Life after Death: The Viola da Gamba in Britain from Purcell to Dolmetsch – By Peter Holman

s the canons of contemporary early music began to form during the course of the
twentieth century, they gathered and propagated many half-truths and myths
whilst, at the same time, excluding swathes of practices and repertoire. In this major
study, Peter Holman debunks one of these myths – that Charles Frederick Abel was
the last player of the viola da gamba in Britain, leaving Arnold Dolmetsch to single
handedly revive the instrument at the end of the nineteenth century. Holman
demonstrates an evolving practice of British viol playing from the late Restoration to
the Fin de Siècle and in doing so creates a remarkable resource that opens over a
century of neglected viola da gamba history and repertoire to performers and
scholars alike.