Was the viola da gamba or violin particularly associated with England in the late 16th or early 17th century?
The viola da gamba was an instrument in use throughout western Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries; the modern(ish) violin became popular around the turn of the 17th century.
But instruments sometimes get associated with nations and ethnicities (e.g. in the mid 16th century, the Spain was strongly associated with the harp, much the way that today Ireland is associated with the harp), and somewhere along the way, I've picked up the notion that at the turn of the 17th century, there was some connection between viola da gamba consorts and England. I don't know where I picked up this impression. Is there anyone who can point me at substantiating or disproving evidence of this?
Likewise, I know that Playford's "Dancing Master" (first ed 1651AD) presupposes the basic dance music instrument is the violin (and one pretty similar to the modern one) (in stark contrast to the wind bands a hundred years previous, or on the continent), which suggests they were common in England at that time. Were they particularly associated with England at that time, does anybody know? Evidence one way or another?
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Viol consorts were certainly popular in England. This is fairly obvious from the number of English and England-based composers who produced vast quantities of music for such consorts. My inclination is to believe that they were more popular in England than most other places, but I may have a distorted viewpoint of that being an English viol player myself. Wikipedia's history notes that the viol consort seems to have originated in Italy although the instrument itself is an Italian development of a Spanish design, and it went to England later - this is supported by the trend we see for English composers of viol consort music to publish under Italianate names which they surely wouldn't have done if it wasn't for the popularity of Italian viol music.
However, in my group I can't think of a single genuinely Italian composer whose music we play regularly. Coprario, Byrd, Jenkins, Purcell, Ward, Ferrabosco - all English. There are some, but they just don't feature very highly.
I don't think you can describe the viol consort as particular to England or uniquely English in any way - but they were certainly very popular here and we wrote an awful lot of very good repertoire which survives and is often played today.
The violin was popular here at the same time, but used for different purposes. You see a lot of baroque violin concertos and sonatas, trio sonatas etc. which are contemporaries of the viol consort music, but the mixture of composers in my awareness is much more internationally varied. If the violin 'belongs' to anybody it belongs to the Italians - because they developed its modern form.
The viola da gamba, and specifically the viol consort, is certainly
more closely associated with England in the sixteenth and early
seventeenth century than the violin. By the early seventeenth
century, England seems to have already had a long tradition of consort
playing going back to the mid-sixteenth century. Since music
manuscripts from this period seldom indicate instrumentation, however,
there is some disagreement among historians over whether this music
was mainly intended for consorts of viols, or whether it might equally
well have been performed by consorts of wind instruments or even sung
without words. The most important genre from this time is the In
Nomine, whose significant composers include John Taverner,
Christopher Tye, William White and others. (If you have access to
JSTOR, you might be interested in an article on this subject by
Warwick Edwards entitled 'The Performance of Ensemble Music in
Elizabethan England', from which I have taken much of this
information.)
Interestingly, viol consort playing seems to have gone out of fashion
in the 1580s or 1590s, when Italian madrigals were more popular among
English musical amateurs. However, there was a revival of interest in
viol consorts in the early seventeenth century, when composers started
to take up old forms, including the In Nomine, which had been popular
fifty years earlier. John Coprario, Orlando Gibbons, and the later
works of William Byrd belong to this second generation of consort
composers. This music is more clearly intended for viols than the
sixteenth-century repertoire, since the ranges used often make it
impractical for wind instruments. Publications of vocal music from
this period also sometimes include the indication 'apt for viols or
voices' to indicate that they might be either sung or played by a
consort.
The violin was also making inroads into English musical life in the
early seventeenth century, but initially it was used for different
kinds of music, often music with a somewhat lower status than the
music played by viol consorts. Playford's Dancing Master is a good
example: the violin was considered to be an easy enough instrument for
a dance teacher -- someone not primarily a musician by profession --
to play tunes on for dancing lessons. (Caveat: I am less familiar
with the history of the violin, and I know that some writers assign it
a more prominent place in English musical history. E.g., there is a
book by Peter Holman entitled Four and twenty fiddlers: the violin at
the English court, 1540-1690, for example.)
In Italy at the same time, by contrast, the violin was being developed
into a solo virtuoso instrument by composers including Biagio Marini,
Marco Uccellini and others. To some extent, in England (and in France)
the bass viol continued to play the role taken by the violin in Italy,
as the virtuoso professional's solo instrument. The practice of
playing chordally on the viol (sometimes called 'lyra viol'), as
mentioned in another answer, seems to be an English development from
the early seventeenth century. Later in the century, from around the
same time as the Dancing Master there is a publication by
Christopher Simpson entitled The Division Viol, which is an
instruction manual for learning to improvise solo divisions on the
bass viol.
John Cooper or Coprario, as mentioned in Matthew Walton's answer, is an interesting example of an early
seventeenth-century English musician with one foot in the 'old' world
of the viol consort and the other in the 'new' world of the violin.
As well as fantasias for consorts from two to six viols, he also wrote
in the newer genre of the 'fantasia-suite' for violins, bass viol and
organ. These combine aspects of the old consort tradition with dance
styles, and arguably show an Italian influence in their sonata-like
instrumentation.
