|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The viola in folk music in England is the subject of my current study, an ethnographic study of viola players and their music on the contemporary folk music scene. The folk viola’s history, in English, is non-existent apart from a few anecdotes. How much may we legitimately extrapolate backwards from the present day, in reconstructing how this history might have been?
First, a word of explanation about this absence of history. The viola itself is like a large violin. Folk viola players that I have interviewed are emphatic about the differences between the viola and its smaller cousin, for example its richer, darker timbre, more energetic playing technique and alternative repertoire. But most people can’t tell the two instruments apart, and sadly this includes audience members, music journalists and reviewers. Both instruments are commonly referred to by the name ‘fiddle’ in the folk world. This is very similar to the linguistic subsuming of ‘woman’ into ‘man’, where ‘man’ technically stands for ‘human’, but in practice in most cases doesn’t. If you say ‘man’ to me, I am likely to have an image in my head which is quite specifically male. So will you, and thus the history of half the species disappears(1). Thus the history of the viola in folk music is entirely undocumented. I feel a little apprehensive saying this, as I’m no historian, but I have searched quite hard for any historical record, with no success whatsoever. The normal archival sources: books, newspapers, documents chronicling births, deaths and military service make no mention of the viola in vernacular or traditional music(2). But does this mean that there is no history? Experience and anecdote suggest otherwise.
Incidentally, scholarly attention focuses exclusively on the viola as an instrument of classical music, an instrument with a long history stretching back to about 1550 when it was developed in Italy at the same time as the violin. The viola was very popular in early ensembles, which often consisted of one violin, one cello and several violas, but from roughly 1700 onwards it was overshadowed by the violin. In the twentieth century there was a renaissance of great viola players and new dedicated compositions, which continues to the present day.
W W W
Change may be characterised in one of two ways: it is either continuous, smooth and predictable, the sum of many small increments and susceptible to mathematical analysis by the calculus; or it is large, disjointed and unpredictable, and modelled by catastrophe theory. On a human level change is more complicated and events often have unforeseen consequences. Within the known world of folk viola playing we can observe changes of both these types at an individual, group or society-wide scale. At the individual level an example of the first kind of change is that a folk fiddler might want to use a deeper sound in her music, perhaps to accompany a particular singer. She acquires a viola and incorporates it into her repertoire. Many of the professional viola players that I talked to fall into this category, including such well-known performers as Nancy Kerr, Eliza Carthy and Mark Emmerson, of 1651. They all play the viola regularly, but are primarily known and written about as fiddlers, where this means (specifically) violin player. Here is Nancy Kerr talking about the attraction of the viola for her. Incidentally I had asked her if she knew about any folk viola history, and she replied:
I went to Eastern Europe, and I went to Czechoslovakia, Hungary and all round, playing with those wonderful cymbalom bands and things, and that was the first time I heard the viola playing a traditional music. It was that sitting in the middle there with those three strings, I can't remember what they're called, that was a real turning point for me because I'd always thought of bowed strings in traditional music as being very melodic and very trebley, and suddenly there was this fruity, almost farty sound! Percussive sound, and that really excited me. And then I forgot about that for a bit, and with my fiddle playing I started to try and cultivate quite a percussive, fruity sound on the that as well, and I liked using the bottom strings very much.
…It was the viola as a percussion instrument that I first heard in eastern European music. And then I left that alone for a bit, because I didn't feel ready to try that actual repertoire, you know I do now play quite a lot of Eastern European music. But at that time I didn't feel ready for it so I kind of took the sound and stored it away somewhere and put it into the music I was playing(3).
(It must be added here that in Romania and Hungary a three string viola known as a bra¸i or contra is used to play rhythmic chords in village bands. It is held vertically on the chest, and all three strings are sounded at once, accompanying the virtuoso violinist or clarinettist.)
Back in the 1960s the same trend was apparent amongst the fiddlers of the English folk revival, particularly Dave Swarbrick and his colleagues, all of whom played the viola occasionally, as documented by the sleeve notes of the National Sound Archive’s folk music collection(4). Before that, we don’t know, but it seems reasonable to assume that the same thought might have occurred to earlier folk fiddlers, since they were guided by similar aesthetic principles. Consequently if they could manage to lay their hands on a viola they might well have used it in their music. This was certainly true in America: for example there was a fiddler named Harvey Samson from Gilmer County, West Virginia, who in the 1940s played a viola but didn’t know that name, calling it his ‘big fiddle’(5). This idea is also supported by the documented existence of village bands in England, who provided the music for both church and secular events, and who apparently would include whatever instruments were available: there was no fixed line-up(6). These musicians were paid a small fee for their services, but worked at other trades during the day, the equivalent I suppose of the semi-professional ceilidh and festival bands that are found nowadays.
Conversely, folk viola players give up the viola, or revert to playing the violin only. Their reasons are most often that the viola is surprisingly difficult to play: it is large, heavy, difficult to play in tune and slow to speak. Decent instruments are much more expensive than violins of the same quality. Sometimes viola players tire of not being able to play tunes in the same key as everyone else, or else they tire of not getting enough of the limelight. These reasons don’t change much either, positive and negative, they stem from the nature of the viola and the sound it produces.
