Renaissance Vielle and Fiddle

THIS INSTRUMENT WILL IS NOW UNAVAILABLE UNTIL EARLY SPRING 2010. 

If you have to ask why, see the YouTube video of a Medieval Vielle performance (Barry Hall playing).

Yes, there is a difference between a Renaissance vielle and and Renaissance fiddle...we'll talk about this in a bit, but first, what is a vielle?

Vielles were one of the instruments from the Middle Ages that evolved to the point that it can be considered one of several instruments that inspired the modern violin. About all one can find on the market today are reproductions of one of several noteworthy medieval vielles that appeared in famous paintings. The images below show some of these. The YouTube video (at the beginning of this post) conveys the sound of a very well-made Medieval vielle in the hands of a master player. Trust me, they don't all sound this good!

Click on any of the images for a larger view.

Medieval vielles, at least in their earliest forms, were carved from a single block of wood, which was hollowed out to form the back and the ribs...a flat top was glued on.

The Renaissance Vielle was a highly evolved Medieval Vielle, usually with a much thinner waist (more like a violin). The later (15th Century) Renaissance vielles tended to be made pretty much like small guitars, with a separate back and heat-bent ribs, linings, etc. The bracing was pretty much like a guitar with struts running laterally, top and back. Sometimes the tops, instead of lateral guitar-style bracing, had a SINGLE bass bar running down the middle of the instrument; in other words, not under one of the bridge feet. This supposedly contributed to the bassy, but hollow (and sometimes raspy) period sound. Vielles were occasionally fretted, but apparently not usually.

What differentiated a Renaissance Fiddle from a Renaissance Vielle was a bassbar under the bass side bridge foot and a soundpost. Interestingly, a properly set up Renaissance Fiddle is always fretted, usually with frets of tied gut, with the fret knot on the bass side of the neck. The frets could be moved a bit to adjust the intonation, much like a modern Indian sitar.

Dr. Rickert of Rickert & Ringholz Musical Instruments has been experimenting, albeit on an erratic basis, with Renaissance Fiddes and modern fiddles with tied frets (15lb fishing line works a lot better than gut) for several decades. After assessing the potential market for early bowed strings, (particularly in our Japanese market), we have decided to introduce 4 related Renaissance instruments, all available with or without tied gut frets (frets standard only with the Fiddle models)

The basic form of all of these instruments is shown in the product photo

The four models are:

1. Renaissance Treble Vielle (4 or 5-string violin tuning) with center-mounted bass bar and no soundpost. 14" body and just under 13" vibrating string length like a modern violin or fiddle
   
2. Renaissance Tenor Vielle (4 or 5-string Octave Violin tuning) with center-mounted bass bar and no soundpost. About the size of a modern 16.5" viola.
   
3. Renaissance Treble Fiddle (4 or 5-string violin tuning) with modern bass bar, sound post, and gut frets. 14" body and just under 13" vibrating string length like a modern violin or fiddle
4. Renaissance Tenor Fiddle (4 or 5-string Octave Violin tuning) with a modern bass bar, sound post and gut frets. About the size of a modern 16.5" viola.

Vielle, Fiddle, Medieval, Renaissance, Don Rickert, Rickert & Ringholz, video, bass bar, soundpost, fretted, gut frets