Small, five-string French viol with violin-like features, also referred to as pardessus de viole (high descant viol), used c1730–89. It was tuned g–d'–a'–d''–g'' (the lower strings like a violin, the upper ones like a viol) and had a violin-like body, sloping shoulders and a wide neck with seven gut frets. It appeared about 1730, when viols with violin-like features began to be made in France in response to the prestige of Italian violin music. The sound of the quinton is distinctive, combining the resonance of the viol's upper register with the solidity of the violin's lower register. It was played like a viol: on the lap, with an underhand bow grip. Around the time of the quinton's invention, the viol-shaped six-string pardessus dropped a string and adopted the quinton's tuning. As a result, two distinct forms of five-string pardessus (high-treble) co-existed, sharing the same name, technique, literature and musical function. The word quinton, however, referred solely to the violin-like form and was never used to designate the viol-shaped pardessus. Favoured by women, the quinton became fashionable; it was played in salons and at the Concert Spirituel, and instruments were built all over France, in England and in Germany, Bohemia and Sweden. In the hands of makers such as Jacques Boquay, Claude Boivin, Augustin Chappuy, Jean Colin, François Gavinies, Paul-François Grosset, Louis Guersan, François Le Jeune, Jean-Baptiste Salomon and the great head-carver La Fille, its peculiar construction achieved a high degree of workmanship and high prices on the market. The years 1750 to 1755 were the golden age of the quinton; after 1760 its popularity diminished and it suffered a loss of character, with the removal of the top string, the adoption of violin tuning and a change in the bow-grip. After its demise with the French Revolution, a cloud of mystery gradually surrounded the quinton; the instrument's hybrid nature combined with the ambiguity of French nomenclature and the imprecision of historical sources led to conflicts in the 20th-century literature on the instrument.
On the music of the quinton, see Pardessus.
M. Corrette: Méthode pour apprendre facilement à jouer du par-dessus de viole à 5 et à 6 cordes (Paris, 1748/R; Eng. trans., 1990)
J. Delusse: ‘Table du rapport de l'entendue des voix et des instruments de musique comparés au clavecin’, Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, ed. D. Diderot and others (Paris, 1751–80), v, 7, pl.xxii
C.R. Brijon: Méthode nouvelle et facile pour apprendre à jouer du par-dessus de viole (Lyon, 1766)
C. Duerer: ‘Das Quinton, ein vergessenes Streichinstrument zwischen Violine und Gambe’, IZ, xliii/6 (1989), 28–9
S. Milliot: Histoire de la lutherie parisienne du XVIIIe siècle à 1960, ii: Les luthiers parisiens au XVIIIe siècle/Parisian Violin-Makers of the XVIIIth Century (Spa, 1994, 2/1997)
M. Herzog: ‘Is the Quinton a Viol? H Puzzle Unravelled’, EMc, xxviii (2000), 8–31
MYRNA HERZOG, ROBERT A. GREEN