FIVE-STRINGED INSTRUMENT

FIVE ALIVE The five-stringed viola represents a creative and

technical challenge for both players and luthiers.
ARIANE TODES talks to some of the people
who are exploring its exciting possibilities

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 FIVE-STRINGED INSTRUMENT

T
HERE’S SOMETHING Jan Van Landeghem, was writing

JONATHAN COOPER
thrilling about the current her music that goes lower than
rise of the five-stringed viola. normal on the violin. She asked, “Is
In a world where violin it possible to have a C string? Will
makers work to regular you try?’” Deneys’s endeavors to
specifications, often trying to recreate find the right size hark back to a
classic forms, five-stringed time when instrument development
instruments represent a new frontier for went hand in hand with composers’
players, composers and makers. Freed from demands: he started with a 15M>-inch
the shackles of form, more and more luthiers length to make it easy to play the high E-
are innovating, experimenting and refining s t r i n g n o t e s i n Va n L a n d e g h e m ’s
their own take on this hybrid instrument, compositions, although he then also made
which, as neither violin nor viola, Spanoghe a 16-inch model, of
offers unique challenges. This which he says, ‘It has a round
development is largely driven by sound, but it’s too big to play
players - whether it’s classical this modern music.’
violinists end violists who want to Violist Pierre Henri Xuereb
tackle me standard canon with a commissioned maker
different tool: contemporary Friedrich Alber for an
music players extending the instrument on which to play
repertoire; or jazz, world sad Paganini’s Sonata for Grand
folk players wanting the best of Viola, which was originally
both violin end viola worlds written for a five-stringed
without having to bring two viola. He says, ‘Paganini
instruments to a gig. called it a “grand viola” but it
P a r a d o x i c a l l y, a l l t h i s was a viola with an E string and I
innovation isn’t actually new. Luthier read that he played the piece only
Jonathan Cooper, who has; penalized in once, in London. He got a bad review,
five-strings, sees it as a return to a time when which is probably why he withdrew the idea - it
instrument form was more fluid and experimental: was the only bad review he ever received.’
For Jonathan Cooper, five- Xuereb has also used it for Bach's Fifth Cello
There were people making five- and six-strings back strings represent a chance
in the 18th century. It was the point at which we to be at the forefront of an Suite and the transcribed Brahms Clarinet Sonata
instrument's evolution
went to four-strings and eliminated a lot of the other in F minor, but hopes that more composers will
instruments that we cut off mese roots and possible take on the challenge: ‘Composers don’t know the
evolutions for the instrument.’ instrument so they don’t write for it. We need
Now, as they were then, luthiers are responding to players’ them to be interested in its possibilities: for example, you can
cerrareis he explains: ‘Historically, violin making has been a make triple-stops easily and combinations going from very high
coJkr: taran between makers and musicians. We don’t exist in to very low. Composers are afraid that their pieces will only be
separate wards and we have to respond to what musicians seek. played once because there aren’t that many of these instruments.’
People have been venturing into different areas with the violin in
the last 30 years.’ Fiddler Darol Anger, who has played various
five-strings and made his own, sees this diversity in its historical ALBER SUMS UP THE ISSUES of making a five-string: ‘The
context: 'As working string musicians gradually move away from challenge is to make an instrument as easy as possible to play for
Western European symphonic jobs to other contemporary and the left hand, with a bridge curve, string spacing at the bridge
traditional musics, standardization is again becoming less and and width of bouts adapted for easy bowing - all this with a full,
less important, and soloists and small group players look for warm viola sound and a brilliant “violin” E string.’ Playability is
instruments to fit their more diverse needs.’ key for players, and size is an important area of compromise.
Anger says, ‘Some of these instruments are fairly big and for a
small person it can become a wrestling match. Conversely, necks
can be too narrow, and the strings too close together. I like a
CLASSICAL PLAYERS are also driving demand, though. bright-enough C string, a solid, powerful E string, and a
Luthier Luc Deneys was inspired by violinist Jenny Spanoghe: relatively mellow tone. Most five-strings sound a little muted
‘One day we were in a restaurant and she was saying that her husband, compared with a standard instrument, although something >