The English viol consort tradition continued in some form as late as
Henry Purcell's consort fantasias and In Nomines of c. 1680, but by
that time it was already considered old fashioned. The lutenist
Thomas Mace gave a famous description of the old tradition, and
complained about the new fashion for violins, in his Musick's
Monument of 1675:
[...] in my Younger Time, we had Musick most Excellently
Choice, and most Eminently Rare; both for Its Excellency in
Composition, Rare Fancy, and Sprightly Ayre; as also for Its
Proper, and Fit Performances [...] We had for our Grave Musick,
Fancies of 3, 4, 5 and 6 Parts to the Organ; Interpos'd (now
and then) with some Pavins, Allmaines, Solemn, and Sweet
Delightful Ayres; all which were (as it were) so many Pathettical
Stories, Rhetorical, and Sublime Discourses; Subtil, and Accute
Argumentations; so Suitable, and Agreeing to the Inward, Secret, and
Intellectual Faculties of the Soul and Mind; that to Set them forth
according to their True Praise, there are no Words Sufficient in
Language; [...] And These Things were Performed, upon so many
Equal, and Truly-Sciz'd Viols; and so Exactly Strung, Tun'd and
Play'd upon, as no one Part was any Impediment to the Other;
but still (as the Composition required) by Intervals, each Part
Amplified, and Heightened the Other; The Organ Evenly, Softly, and
Sweetly Acchording to All. [...] But now the Modes and
Fashions have cry'd These Things down, and set up a Great Idol
in their Room; observe with what a Wonderful Swiftness They now
run over their Brave New Ayres; and with what High-Priz'd Noise,
viz. 10, or 20 Violins, &c. as I said before, to a
Some-Single-Soul'd Ayre [...] (p. 233-236)
Mace is something of a cranky old man here -- he wrote his book when
he was already 60, and almost certainly going deaf, as well as saddened by the declining public importance of his own instrument, the lute -- but it still
shows something about the relative place of the viol and the violin in
seventeenth-century England, at least as seen by an old-fashioned musician.
A recent episode of BBC Radio 3's The Early Music Show focussed on the life and work of London based composer Carl Friedrich Abel. Abel lived from 1723 to 1787 and was particularly associated with ... the viola da gamba. So much so that Lucie Skeaping (the show's presenter) commented that when he died it marked the end of the popularity of the bass viol. Sadly though there is no transcript available for the show so I cannot check the detail of what I remember. His sonatas for viola da gamba are hauntingly beautiful.
Fact(?) I just learned: viola da gamba strings are tuned exactly like the lute. The lute was quite popular in England (in notable contrast to Spain; it was unfashionable in newly rechristianized Spain where it -- well the oud -- was associated with Muslim culture) and I wonder if there was a lute-gamba relationship the way that today there is a violin-mandolin relationship, where many violinists pick up mandolin because the fingerings are identical.
Also, this page relates:
The most significant expansion of the viol took place in 1540 with the employment of six Italian viol players – now Henry VIII's "newe vialles". This new group retained its own identity, quite distinct from the long-serving Flemish "old vialles". The great esteem for the viol at the Tudor court is also reflected in the inventory of Henry VIII's great collection of musical instruments (1547) which included "xix [19!] Vialles greate and small".
The introduction of regular viol tuitions into the curriculum of London choir schools not long after the arrival of the Italian consort marked a new era of growth in England. Adolescent viol players occupied an especially prominent place in ceremonies and theatre performances and their long-term influence was considerable. Once they had become adults, they were able to enter into a wider musical community with their viol playing skills. Furthermore, musical genres associated with choir schools (such as the In Nomine-plainsongs, the consort song and the consort anthem) retained, together with the fantasia, a prominent place in the English repertory for the viol. The most famous viol composers in the 16th century were William Byrd, Alfonso Ferrabosco, Orlando Gibbons or Thomas Hume, followed in the 17th century by Thomas Tomkins, John Jenkins, and above all Henry Purcell.
The English viol found its classic outline with the instruments made by the John Rose father and son from London. Father Rose was a well established viol maker by the mid-16th century and successfully exported his instruments to Italy. His son's viols in the elegant classical shape shared the same basic features of Venetian instruments and were extravagantly decorated. A distinctive feature of the English viol design, the use of five pieces of wood for the belly, was probably developed by Rose himself. In the 17th century the instruments of Henry Jaye (fl. ca. 1610-1667) were the most highly prized.
From late 16th to the first half of the 17th century, a number of highly talented English musicians found employment in Germany, Austria, the Low Countries and Spain. Among them were virtuoso violists, who had a considerable effect on the development of continental viol playing and composing. The French virtuoso Jean Rousseau praised them by declaring that it was the "English who were the first to compose and play chordal pieces on the viol, and who exported their knowledge to other Kingdoms."
This last is pretty hard evidence that at least one important non-English gambist thought that he was playing an instrument that was in his mind associated with England. Additionally suggestive evidence is the fact that at least one English instrument maker was managing to export his instruments to Italy, which strongly suggests there were Italian instrument buyers who thought the best violas da gamba came from England.
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