The Viola da Gamba Society Journal

The journal is published approximately annually and continues to be a significant forum for research into bowed string instruments, particularly the viols. As far as circumstances allow, each issue emphasises a particular 'theme', although non-themed articles may be included alongside these. The first issue, edited by Andrew Ashbee, is concerned with 'sources'. Volume Two (2008), edited by Peter Holman, highlights viol music after the 'golden age' of the seventeenth century. Restrictions on the size of Chelys prevented the appearance of reviews of some important editions and books. Although it is expected that the bulk of sheet music reviews will continue to appear in the Society's quarterly The Viol, extended reviews of major publications find a place in the Journal.

Style sheet can be downloaded here (PDF).

Call for Papers - VdGS Journal 2026

Please get in touch with Peter Holman (General Editor) for expressions of interest for the 2026 volume which is expected to be published this autumn. Full details here VdGSJ Call for Papers 2026.pdf or here VdGSJ Call for Papers 2026.docx.

Table of Contents (in reverse chronological order)

Volume Nineteen (2025) - download PDF

• PETER HOLMAN - Editorial
• BETTINA HOFFMANN - Not in Spain. On the Origin of the Viola da Gamba, Where, When and Why?
• RICHARD RASTALL - The 'Consort Anthem' Revisited
• JOËLLE MORTON - Indeed, Size Matters: Music by Gibbons and Coprario with the 'Great Dooble Basse'
• DAVID PINTO - Milton's Casella: Henry Lawes and his Choice Psalmes
• ROBERT THOMPSON - Undefined Borders: Purcell's Early Music for Violin Band
• PETER HOLMAN - Buried Treasure in Yorkshire: The Leeds Partbooks and the Taphouse Collection
• REVIEWS
• Peter Holman and Bryan White, The Purcell Compendium (Woodbridge, 2025) MARK CAUDLE
• Restoration Theatre Airs, ed. Peter Holman and Andrew Woolley, Musica Britannica 110 (London, 2025) BRYAN WHITE
• Vittorio Ghielmi and Christoph Urbanez: Decoding Marin Marais: From Cryptic Signs to New Musical Perspectives, Sources 1: Pièces de viole, Troisième libre (1711), Deuxième livre (1701) (Milan, 2025) LUCY ROBINSON
• Günter von Zadow: Catalogue of the Works of Carl Friedrich Abel (AbelWV) (Beeskow, 2022) PETER HOLMAN
• Notes on Contributors

Volume Eighteen B (2024) - download PDF

• PETER HOLMAN - Introduction
• WILLIAM HUNT - High-Tuned Viols at Quire Pitch and Chorton: What is the Rationale?
• HAZEL BROOKS - Solo Violin Transcriptions of Lyra Viol Music by John Jenkins
• PETER HOLMAN - The Frankfurt Manuscript and English Division Violin Music
• ROBERT THOMPSON - Travelling Incognito: The Chaconne from Dioclesian
• ANDREW WOOLLEY - James Paisible's Instrumental Trios: A Thematic Catalogue
• JOHN CUNNINGHAM - Editing Jenkins
• DAVID J. SMITH - Editing English Consort Music: Past Present and Future
• A Bibliography of the Publications of Andrew Ashbee
• Notes on Contributors

Volume Eighteen A (2024) - download PDF

• PETER HOLMAN - Introduction
• DAVID PINTO - Black Swan: Coprario's name, origin, œuvre
• PETER HOLMAN - An Englishman Abroad: Thomas Simpson Revisited
• RICHARD RASTALL - Martin Peerson's 'Chowse'
• JUDY TARLING - 'The Mysterie of Rhetorique Unvail'd': Some Knowledge of Rhetoric Useful for Consort Playing
• MATTHEW SPRING - John Wilson's Cheerfull Ayres or Ballads (1659-60)
• JONATHAN P. WAINWRIGHT - Matthew Locke and Royal Academy of Music, Manuscript 108
• ROBERT THOMPSON - Revealing Errors: Purcell's Fantasia Sources Revisited
• JOËLLE MORTON - The State and Spirit of Gambo: Antiquae-Novae Resources for the Lyra Viol
• Notes on Contributors

Volume Seventeen B (2023) - download PDF

• PETER HOLMAN - Introduction
• PETER WARD JONES - Margaret Crum's Work at the Bodleian Library
• MYLES HARTLEY and JONATHAN WAINWRIGHT - Bodleian Library, MSS Music
• School C.32-37: Musical Networks, Motet Texts and Royalist Resonances 6
• JOHN CUNNINGHAM - The Craft of Creativity: James Sherard's Opus 2 29
• STEPHEN ROSE - 'James Sherard and the Oxford Music School Collection': Introduction
• MARGARET CRUM - James Sherard and the Oxford Music School Collection
• PETER HOLMAN - Music Review: Editions by Jonathan Wainwright
• HENRY LAWES - 'Zadok the Priest', reconstructed by Peter Holman
• Notes on Contributors