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 FIVE-STRINGED INSTRUMENT

about the fifth string tends to even out the volume between the
strings.’
'Playing the right string
For those who balk at the size of a viola, five-strings do come with eyes closed is difficult,
in violin form, but according to luthier Martin Brunkalla, who
makes both, this inevitably compromises the sound: ‘Just adding a and so is fast détaché over
C string to an instrument designed for four strings is unlikely to
satisfy a discerning player. Aside from the mechanical issues, the five strings'
JENNY SPANOGHE
body of the violin was never intended to respond to frequencies
lower than those produced by the open G string. Typically, the C
string on a converted four-string will take more effort to get
a really low viola sound and a nice E string on top. In this case
moving, and sound flabby once it does respond.’
you need a bigger sound case, and longer string length, but it will
Sacrifices must be made, according to Alber: ‘Either you want
always be a bit more difficult to play.’
a violin with an extra lower string, which usually has a slightly
weak C string, like a M viola; or you want a viola with Cooper’s solution to this dilemma is to use a Guarneri ‘del
Gesù’ model: ‘These instruments start out with a strong core to
the sound and have the potential to translate to modern playing.
So I took that model and altered it. You have to make a number of
physical adaptations, and not just stick another peg on it. You
have to go back and look at all the parts because they work
differently.’
Brunkalla bases his instruments on the 16M-inch ‘Tertis’
model that the viola player devised with luthier Arthur Richardson
from his own Montagnana. Brunkalla says, ‘My own “Tertis”
model five-string viola is smaller at 1514 inches, but retains the
basic proportions of the original. I chose this design primarily
because the ratio of body length to internal volume was the
highest among the models of which I was aware.’
John Silakowski's
five-string is based
on the 'Cannon' WENDY AND PETER MOES made their first five-string for
Guarneri 'del Gesù'
jazz violinist Frank Wunderer. Wendy Moes explains what he was
looking for: ‘He wanted to have everything - the C string and the
E string.’ Like Cooper, she recommends going back to basics:
‘Once you start thinking about what you have to change for the
fifth string it turns out to be everything, except for the ribs - for
starters, the outline. You have five strings, which make for a
rounder bridge. You can’t be too wide in the middle bouts so you
don’t have bow clearance. There’s also much more pressure on
the back and the top and there’s no way to calculate this because
every piece of wood is different, so you have to make sure it’s
strong enough.’ >

Martin Brunkalla
bases his instruments
on the viola used
by Lionel Tertis
MARTIN BRUNKALLA
JOHN SILAKOWSKI

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 FIVE-STRINGED INSTRUMENT

Strength is a key factor for luthier John Silakowski, who says, Alber used a 1614-inch Brothers Amati model for Xuereb’s
‘Many builders want to get the wood too thin. It is better to build five-string, the same as for his viola, but also experimented with
a five-string heavy enough that it will be structurally sound and the thicknessing: ‘I left slightly more wood on the front, on
continue to get better and better with time. An instrument that is average 0.3mm more in the centre area. The first one I made, in
too thin will often sound great immediately, but then quickly lose 2000, was played a lot but the table doesn’t have any distortion,
its good qualities, whereas an instrument built with proper and the arching didn’t move under the extra pressure. Since then I
calibrations will never stop getting better.’ He also uses a ‘del have made several more, all on the same shape.’
Gesù’ model - the ‘Cannon’ - and says, ‘Finding the right- sized
pattern helped me get the E string to sound solid enough to match
the G and C strings. When I expanded my pattern slightly, I found MOES HAS FOUND WAYS to make the instrument more
the right combination. Mostly they differ from instrument to comfortable to play. ‘We always had a small viola model with a
instrument in wood and the amount of arching. Those two things lira da braccio-style heart-shaped bottom, for violinists who want
have probably made the most difference in terms of tone between to play viola, or small violists. It means that when you put your
different instruments.’ chin down you’re very close to the bridge, so for a violinist
Cooper explains the importance of the arching: ‘You’re trying you don’t have such a change: everything is close. We took that
to provide enough air volume in the body of the instrument by but we had to make sure the middle bout was small enough to
making the instrument larger, bringing the arching up a bit to have clearance. We also had to change the outline a little, to make
expand that. The ribs can come up a little, but that’s not necessary. sure the back was strong enough.’
It’s largely about how you lay out that central section, and then Bridge design will also have an impact on playability. Anger
the thicknesses are adjusted a little, as is the bass-bar, because of explains: ‘The standard bridge shape is not so good for a five-
the five strings. You have to figure it all out. Some of it’s by trial string: you don’t have to make a huge arch, but you must make
and error.’ sure that the A-string area is not too flat. A higher arch with a
slightly high bridge also seems to help the power of the
instrument.’ Moes widens the bridge: ‘It’s a wide viola bridge to
accommodate the five strings. The player has to be able to get on
all strings so that’s what the curvature is designed to do.’

