Edinburgh Napier University

  ‘Which viols are held in great esteem these days? The very old English ones’, stated Philipp Eisel in his Musicus Autodidaktos of 1738. Eisel’s comment underlined the general sentiment held for these grandes dames of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English music as English viols were much sought after and preserved in personal collections across Europe. As a staple of the Baroque music room, and before that a popular solo and consort instrument of the late Renaissance, the viol wove through the wider cultural backdrop of England. But the popularity of viols, in terms of extant examples, rendered many a victim of their own success. The desire to repair and repurpose saw the addition of a seventh string on...