Volume Sixteen A (2022), Essays in Honour of Margaret Crum - download PDF

• Editorial
• Introduction - PETER HOLMAN
• Towards the Thematic Index 1 & 2: Correspondence between Margaret Crum and Gordon Dodd - ANDREW ASHBEE
• The 'foure faltes' in Dowland's Secod Booke of Songs, 1600 - JOHN MILSOM
• Domenico Ferrabosco Revisited by Thomas Morley (Too) - DAVID PINTO
• The Blount Music Collection Revisited: New Evidence for Exiled English Convent Schools and Early Modern Musical Transfer - CAROLINE LESEMANN ELLIOTT
• The Oxford Music School and its Organs - H. DIACK JOHNSTONE
• Corelli in the London Theatres: John Lenton, Tenbury MS 1312 and the English Reception of WoO2 and WoO4 - PETER HOLMAN
• Notes on Contributors

Volume Fifteen (2021) - download PDF

• Editorial
• The Consort Music of George Jeffreys - JONATHAN P. WAINWRIGHT
• British Library, MS Mus. 1869 (formerly GB-HADolmetsch MS II.c.24) - ANDREW ASHBEE
• (GB-Lbl, MS Mus. 1869, ff. 48v-34: A Preliminary Inventory - PETER HOLMAN)
• 'Skolding Wife' revisited - ANDREW ASHBEE
• Six Generations of Music and Scandal: New Light on the Eccles Family of String Players - PETER HOLMAN
• A Miscatalogued Lyra Viol Manuscript in the Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek, Klassik Stiftung Weimar - PETER H. ADAMS
• BOOK REVIEW: Bettina Hoffmann, The Viola da Gamba, trans. Paul Ferguson (Abingdon: Routledge, 2018) - PETER HOLMAN
• Notes on Contributors

Volume Fourteen (2020) - download PDF

• Editorial
• Richard Cobb and Domestic Music in the Household of Henry Bourchier, 5th Earl of Bath, 1638-1655 - DAVID FORCE
• The Villeneuve Manuscripts: a New Approach to Marin Marais - JONATHAN DUNFORD and FRANCOIS-PIERRE GOY
• Anatomy of a Tablebook - DAVID PINTO
• The Auckland Thomas Cole Bass Viol - POLLY SUSSEX
• Book Review | John Cunningham and Bryan White: Musical Exchange between Britain and Europe 1500-1800, Essays in Honour of Peter Holman - ANDREW ASHBEE
• Andrew Ashbee: The Harmonious Musick of John Jenkins, Volume Two: Suites, Airs and Vocal Music - JOHN CUNNINGHAM
• Bettina Hoffman: I Bassi d'Arco di Antonio Vivaldi: Violoncello, Contrabasso e Viola da Gamba [...] [In Italian] - CELIA POND
• Notes on Contributors

Volume Thirteen (2019) - download PDF

• Editorial
• A partbook set for consort anthem re-assessed - DAVID PINTO
• 'Trust not too much' in a setting by Orlando Gibbons - DAVID PINTO
• The Leero Vyall in Seventeenth-Century England - POLLY SUSSEX
• Another strain of Polewheel's Ground - STEPHAN SCHÖNLAU
• Music Review | Musica Britannica 104: John Jenkins, Fantasia-Suites III - JOHN CUNNNINGHAM
• Notes on Contributors

Volume Twelve (2018) - download PDF

• Editorial
• Viol Music in the Palazzo Ruffo or How the Viol came to Sicility - BETTINA HOFFMANN
• 'The notes the Double-Bass should play'. Corrette, Continuo, and the problem of double bass reduction - HEATHER MILLER LARDIN
• Music Review: Restoration music for three violins, bass viol and continuo, ed. Peter Holman and John Cunningham. (Musica Britannica, vol 103) - ROBERT THOMPSON
• Notes on Contributors

Volume Eleven (2017) - download PDF

• Editorial
• The 'British' Saint-Colombes - FRANCOIS-PIERRE GOY
• Jean (-Baptiste) Cappus = the forgotten violist: an inventory of his life and works - JONATHAN DUNFORD and YVAN BEUVARD
• 'Perslis Clocke', or, how to break a buttefly upon a dial - DAVID PINTO
• Charles Frederick Abel's Viola da Gamba Music: A New Catalogue, Second Revised Version - PETER HOLMAN and GUENTER VON ZADOW [revised pages replaced April 2018]
• Book and Music Reviews
• Michael Fleming and John Bryan: Early English Viols - Instruments, Makers and Music - SHEM MACKEY
• Notes on Contributors

Volume Ten (2016) - download PDF

Please note that this is an updated version as from 10 June 2017, with corrections to the article about the Ledenburg Collection.