A hermaphrodite 'Composers are afraid their

head emphasizes
the dual nature
of the instrument pieces will only be played
once because there aren't that
for Luc Deneys

many of these instruments'

PIERRE HENRI XUEREB

Alber has a different approach: ‘Personally, I do not believe in

very large bridges. The string spacing on the bridge is very
slightly smaller than on a violin bridge, and the bridge curve
slightly more rounded.’ What happens at the top can also be
difficult, says Alber: 'The neck was more of a problem. I finished
the instrument completely and strung it up in the white so we
could try it and do some final adjustments of the neck before
varnishing. At the upper saddle I used a string distance slightly
narrower than on a violin, to finish with a neck width of 26mm
for five strings.
This was the narrowest I could make it.’ This consideration
also affects the resulting sound, explains Moes: The neck
has to be wider for the five strings, but you can’t make it
too strong because it’ll put brakes on the machine. The
pegbox has to be longer to accommodate the extra peg, and
stronger, because it’s got a lot of tension. It’s a new beast that you
have to create.’

THE EXCITING THING ABOUT FIVE-STRINGS is that

everything is open to experimentation, from the tailpiece right up
to the scroll. The Moeses made their own tailpiece, as Wendy
Moes describes: ‘This was a 16-inch instrument, so to give it a
JENNY SPANOGHE

little more length on the C string we made the tailpiece swoop

down, although we didn’t have more than 10 mm difference

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 FIVE-STRINGED INSTRUMENT

between the C and the E strings.’ They were also forced to design their
own fingerboards: ‘We weren’t able to find wider fingerboards so we
took a regular ebony fingerboard and put a strip of pearwood on to the
sides and the end, which worked out because the strings were on the
ebony itself, so it was still durable.’ Luc Deneys customizes his
fingerboards by bringing the E string side up towards the bridge, to make
high E-string playing easier for Jenny Spanoghe. He also created a
special scroll to reflect what he considers the dual nature of the
instrument: T made a head of a hermaphrodite, because it’s not a violin
and it’s not a viola - neither man nor woman.‘
None of this would be possible without the strings to fit to the
instruments, but it seems that string companies are responding to the
challenges and even customizing strings: Alber worked with Savarez,
Spanoghe with Lenzner, and the Moeses with D’Addario. Brunkalla
advises, ‘If one is to rely on commercially available strings to complete
one’s instrument, the length of the instrument becomes a primary design
consideration. Don’t design a 17-inch viola unless you are confident that
the strings exist with which to string it. The length of an instrument and
the pitches it is tuned to are governed by the strength of the string
materials. When adding a high E to a viola, this is, most likely, the tensile
strength of steel. Do the maths or find someone who can do it for you.’

HOW DO PLAYERS RESPOND to all this thought and effort?

There are particular technical challenges to playing a five-string,
as Spanoghe explains: ‘The accuracy of playing on each string The Moeses
experimented by
without extra noise demands very good bow control. Playing the using a curved
tailpiece on their
right string with eyes closed is difficult, and so is fast détaché 16-inch instrument
over five strings, up and down, and mixed legato passages over
the five strings in unequal articulations. There is also the
challenge in a solo recital of switching from violin to viola to
five-strings.’ However, she feels that the challenges benefit her as
a player: ‘The intense study of new pieces for five-strings offers
me greater skill on the violin and the viola.’
Xuereb admits that it took time for him to get used to his
instrument: ‘If you expect that it’ll be easy, it’s not: you need to
work. It was like a new instrument, as if I’d started to play the
cello. It took at least a year for it to feel really comfortable. It’s
the string-crossings, as the strings are closer to each other: if you
want to play really loudly it’s easy to hit the next string, so it
loses a bit of the precision and power.’
Potential customers should try one before they commission
one, suggests Silakowski: T have had many players order a five-
string without ever playing one. Sometimes they aren’t sure they
can adjust to playing it at first. Normally, three to five weeks later
they are totally used to it and don’t pick up their four-string
again. As soon as you put the time into practicing and breaking
through any of those small differences, anyone can play one. But
you have to put that time in, and not expect it to be the same as
your four-string.’
Deneys is excited about the work and offers this advice to a
maker contemplating making a five-string: ‘Just do it. It’s a
beautiful instrument, so you must make it and accept the
difficulties as they come to you.’ For Cooper, the opportunities
are unique: ‘In some ways it is a new instrument, but it has a
historical precedent and it’s evolving. When we look back at
violin making in the past, one of the good things is that people
were able to be involved in the evolution of instruments. We’re
getting that chance again with five-strings.’ ■
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