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Viola bastarda
The music and the instrument
Viola bastarda refers to a highly virtuosic style of composition or extemporaneous performance, as well as to the altered viols created to maximise players’ ability to play in this style.
The style
Stylistically, a polyphonic composition is reduced to a single line, while maintaining the same range as the original, and adding divisions, improvisations, and new counterpoint. The style flourished in Italy in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Francesco Rognoni ↣, a prominent composer of divisions, stated that although works using the bastarda techniques could be played by a number of instruments, including organ, lute, and harp, the “queen” of bastarda technique was the viol because of its agility and large range.
The music
Viola bastarda music is written for standard viol tuning, in fourths with a third in the middle. Early sources speak of the viola bastarda as a style of playing, and the ranges of pieces written during this time indicate that bastarda pieces were played on whichever size viol was at hand; however, Rognoni describes the standard size of a viola bastarda as between that of a tenor and bass viol, indicating a change in understanding of the term. It may be related to the English division viol.
