Freddy urged me to stay with the cello until I was good enough to perform professionally. There was always work for cellists in chamber groups, orchestras, even the pits of Broadway musicals. I followed Freddy’s practical advice for three years, until I was fifteen. Then came another pivotal moment. Late one May night Freddy telephoned my mother. A place had opened in a week-long viol workshop, there was a scholarship available, was I interested? What Freddy could not know was that the workshop was being held the same week as the state-wide Regents examinations. These comprehensive exams, given at the end of several years of study in various high school subjects, were grave, important, and essential if you were to graduate along any normal path. So there stood my mother, phone pressed against her ear, shuffling from foot to foot, trying then and there to prognosticate my future. Luckily, in a blaze of instinct she said “workshop”. The die was cast.

When I was sixteen I was admitted to the New England Conservatory in Boston, a great institution fortunately not too finicky about the exact high school credentials of applicants who did well in their auditions. There I committed myself to the viol exclusively, studying with Grace Feldman and Laura Jeppesen. To these teachers I also owe my first introduction to the solo viol recordings of Jordi Savall. My Boston neighbors from that time may still shudder at the memory of how I played Jordi’s records over and over, taking short breaks for class, practice and, occasionally, sleep. Three years later, to my delight, I went off to Basle to study with the great Catalan Master himself, taking an American break to return to Boston to earn a Master’s degree from the conservatory. During my second stay in Basle I met Sylvia Abramowicz, a Parisian viol student in Jordi’s class. Musicke was definitely the food of love in our case. We married soon after and have been playing together for sixteen years, part of the time as A Deux Violes Esgales, a duo based in Paris which we formed together.

During the thirty years that have passed since I was a twelve year old boy enraptured by its sound, the viol has soared ahead in public acceptance. Freddy, who died tragically young, would have been amazed by the viol as film star in the much-honored movie, Tous les Matins du Monde, a far cry from church basements and only a small indication of the instrument’s current popularity.

15th century Spain

Although many people unfamiliar with the viol assume it is a member of the violin family, it is not—it is more closely related to the Spanish guitar. The viola da gamba, or viol “of the leg” (since it is held between the knees when played), most likely developed in 15th century Spain when vihuelists tried playing their instruments with the bow usually used to play a North African instrument, the rabab. Bow aside, this early version of a “viol” retained all the features of a plucked instrument: frets, tuning, even playing position in that it was held like a guitar and bowed vertically. Not always bowed, however. In early representations we see the same instrument sometimes bowed, sometimes plucked. These early viols, also named vihuela d’arco or “bowed vihuela” were small and had flat bridges which allowed you to play all of its strings at once, a perfect chordal accompaniment to singing. Visitors to the Louvre in Paris can see Veronese’s The Marriage in Cana in which two viol players hold their small instruments in a guitar position, and another holds a larger instrument in a cello position.