Tobias Hume (1569 - 4/16/1645)

Hume claims originality in his compositions. He is a particular champion of the viola da gamba over the lute, claiming for the former instrument the possibility of providing polyphony, expression and diminution or variation. The instrument that Hume prefers is the so-called lyra-viol, or, at least, the technique of performing on a bass viol in the lyra-way, as the title of Playford’s 1682 publication suggests: Musick’s Recreation on the Viol, Lyra-way. The lyra-viol itself seems to have been a smaller form of bass viol, with certain other modifications and a wide variety of possible tunings. The instrument or the method of performance, since it seems that music for the lyra-viol could also be played on the bass division viol, won great popularity in England during the seventeenth century. There were experiments at first with the addition of sympathetic strings, but these did not lead to any lasting change in the instrument. If the bow was not used, it was possible to use the lyra-viol as a plucked instrument, and the practice of plucking an open string with the left hand, while bowing with the right, as on the later baryton, was used. Hume’s publication of 1605 is a very early source for the practice of plucking the strings and for the use of the wood of the bow in col legno, although he makes no use of the later practice of the thump, the plucking of a string with the left hand while bowing.