• Editorial
• The Division Viol - an overview - MYRNA HERZOG
• An Amateur Viol Player in the Dutch Golden Age: Johannes Thysius (1622-1653) - JAN W. J. BURGERS
• The Works for Viola da Gamba in the Ledenburg Collection - GUENTER VON ZADOW
• Books and Music Reviews: David Dolata, Meantone Temperaments on Lutes and Viols - Stewart McCoy | Michael Robertson, Consort Suites and dance Music by Town Musicians in German-Speaking Europe | Richard Carter; Georg Philipp Telemann, 12 Fantasias for solo Viola da Gamba | Susanne Heinrich
• Notes on Contributors

Volume Nine (2015) - download PDF

• Editorial
• Consort Anthem, Orlando Gibbons - DAVID PINTO
• A List of Manuscripts containing Consort Music found in the Thematic Index - ANDREW ASHBEE
• Review: Leipzig Church Music from the Sherard Collection - PETER HOLMAN
• Louis Couperin, The extant music for wind and string instruments - PIA PIRCHER
• Letter

Volume Eight (2014) - download PDF

• Editorial
• Redefining the Viola Bastarda: A Most Spurious Subject - JOELLE MORTON
• A Time When All was Abelish - THOMAS FRITZSCH
• Review: Abel, Second Pembroke Collection, edition and CD - PETER HOLMAN
• Carl Friedrich Abel's Viola da Gamba Music. A new catalogue - revised version - PETER HOLMAN
• La basse de viole apres la mort de Marin Marais - Pia Pircher
• Reviews
• Tessa Murray: Thomas Morley, Eliabethan Music Publisher - JOHN MILSOM
• David J. Smith & Rachelle Taylor (eds): Networks of Music and Culture in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries - ALAN BROWN
• A German Baroque Viol Tutor. Anonymous: Instruction oder ein anweisung auff die Violadigamba (Instruction or Method for the Viola da Gamba). Facsimile edition Bettina Hoffman - RICHARD CARTER
• Notes on the Contributors

Volume Seven (2013) - download PDF

• Editorial
• John Merro's Manuscript revisited - ANDREW ASHBEE
• British Library MS Mus 249 - ROBERT SMITH
• John Blow and Johann Kaspar Kerll: a Puzzle solved - PETER HOLMAN
• More on Polewheel - ANDREW ASHBEE
• Book Reviews
• John Morehen and David Mateer (eds.), Thomas Ravenscroft: Rounds, Canons and Songs from printed sources, Musica Britannica 93, London 2012 - IAN PAYNE
• Ut Orpheus Editions of Italian Consort Music - PETER HOLMAN
• Letter to the Editor

Volume Six (2012) - download PDF

• Editorial
• Thomas Mace and a sense of 'humour. The case for expression in 17th-Century English instrumental music' - WENDY HANCOCK
• Terpsichore at 400: Michael Praetorius as a Collector of Dance Music - PETER HOLMAN
• An investigation into the anonymous setting of William Byrd's Ne irascaris, Domine for two lyra viols. Part two: 'Harsh progressions and monstrous combinations' - RICHARD CARTER
• Book Reviews
• Aurelio Bianco, Nach englischer und frantzoesischer Art, Vie et oeuvre de Carlo Farina - PETER HOLMAN
• Friedemann & Barbara Hellwig, Joachim Tielke, Kunstvolle Musikinstrumente des Barock - RICHARD CARTER
• Mary Cyr, Style and Performance for Bowed String Instruments in French Baroque Music - RICHARD SUTCLIFFE
• Purcell Society Edition, Companion Series, vol 4: Restoration Trio Sonatas - ANDREW ASHBEE
• Notes on the Contributors

Volume Five (2011) - download PDF

• Editorial
• The mystery of Polewheel and his Ground - ANDREW ASHBEE
• A fresh look at B-Bc, MS Litt. XY 24910 - PATXI DEL AMO
• An investigation into the anonymous setting of William Byrd's Ne irascaris, Domine for two lyra viols. Part one: 'two Base Viols, expressing five partes' - RICHARD CARTER
• Viol music on the Internet - PETER HOLMAN
• Book Reviews
• Peter Holman, Life after Death: The Viola da Gamba in Britain from Purcell to Dolmetsch - SIMON McVEIGH
• Charles E. Brewer, The Instrumental Music of Schmeltzer, Biber, Muffat and their
• Contemporaries - RICHARD CARTER
• Christopher Marsh, Music and Society in Early Modern England - ANDREW ASHBEE
• John Harley, The World of William Byrd: Musicians, Merchants and Magnates - ANDREW ASHBEE
• Notes on the Contributors

