The Diplomatic Viol

Abstract

In this chapter, I argue that musical instruments themselves could enable, embody, and model diplomatic practice. My starting point is a curious comment from a 1740 publication, in which the sound of the bass viol is described as “resembling an Ambassador’s tone of voice, which is not loud, and is even a little nasal.” Tracing the history of the viol—the instrument of elite sociability in the long eighteenth century—also means tracing the history of diplomacy as it became a regular system of communication between (modernizing) states. I focus on three points of interaction. First, I demonstrate that learning the viol aided in developing the comportment necessary to an ambassador. Second, viols themselves were constructed of materials procured through diplomatic work—of negotiating long-distance trade, of maintaining or obtaining status as a colonial power. Lastly, considering that sound was an essential component of the symbolic language of diplomacy, the quiet tone of the viol could provide a model for negotiators. Above all, it is the sound of intimacy: of intimacy with the sovereign, of the intimate conversations that more frequently concluded negotiations than any staged congress could. As Le Blanc’s comment indicates, ambassadors—and diplomacy itself—had a tone.