0 a wooden musical instrument with strings and frets, popular from the 15th to the 17th century. Viols are held vertically and played with a bow, like a cello.
It is difficult to understand how or why he would have done this, as there are essential structural and proportional distinctions between viols and cellos.
The result is an altogether more flamboyant feel to these performances, enhanced by the substitution of the great bass viol instead of the viola da gamba.
The pattern has a cello-shaped heel (rather than the truncated type used in viols with canted backs) and a cello-style pegbox that would appear to accommodate four pegs.
The earliest vihuelas and viols, both plucked and bowed, all had sharp cuts to their waists, similar to the profile of a modern violin.
With the exception of keyboards and lutes, all instruments were conceived and built this way, from rackets to recorders to sackbuts to crumhorns to viols.
The accompanying orchestra is up-to-date, dispensing with the archaic viols and using violins, cellos, harps, lutes, theorbos, and harpsichords.
Most houses of worships made do with a pitch pipe, or with a cello or bass viol.
Ensembles like these show that the viol is making a comeback.
