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1714), Daniel Defoe (d. 1731), John Gostling (d. 1733), Roger North (d. 1734),
James Sherard (d. 1738), and Thomas Shuttleworth (d. after 1738). 12 In addition, a
number of immigrant musicians also seem to have played the bass viol as an
alternative to their main instruments in London in the second or third decade of
the eighteenth century. They include the cellists Pippo Amadei, Giovanni
Bononcini, and Fortunato Chelleri, the flautist and bassoonist Pietro Chaboud,
and the double bass player David Boswillibald. 13 What happened is that the bass
viol changed role in England in the early eighteenth century. It was no longer used
in viol consorts or to play bass lines. Instead, it became a solo or obbligato
instrument, written in the alto or tenor range. At the same time, there was a
change of nomenclature: in elite musical circles the instrument became known as
‘viola da gamba’ – or some Anglicised variant such as ‘viol di gambo’. The term
‘bass viol’ remained in use, but was increasingly confined to vernacular musical
milieux, such as parish church music. In eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century
America – and probably in Britain as well – it was used to describe some sort of
four-string violoncello or bass violin rather than the six- or seven-string gamba. 14
The other change was to the notation of gamba music. Although solo gamba
music continued to be written in a mixture of alto and bass clefs, as it had been in
the seventeenth century, the octave-transposing treble clef was also used from the
beginning of the eighteenth century. It was probably adopted so that players could
read violin music without having to arrange it or write it out, though it seems to
have been borrowed from English Restoration vocal music. John Playford
pioneered the use of octave-transposing treble clefs in his song collections, and
wrote in his Cantica sacra (London, 1674) that music in the treble clef ‘may properly
12 For Britton, see C. Price, ‘The Small-Coal Cult’, The Musical Times, 119 (1978), 1032–1034;
J.C. Kassler, ‘Thomas Britton: Musician and Magician?’, Musicology, 7 (1982), 67–72; M. Tilmouth
and S. McVeigh, ‘Thomas Britton’, GMO (accessed 15 June 2007); D.A. Reid, ‘Thomas Britton’,
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [ODNB], ed. L. Goldman (http://0-www.oxforddnb.com,
accessed 15 June 2007). For Defoe as a viol player, see E. Gibson, The Royal Academy of Music 1719-
1728: the Institution and its Directors (New York and London, 1989), 388-389. For Gostling, see
BDECM, i. 499-501; W. Shaw and R. Ford, ‘John Gostling’, GMO (accessed 15 June 2007); O.
Baldwin and T. Wilson, ‘John Gostling’, ODNB (accessed 15 June 2007). For Roger North, see esp.
F.J.M. Korsten, Roger North (1651–1734), Virtuoso and Essayist (Amsterdam and Maarssen, 1981);
J.C. Kassler, ‘Roger North’, GMO (accessed 15 June 2007); M. Chan, ‘Roger North’, ODNB
(accessed 15 June 2007). For Sherard, see M. Tilmouth, ‘James Sherard, an English Amateur
Composer’, Music & Letters, 47 (1966), 313-322; Tilmouth and R. Thompson, ‘James [Giacomo]
Sherard [Sharwood]’, GMO (accessed 15 June 2007); W.W. Webb, rev. S. Mandelbrote, ‘James
Sherard’, ODNB (accessed 15 June 2007). For Shuttleworth, see J. Hawkins, A General History of the
Science and Practice of Music (London, 1776; 2/1853; repr. 1963), ii. 675, 826; P. Holman, ‘Obadiah
Shuttleworth’, GMO (accessed 19 October 2007).
13 For the evidence of their viol-playing activities, see J.A. Sadie, ‘Handel: in Pursuit of the
Viol’, Chelys, 14 (1985), 3-24; P. Holman, Life after Death: the Viola da Gamba in Britain from Purcell to
Dolmetsch (forthcoming).
14 For America, see in particular S.R. Ogden, ‘Abraham Prescott and his Bass Viols’, Journal of
the Viola da Gamba Society of America, 12 (1975), 74-77; F.R. Selch, ‘Some Moravian Makers of
Bowed Stringed Instruments’, Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society, 19 (1993), 38-64; ‘Bass
Viol’, GMO (accessed 15 June 2007). I will deal with the identity of ‘bass viols’ in English parish
church music in Life after Death.
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