Some pictures of our recording session in November 2021, in the beautiful 14th-century St. John's church of Hatzfeld-Eder (Hesse, Germany).

The Viola a Chiavi di Siena - by Alex Pilz

What we nowadays call the Viola a chiavi di Siena can be classified to the medieval fiddle. This underscores the fact that the medieval fiddle was one of the most popular instruments of the 15th century. Various body shapes, sizes, number of string, bridge positions, positions of playing the instrument can be identified in preserved sources. In the case of the Viola a chiavi di Siena the fresco by Taddeo di Bartolo reveals many details. In this period it was common to hollow out the body out of a wooden block. The top of the instrument was glued and/or fixed with some wooden nails.

Not many instruments have survived from this period, but those who did let us know what material was used. Spruce for the soundboard and willow, linden, fruit wood, maple etc. for the body. 

The painting gives us many details about the size of the instrument, the vibrating string length, number of strings, number of keys and decorative elements.

On the neck is a box with keys covered by a lid. The strings are fixed on a tailpiece and running over a curved bridge to the pegbox under the lid. The positions of the Cshaped sound holes is in the lower part of the body. The shape is a really common one for the period and draws a conclusion that there exits same body models just with

different neck variety. If we take a closer look at the construction we will come to the point where the question about the soundpost and the position of the bars pops up.

From the view as luthier there are several options to reinforce the soundboard against the string pressure. Three or two bars can be glued across to the string position. A bar can be clued in the middle or on the bass/ treble side following the direction of the strings. Additional in that combination are also small bars in different positions possible

to influence the sound radiation. It is quite possible, that instruments had a soundpost.

As we know from an fresco by L. Signorelli in the Casa Santa, Loreto, Italy. The painting shows a soundpost through the sound holes of an fiddle (Winternitz 1967) before the restoration of the painting. An instrument with a soundpost has a different character. This includes the volume, frequency spectrum and the sound radiation. It also responds different for the player. Furthermore some sound adjustments are possible by changing the soundpost position afterwards.

The construction for the instruments in this project based on the classical way of building and is inspired by the fresco from Taddeo di Bartolo. Measurements and proportions are adjusted as best as possible. The sides, back and neck are made out of maple. The top is spruce. The four row-keyboard is a more complex one as we can find on the painting. The instruments are played with gut strings.

The instrument which is played by Marco Ambrosini is made out of spurce (except the neck) dated back from 1480. 

To understand the character of an instrument and what happens or not while playing it I did some measurements.

The following graphics show two soundboard admittance measurements right after finishing the instrument and after 2 years playing. It is clearly recognizable that some main characteristic peaks moved to the lower register while other didn't. An increase of the amplitude of min. 2.5 dB to max. 6.5 dB on the y-axis. This is the result of two years of playing the instrument and emphasizes the importance of playing a new instrument.

The following graphs compare a Viola and a Viola a chiavi di Siena in a sound radiation measurement set-up.
The frequency response curves representing the instruments and their different character.

The lowest mode which is called the A0 mode is the Helmholtz air resonance. It´s the air movement in the body including the air flow out the sound holes.

The Helmholtz air resonance on a Viola a chiavi di Siena is 215 Hz.