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concerto but the gamba in his trio with two horns. The gamba's lack of power
is also reflected in the scoring of all the extant late-eighteenth-century viola da
gamba music under discussion, with Stamitz's sextet requiring the largest
performing forces. That the instrument existed on the fringes of serious musicmaking
during the classical era is incontrovertible: like the harpsichord and
recorder, it did not belong to the new world of the fortepiano, of woodwind
instruments with ever-improved key mechanisms and of increasingly larger
orchestral forces. It may have engaged wholeheartedly in various new or updated
classical chamber music genres, modifying popular instrumental combinations
such as the string quartet and trio and various wind-and-string chamber
ensembles to its own ends, but its inability to balance the new fortepiano is
self-evident from the lack of known repertoire such as accompanied sonatas
with that instrument. 73
In 1739 the theorist and gamba player Johann Mattheson (1681-1764) had
noted the suitability of the viola da gamba for private solo use, 74 a judgement
later borne out by H. C. Koch, who described the gamba as 'more suited for
performances as a soloist than as a ripieno instrument'. 75 This perception
explains the sheer virtuosity of much of the gamba music written by the later
performer-composers, since they were writing it primarily for their own use as
soloists rather than for publication for the domestic amateur market; in turn,
their revival of earlier virtuoso techniques, including difficult double stopping
and chords, rapid scalic and arpeggic figurations, bariolage, and the extension
of the range to well above the top of the treble stave, naturally excluded the
amateur performance of much of the gamba music composed during the latter
years of the eighteenth century. In addition, with the notable exception of the
one-off song by William Jackson, no solo or ensemble viola da gamba music of
importance appeared in print during the last two decades of the eighteenth
century. This was clearly a reflection of the declining state of the instrument
and its professional practitioners, although the appearance in print of the
handful of relatively minor pieces discussed above was presumably aimed at a
healthier domestic amateur market. The circle of professional gamba virtuosi
was by then simply too small to warrant anything more than manuscript
circulation of solo and ensemble music for the instrument, as was still
commonplace for much similar music composed for other stringed and wind
instruments. 76 Whilst dilettante gamba players undoubtedly continued to
73 See, however, note 44: the yet to be investigated divertimento in G of 1781 by F. C.
Neubauer may have been intended for fortepiano rather than harpsichord, in which case it is
the only known work to fit the description of an accompanied sonata (in which the
fortepiano is the dominant instrument) involving the viola da gamba.
74 J. Mattheson, Der vollkommene Capellmeister (Hamburg, 1739), quoted in MGG2,
Sachteil, IX, col. 1579, where it is also stated that, even in the late seventeenth century,
professional gamba players who were attached to a musical establishment [as opposed to the
presumably few independent touring soloists] no longer concentrated solely on this
instrument but also functioned either as diplomatic court officials or as cellists, since gambas
did not make their way into the emerging orchestra.
75 H. Koch, Musikalisches Lexikon, col. 1690. This statement was later repeated tin F.
Lipowsky, Baierisches Musiklexikon (Munich, 1811), 204.
76 Most of the music listed in the various editions of The Breitkopf Thematic Catalogue
between 1760 and 1787 (facsimile reprinted. B. Brook, New York, 1966), for example, was in
fact manuscript, not published.