Viola

This viola is the oldest extant American violin family instrument. The instrument was built by Robert Horne in New York City and follows the English model of violin making, which is characterized by high arching on both the belly and the back. Musical instruments made in North America from the Colonial period are extremely rare. By contrast, in London during the eighteenth century there were a remarkably large number of makers producing instruments to suit every level and taste. Within England, the concentration of manufacturing in the capital city was sufficient that extremely few makers operated in the provinces, and in reality most of those who identified as provincial makers were resellers of London-made instruments who had the additional skills to maintain and repair instruments. The same pattern extended to Colonial America and most of the evidence of musical instruments being bought and sold in the eighteenth century tends to relate to imported goods from Europe, and especially from London. For this reason, musical instruments actually made in Colonial America are very scarce, and the viola by Robert Horne is considered to be the earliest dated violin-family instrument made in North America known at present. There are very few known stringed instruments from the decades afterwards, and there are no undated stringed instruments that can be identified as made in Colonial America that serve as contenders for an earlier date.　

In actuality, it can be taken for granted that there were other makers of stringed instruments active in the American colonies, and there are a number of violins and a cello made by the Moravian missionary John Antes in Bethlehem Pennsylvania, the earliest surviving example from 1759 (Museum of the Moravian Historical Society, Nazareth, Pennsylvania.). There is a detailed legend surrounding Geoffrey Stafford, a lute and fiddle-maker who was transported as a convict to Albany in 1691. Christopher Wise, the viol maker commissioned by Samuel Pepys in 1661, left London for a plantation in Barbados sometime around 1668 and when the viol player Benjamin Hely made his will in 1699 it included guitars "repaired on their return from Barbados". Barak Norman was the most prominent viol and violin maker in London in the period 1690-1725. His namesake, presumably a son, had emigrated to America by 1760 when a marriage record is found in Midway, Georgia. As for Robert Horne, the viola dated 1757 is the earliest evidence for his time in New York.

This instrument is of a form that strongly resembles London work of the time, but it is made from American sugar maple, which was not in vogue in the UK at this point (it was later imported to Britain and used by cabinet makers because of its beautiful figure, and whilst English violin makers favoured it for a while in the early nineteenth century, the wavy grain is vulnerable to fissures). Its varnish is unfamiliar to English work and it is very darkly stained in a way that is relatively familiar in Colonial period American walnut and cherrywood furniture to give it an appearance similar to mahogany. This all supports the hypothesis that the viola was manufactured by a maker trained in London using resources that were available to him in New York.　

Although the viola has always been a part of a string ensemble, the string quartet as we know it would not gain significant appeal until the 1780s when the form became popularized by Haydn and published in London by the luthier William Forster (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/627897). Before this, the viola was largely reserved for orchestral music. As a result, the existence of this viola is significant because it implies the presence of chamber groups or small orchestral ensembles playing the kind of music that had a viola part in them. By contrast, most refined domestic string playing at this time relied upon the sonata format championed by Arcangelo Corelli in the late seventeenth century, which did not include the viola and remained hugely popular into the nineteenth century.

The size of the Horne viola (41.8cm length of back) is consistent with the ‘contralto’ size of Italian violas made by Amati, Stradivari and others in Cremona, which was adopted by early eighteenth-century English makers and remained the universal standard. However the development of the quartet introduced a demand for smaller violas for amateur musicians more accustomed to playing the violin (the Benjamin Banks made in 1791 is a superb example https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/503931), and most eighteenth-century violas are smaller. This suggests that orchestral music making was part of New York musical life. Indeed, much can be inferred from the Horne viola as an American-made artifact in understanding musical performance in mid eighteenth-century New York.

Ten years after this instrument was made, an advertisement of 14 September 1767 declares "Robert Horne, Musical Instrument-Maker, from London, at Mr. Francis Cooley's on Golden- Hill; Makes and repairs violins, bass viols, tenor viols, AEolius harps, gauiters [sic], German flutes, Kitts, violin bows, & c. in the neatest and compleatest manner. All orders punctually obey'd, with the quickest dispatch: The favour of Gentlemen and Ladies shall be duly honour'd with any of the above. N.B. Merchants may be supplied with any of the above, cheaper than in London on proper notice given." A later advertisement appeared during 1772 and 1773 advertising similarly in the New York Gazette and the Weekly Mercury, that "Robert Horne, Musical Instrument-Maker, from London, on Golden-Hill, near Burling's Slip, Makes and repairs musical instruments, vis. Violins, tenors, violoncellos, guitars, kitts, aeolus harps, spinners, and spinner jacks [i.e. spinets], violin bows, tail-pieces, pins, bridges, bows hair'd, and the best Roman Strings. & c. N.B. Country stores supply'd on the shortest notice."　Advertisements of this sort are fairly common in English sources, and imply merchants with the ability to retail goods sourced from London, and the technical skills to perform repairs on instruments.　

Meanwhile in 1752 William Tuckey, one of the vicars choral of Bristol Cathedral had emigrated to New York to become a clerk of Trinity Church, paid twenty-five pounds a year with responsibilities for teaching music, leading the singing of psalms and setting out the music for the services. Tuckey’s enterprises appear to have been focused on providing the highest quality of instrumental music to the church and by 1755 he had begun to organize public concerts. On 29 December of that year he organized a benefit performance at the New Exchange of "… the celebrated dialogue between　Damon　and　Chloe, compos’d by Mr. Arne. A two part Song in praise of a Soldier, by the late famous Mr. Henry Purcell. An　Ode on Masonry　never perform’d in this country, nor ever in England but once in publick, And a Solo on the German flute, by Mr. Cobham…". His concerts reached their historical high-point on 9 January 1770 with the first performance in America of Handel’s Messiah, in a concert that included "some select instrumental pieces, chosen by the Gentlemen who are performers: Particularly a Concerto on the French Horn. By a Gentleman just arrived from Dublin" at Bruns Coffee House, a tavern at 9 Broadway near Trinity Church. It seems likely that the confluence of these two English migrants in New York in the 1750s reflects an interest in string ensemble music, and their geographical location gives more evidence for future researchers to anticipate a potential connection between the two within a Manhattan population that numbered only an estimated 18,000 in 1760.　　


It may be that the environment of New York in the run up to the American Revolution was adverse to these two Englishmen, who both disappear from the city after 1773, the year that the Sons of Liberty organized and executed the Boston Tea Party and in New York stepped up their intimidation of subjects loyal to the Crown. Tuckey left for Philadelphia where he is found in the vestry records of St Peter’s Church in 1778. Advertisements for Robert Horne’s musical business also come to an end after 1773. The British Museum has a copy of an ostentatiously loyalist trade card for Robert Horne "Drum Maker to his Majesty’s Office of Ordnance" at 20 Barbican Street London, showing military uniforms, British flags and symbols of monarchy. He also sold fifes and an array of military uniforms. The British Museum dates their copy of his trade card to 1781 (https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_Heal-88-46).

What appears at first to be an unremarkable viola made in 1757 to a familiar London model reveals itself to be an astonishing witness to the earliest public concert life of New York during the Colonial period.

Benjamin Hebbert 2023




Technical description:

Two-part belly of spruce with widely spaced growth rings, painted purfling and upright F-holes. The ribs are tall, divided on the lower sides, and not inserted into a groove on the back. The one-part back is made of American sugar maple with painted purfling. A quarter of the lower treble bout is a later replacement and most of the heel is replaced.