredibly popular German opera composer Giacomo Meyerbeer the historian may attribute the sudden reappearance of the viola d'amore in the concert hall. Meyerbeer's 1836 grand opera "Les Huguenots" ("The Huguenots"), depicting the tragic love of a Catholic and a Protestant (Huguenot) in France immediately before the 1572 St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, would seem to lend itself to the use of such a melancholy antiquarian instrument. Indeed, Meyerbeer employs its sumptuous timbre in an aria of the tragic hero, the Protestant Raoul de Nangis. Occurring in the opera's first act, this aria ("Plus blanche que la blanche hermine") requires a solo viola d'amore to accompany the hero's expression of love-at-first-sight concerning the beautiful Catholic daughter of the Count de Saint-Bris, Valentine.
Jules Massenet followed suit, featuring the instrument in his operas "Le jongleur de Notre-Dame" (1901) and "Cendrillon" (1899). With the onset of the 20th century, the viola d'amore began to reacquire a reputation bordering on the legendary, and such renowned opera composers as Giacomo Puccini ("Madama Butterfly"; 1904), Hans Pfitzner ("Palestrina"; 1912), and Leoš Janáček ("Káťa Kabanová"; 1919) score psychologically profound passages for the instrument, as does Sergei Prokofiev in his 1935-36 ballet "Romeo and Juliet" and Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975) in his 1951 film score for Nicholas Ray's (1911-1979) film noir "On Dangerous Ground". In modern chamber music, Paul Hindemith's (1895-1963) contributions to the viola d'amore repertoire persist, no doubt a result of his great erudition and sensitivity as well as his renowned virtuosity on the viola (extending, as it were, to other bowed chordophones, well beyond the predominant violin family). Violist and composer Henri Casadesus' (1879-1947) contributions likewise attest to his antiquarian interests, musicality, and virtuosity.
Further 20th century works for the viola d'amore range from the Late Romantic works of Charles Martin Loeffler (1861–1935) and Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936) to the Brazilian nationalist output of Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887 to 1959), from the post-tonal oeuvre of Swiss-born Frank Martin (1890-1974) to the outright serialism of Bruno Maderna (1920-1973). Although he never composed for the instrument, the sometimes-maligned, sometimes-lionized fin de siecle German composer Max Reger (1874-1916) set for voice and piano (in his 15 Lieder, opus 55 number 11) a poem entitled "Viola d'amour" by German poet Gustav Falke (1853-1916), in which the pianist evokes the ornate figuration of an imaginary viola d'amore player while the singer praises the instrument as "fair queen of the fiddles."
To German-American violinist, violist, and viola d'amore player Hugo Walter Voigtlander (1859-1933) belongs the credit of writing the leading pedagogical texts on viola d'amore playing. In "The Modern Viole d'Amour Player, Systematically Arranged Material for the Studie of the Viole d'Amour for the Violin Player" (pre-1914), Voigtlander elucidates a foundation for learning the instrument and provides the student with resources for attaining a high level of competence. Included in this text are 42 etudes composed by Voigtlander, besides many arrangements of works by other composers.