W W W
An example of the second, possibly catastrophic type of change is if the same fiddler breaks her hand and is no longer able to play. The timing of the accident itself is not predictable, although some of its consequences are (and some are not, for example she might take up belly dancing, or singing, or environmental politics, to replace viola playing). Two events of relevance to folk viola history fall into this category, and both were national in scale. Most recently, the widespread incorporation of orchestral instrument tuition in music education, a very new and radical situation, coupled with increasing affluence has, fairly predictably, led to increased numbers of folk viola players in the last fifty years or so. These players, myself included, learned classical music on the viola at school, and adopted or identified with the viola as ‘our instrument’. On reaching adolescence we were attracted to folk music for one reason or another, but continued playing it on ‘our instrument’ in preference to learning another so-called ‘folk’ instrument. Here is Helen Bell talking about her early experiences of the viola:
I had a classical training, up until I was fourteen, and then my parents took me to see Fairport Convention and I thought ‘Oo!’ a different thing to do with viola and for about four years I had a sort of battle with my viola teacher. Because I wanted to play folk music and he liked it but wanted me to do other things as well. And we just had wars. I mean we got on very well but it was a bit difficult, at times.
Lindsay: Did Fairport have a viola player in it at that time?
Helen: No.
Lindsay: So what was it about them that...
Helen: It’s just... I didn’t really know what kind of music I liked. I’d always felt a bit like oh God, everybody else likes pop music, I don’t really. I kind of like classical but I can’t say that because it’s really sad. And I suppose I’d always had things like Fairport played to me by… well, apparently while I was in the womb, since then, and so it just seemed right. And I just thought well, that’s good. And I suppose it took me a bit longer to realise that there was a lot of other traditional stuff than the folk-rock thing, but it turned out my best friend at school, her mum was a Morris dancer, on a mixed Morris side. And my friend Emma said ‘Oh come along to the pub, you’ll like it because they play tunes afterwards and you can join in’. And I thought well, I know two-thirds of one Morris tune, but I’ll come along anyway. And I was too scared to play the viola at the time because I didn’t think I was very good, so I took a tin whistle. And they started playing a session at the end and I found I could just join in. I didn’t know most of the tunes, but they did know the other third of the tune I did know. Which was ‘Horses Brawl’, and so…! they filled me in on that, because I’d heard that at a folk club and I couldn’t remember the third part. But I’d really liked it. And I kind of followed them round for a bit, and learned the tunes and fancied one of the melodeon players, so that was a bit of an incentive. And I suppose I just learnt a lot of Morris tunes. And then there was this guy on the Morris side, a fiddle player called Ed, who played guitar as well, and quite a lot of other things. And we got talking and he said ‘Okay, do you want to come over to my house and we can try out some of your tunes that you’ve written and stuff’, so I did. To cut a long story short, we made a CD and I joined his band. I joined a ceilidh band as well. And learnt a lot more tunes(7).
Helen learned her viola at school, but such instrumental provision is now declining, and it is hard to predict when it will again be considered an educational priority. But it must have greatly increased the number of viola players currently active on the folk scene (and other orchestral instrument players active everywhere). Now the viola is, and probably always was, marginal, a border-line folk instrument, not played by many. This makes it an interesting area of study, since it is an area of change and growth. But at what point does an instrument become mainstream? How many people need to play it before it is accepted by more than a small band of enthusiasts? And how can these enthusiasts educate public consciousness to recognise the sound of the instrument and distinguish it from the violin? Changing the listening habits of audiences is a hard task, but not impossible. Consider that well-known traditional Irish instrument, the bazouki, which was introduced virtually single-handedly by Andy Irvine and is now widely popular. Or the changes wrought in public consciousness in the classical music world by the great viola pioneers, Lionel Tertis and William Primrose.
W W W
Another major change took place about a hundred years earlier, in the middle of the nineteenth century, when the widespread purchase of organs by the Victorian church led to the demise of the church band and a subsequent catastrophic decline in instrumental playing amongst working people. This perhaps wasn’t predictable, and its consequences were not intended (or maybe they were), but the result was that in every village or town possessing a new church organ, musicians would have nowhere respectable to play, no regular fee to support the purchase and upkeep of instruments and no motivation to rehearse for a weekly service. Interestingly, the church band has made a recent comeback, particularly in the Black and evangelical churches, but that’s another research project.
In opposition to change there are powerful forces supporting the status quo. At an individual level habit rules our lives and often our musical activities as well. On a larger scale this might be renamed tradition...
So when we consider the history of the viola in folk music, we can perhaps assume that it was played by some fiddlers, in a similar fashion to now, and that their numbers fluctuated, affected by general economic trends, fashions in dance and music and performance opportunities. This history is hidden because people confuse the violin with the viola, and it awaits a much better historian than I am to uncover a little of what actually happened! Thank you very much for listening.
1. This effect was described in detail by feminist writers and historians back in the 1970s.
2. This trend continues today, a typical example is the Oxford Times review of 1651’s concert on 7 December 2001. At that period Mark Emmerson’s most exciting and inventive performance was on the viola, but the review only mentions him playing the piano and the violin.
3. Transcription of FV/DAT/2000/#5, 2-3
4. http://www.bl.uk/collections/sound-archive/cat.html
5. Email correspondence from David Broughton to the author; information from American old-time fiddler Dave Byng.
6. For further details see the West Gallery website at http://www.wgma.org.uk.
7. Transcription of FV/MD/2002/#24, 2-3