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THE VIOLA DA GAMBA, ITS REPERTORY
AND PRACTITIONERS IN THE LATE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
David J. Rhodes
Recognition that the bass viol or viola da gamba did not simply die out following
the death in 1787 of its last great eighteenth-century exponent, Carl
Friedrich Abel, has been slow in achieving universal acceptance and has only
recently been brought to general public attention in Grove 1 although knowledge
of the fact is hardly new. The time is therefore ripe for a revaluation of the
gamba's repertory and its adherents, both composers and practitioners, during
the classical era, particularly in the post-Abelian period—most of his gamba
music was composed before c1771—of the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries prior to the instrument's modern revival. In France there
appears to have been no break in the tradition whatsoever, whilst it clearly
continued amongst an older and presumably more conservative generation of
musicians in Germany until at least the second decade of the nineteenth
century, albeit in an obviously much weakened position. Even in England
professional public performances on the gamba have been noted as late as
1800 and may well have taken place beyond this date, when readily accessible
sources of concert information unfortunately cease. 2 Much relevant
information has been in the public domain for years, but little has been
published in English about the composers and practitioners involved at that
time since Edmund van der Straeten s pioneering study of 1915. 3 A recent
continental publication has, however, corrected that omission as far as the
situation in Germany is concerned. 4
The continuation of the viola da gamba tradition in France seems to have
lain chiefly in the hands of just two composers, cellists and gamba players:
1 L. Robinson, 'Viol' (section 6) in Grove (1980), updated in The New Grove Dictionary of
Musical Instruments, ed. S. Sadie, (1984), III, 736ff, for example, ends the main discussion with
Abel (p. 746) and then jumps to the nineteenth-century revival; A. Otterstedt, 'Viola de gamba',
MGG2, Sachteil, IX, col. 1572ff, does not recognise the existence of any post-Abelian tradition
in its coverage of the eighteenth century (cols 1578-9). The present article has its origins in a
research paper entitled 'Back to the coal face-some anachronistic late-eighteenth-century music
for viola da gamba' presented by the author at the annual conference of the Irish Chapter of
the Royal Musical Association at The University of Ulster, Jordanstown, N. Ireland in May
1998. Throughout this article 'viola da gamba' or simply 'gamba' will be used to refer solely to
the bass viol, in accordance with the normal late-eighteenth-century usage of the term.
2 Information received from Prof. Simon McVeigh, Calendar of London Concerts 1750-1800
(database held at Goldsmiths' College, University of London), to whom grateful
acknowledgement is due.
3 E. van der Straeten, The History of the Violoncello, the Viol da Gamba, their
Precursors and Collateral Instruments (1915).
4 F. Flassig, Die solistische Gambenmusik in Deutschland im 18. Jahrhundert (Gottingen, 1998).
For a wider picture, see also B. Hoffmann, Catalogo della musica solistica e cameristica per viola do
gamba/Catalog of solo and chamber music for viola da gamba (Lucca, 2001), which draws heavily
on other published catalogues and books such as Flassig's.