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nineteenth-century fake made from bits of old instruments cut-down and
modified sufficiently convincingly to fool a collector or dealer eager to acquire
'ancient' musical instruments. Otterstedt believes that Moens has demonstrated
'that there is not a single Renaissance viol preserved in a state sufficient to
permit any conclusions about their original shape or manner of construction
(p. 154). On the next page she relents for a moment- suggesting that the forger
must have seen the originals, since they seem to fit the pictorial evidence-only
to revert, in the end, to the gloomy conclusions of Moens. This, in my view, is
premature. Contrary to what Otterstedt says, Moens' conclusions have not
gone unchallenged. Eph Segerman wrote a thorough rebuttal published in
FoMRHIQ 98 (January 2000)—which Otterstedt appears not to have read,
and which Moens himself omits to mention in the most recent report that I
have seen (in The Italian Viola da Gamba, ed. S. Orlando, 2002).
Those who approach this argument with open minds are likely to conclude
that dismissing the majority of old Renaissance viols as fakes is too simplistic.
On the contrary, the sixteenth-century instruments that survive need to be reexamined
far more thoroughly and scientifically, so that we can gain clearer
insights about the more gradual (and probably less fraudulent) ways in which
they have been altered, and hence recover as much reliable information about
them as possible. All historical evidence is potentially misleading and incomplete,
but that is not sufficient reason to abandon all hope of attaining a greater
level of accuracy about the past. In the process, some conclusions (like much
history) may eventually prove untenable; yet in the meantime we are surely
justified in continuing to experiment-on the basis of the best evidence available
to us both from surviving instruments and from pictorial representations-in
order to learn how the earliest viols may have been built and hence how they
may possibly have sounded. That said, Otterstedt is absolutely right in
emphasising that makers need to be careful both about what they are copying,
and the extent to which they allow their own expertise as builders to influence
their interpretation of what they see in existing instruments. In the much
shorter Part III of the book [67] she returns to these issues in a section
devoted to 'maintaining a princess in style', that is, looking after an instrument
which is in regular use.
Before we get there, however, Otterstedt offers some good advice on pitch,
transposition, temperament and performance technique. She advocates a
particular non-equal temperament, not widely known in Britain, which she
ascribes to Erlangen: I cannot understand this well enough from her
description to be able to try it out either on a keyboard or a viol, but in practice
viol players, like harpsichordists, may well enjoy experimenting with different
historic temperaments to suit the music they are playing. Here, as elsewhere,
the book engages actively with the kinds of problems which serious viol
players will often have faced. We are treated to some thoughtful comments on
ornamentation (and where it might be used), but above all we are reminded
that every note we play needs to be carefully shaped. In the author's inimitable
language, we might think of 'the well-shaped lady's leg'; the bow stroke can
inspire the notes with life, so they never risk 'lying around like animate objects
exuding inaction in a landscape by Dali . We are also briefly made to reflect on
hand positions and other aspects of technique, to help us on our way.