A barytone of a kindred nature was the viola di bordone or
drone viol, so called because there was a suggestion of the buzzing of
drone-flies, or humble bees, in the tones of its sympathetic strings,
which often numbered as many as twenty-four. These violas recall the
Hardanger peasant fiddle of Norway, of unknown origin and antiquity,
whose delicate metallic under strings quaver tremulously and
mysteriously when the bow sets in motion the main strings.
At one time every family of distinction in Britain deemed a chest of
viols, consisting for the most part of two trebles, two altos, a
barytone and a bass, as indispensable to the household as the piano is
thought to-day. It was made effective in accompanying the madrigal, that
delightful flower of the Elizabethan age. Singers not always being
available for all of the difficult voice parts viols of the same compass
supplied the lack. It was but a step for masters of music to compose
pieces marked "to be sung or played," thus contributing to the forces
that were lifting instrumental music above mere accompaniment for song
or dance.
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