“Before we leave the rehearsal room for Lord Strange’s performance in the Hall we shall make free to open the huge oak cupboard that runs across the upper part of the room. This is a boarded chest, as they call it; and we know very well that we shall find inside a set of six viols. They are heavy and cumbersome instruments and they run downwards like a Noah’s Ark procession from No. 1, the big Double-Bass, to No. 6, the High Treble. The favorite is No. 2, the Bass Viol, or _Gamba_. That is _viola da gamba_ (leg-viol). The Italians also used the names _da spalla_ (the shoulder) and _da braccio_ (arm) for the next two smaller viols. It is doubtless a choice specimen of this instrument which was under lock and key in the other room. It may have been made by Gasparo di Salò.[32] For the Italians are rapidly coming to the fore as viol-makers; and a new man, Andreas Amati,[33] is manufacturing a very small instrument, which he calls a _violino_, or _violin_. But the Queen’s violists probably regard this as a rather cheap and not quite worthy attempt. “The tone of the viols is sombre and somewhat nasal. It lacks brightness altogether. Excellent for _arpeggios_ and quiet vocal passages, the instruments are apt to sulk unless continually coaxed by the bow. And the bow unfortunately has to be used with considerable caution. For the true viols have no fewer than six strings apiece. And in their tuning they follow the irregularities of the lutes by using a series of fourths joined together by a third. But the makers are beginning to see the necessity of reducing the number throughout the whole Viol Family; for the difficulties of bowing are very great. Accordingly they are just introducing a modified type of instrument with five strings. They call these _quintons_; and those players who use them are adopting a tuning which gives them perfect fifths, at any rate, in the lower part of their compass. This is interesting. For it shows that some change is in the air. We should like to have ten minutes’ private conversation on the subject with Signor Amati. If we did, he would first warn us that what he was about to say must not on any account be repeated to his best customers, the violists. Then he would probably give it as his opinion that his new _violino_ with its simple regular tuning in fifths and its lovely caressing tone-quality is worth all the viols that have ever been made; and that all the talk about ‘vulgarizing’ and ‘popularizing’ is nothing more than professional stupidity.”[34]