I recently was loaned a tenor (baroque) viola... and it is such a joy to play... even if it is touch on the large and uncomfortable side of things. It responds very quickly despite its size, but the length of it does mean that I have to adjust my technique quite a bit to accommodate the larger stretch at a longer distance so that I can play without doing myself serious long-term injury. Even though I sort of have it figured out, I am still setting a timer for myself so that I don't play for longer than 10-15 minutes at a stretch... otherwise, the potential is there that I start hurting my hands/wrists/tendons without realising it.
Anyway, as a comparison the instrument on the right is my regular "alto" viola... this is the sort of viola that you would see these days... however, back in the early Baroque... there was a second "strain" of violas, the tenor violas... back before Occupational Health and Safety started kicking in and said that it was probably a bad idea to play these for long periods unless you happen to be over two metres tall with a corresponding arm length!
The instrument on the right (the small one) is about 40-42 centimetres in body length... and that is generally the largest that most people will want to play... it is a good tradeoff between being large enough to have proper resonance (but still, not the proper length for the pitch of the strings...) whilst still being able to move around the instrument. Smaller, and the instrument sounds less resonant... larger, you have problems getting around.
Now, in the early Baroque... there was often a need for an intermediate lower part between the basses and the "altos"... and that was covered by this much larger viola playing on the lower strings... with the larger body, it was quite resonant and deep in tone... sort of like a small cello!
... and the music that was written for it in the ensembles tended to be slower moving and less agile... so, that would be possible for the instrument and player to navigate.
However, as time went on... in the Classical era... and even the later Baroque... the demands on the "altos" grew and the tenor line was slowly phased out in favour of the higher treble-weighted sounds of two violins, viola, and cello/bass. A pity if you ask me... and I play the violin... but I much prefered the bass rich and harmonically dense sounds of the earlier 5 parts.
So, many of these much larger tenors fell out of fashion and the instruments were lost, destroyed or... cut down to make smaller instruments. All of which were great losses... but the idea of preserving and not "improving" historical artifacts is a more recent idea...
Anyway, I will try to get my head and hands around this instrument... it might feature in our next concert to perform as a high basso continuo instrument. Which I think might be the limit for me, as I don't think that it will be possible to play any solo repertoire on it without breaking myself!
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Very interesting! My wife has always wanted to learn to play a stringed instrument like this. I'd be happy just to figure out how to pluck away at the guitar I bought many years ago and have never really touched!