#keyboard viola

• Archiviola — An experimental period musical instrument or hybrid variant of the viola family, structurally equipped with a keyboard and a continuous bowed rotary mechanism (similar to a hurdy-gurdy or viola organista), designed to produce sustained orchestral sounds. In an organological sense, archiviola represents a Renaissance and Baroque attempt to combine the polyphony of keyboard instruments with the timbral richness and dynamic expressiveness of bowed strings.