Volume Four (2010) - download PDF

• Editorial
• Blessed Wings: JOSE VAZQUEZ
• Charles Dieupart's Six suittes (1701–1702) and the en concert Performance Tradition - MATTHEW HALL
• Charles Frederick Abel's Viola da Gamba Music: A New Catalogue - PETER HOLMAN
• The Partiturbuch Ludwig: An Introduction and Thematic Catalogue - MICHAEL FUERST
BOOK REVIEWS
• Carol A. Gartrell, A History of the Baryton and its Music: King of Instruments, Instrument of Kings - JEREMY BROOKER
• John Birchensha: Writings on Music, ed. Christopher D. S. Field and Benjamin Wardhaugh - ALAN HOWARD
• Michael Robertson, The Courtly Consort Suite in German-Speaking Europe, 1650-1706 - RICHARD CARTER
• Metoda Kokole, Isaac Posch, 'diditus Eois Hesperiisque plagis - Praised in the Lands of Dawn and Sunset' - PETER HOLMAN
• John Cunningham, The Consort Music of William Lawes, 1602-1645 - DAVID PINTO
MUSIC REVIEWS
• John Jenkins, Five-Part Consort Music, ed. David Pinto - ANDREW ASHBEE
• John Jenkins, Fantasia-Suites, ed. Andrew Ashbee - JOHN CUNNINGHAM
• William Croft, Complete Chamber Music, ed. Harry Diack Johnstone - ANDREW WOOLLEY
CORRESPONDENCE
• Unequal Temperaments: Revisited - CLAUDIO DI VEROLI
• Notes on the Contributors

Volume Three, Part One (2009) - download PDF

• Editorial
• Lyra Viol Ecclesiastica: A Neglected Manuscript Source in Archbishop Marsh's Library, Dublin - JOHN CUNNINGHAM
• Clamor Heinrich Abel's Dritter Theil Musicalischer Blumen, 1677: A Lost Source of Lyra Consort Music - RICHARD CARTER
• A Jacobean bass viol book in Cornwall - MIKE O'CONNOR, OBE & ANDREW ASHBEE
• The Rediscovery of the Viol in the Jugendbewegung - SANDRA ZYDEK, introduced and translated by Richard Carter

Volume Three, Part Two (2009) - download PDF

• Byrd's music arranged for instruments by his contemporaries - RICHARD TURBET
• The Identities of the Viols in the Ashmolean Museum - MICHAEL FLEMING
BOOK REVIEWS
• Michael O'Loghlin, Frederick the Great and his Musicians. The Viola da Gamba Music of the Berlin School - Samantha Owens
• Claudio Di Veroli, Unequal Temperaments: Theory, History and Practice (Scales, Tuning and Intonation in Musical Performance) - Bradley Lehman
MUSIC REVIEWS
• Joseph Haydn, 28 Divertimenti a tre, Hob. XI, 97-126 (Edition Guentersberg, G179-183) - Carol A. Gartrell
• The Manchester Gamba Book (Facsimile, Peacock Press) - Richard Carter
• Notes on the contributors

Volume Two, Part one (2008) - download PDF

• The Nomenclature of the Viol in Italy - BETTINA HOFFMANN translated by RICHARD CARTER and JOHN STEEDMAN
• John Leyden's Lyra Viol Manuscript in Newcastle University Library and George Farquhar
• Graham's Copy in the National Library of Scotland - JOHN H. ROBINSON
• Laurence Sterne the Musician - PETER HOLMAN
• Laurence Sterne, Charles Frederick Abel and the Viol - CLAIRE BERGET
REVIEWS
• The Viola da Gamba Society Index of Manuscripts, vol. 2 - David Pinto
• Mary Cyr, Essays on the Performance of Baroque Music - Susanne Heinrich
• William Lawes, The Harp Consorts (PRB Viol Consort Series, no. 62) - John Cunningham

Volume Two, Part Two (July 2009) - download PDF

• The Pardessus Book of Mademoiselle Rochette - RICHARD SUTCLIFFE
• An inventory of DK-Kk, CI, 10; mu 6403 2402 - ANDREW ASHBEE
• Réponce de Monsieur Rousseau - SHAUN K. F. NG
• Notes on the contributors

Volume One (2007) - download PDF

• Manuscripts of Consort Music in London, c.1600-1625:some Observations - ANDREW ASHBEE
• Continuity and Change in English Bass Viol Music: the Case of Fitzwilliam Mu. MS 647 - PETER HOLMAN
• William Young, Englishman - STEPHEN MORRIS
REVIEWS
• John Jenkins: three-part fantasias (Musica Britannica vol. 70) & Fantasia-Suites I (Musica Britannica vol. 78) - Christopher Field
• John Ward Consort Music (Musica Britannica vols. 67 and 83) - David Pinto
• Anonymous Parisian Gamba duets (France, circa 1750) - Jonathan Dunford