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The viola d'amore usually has fourteen strings. Seven of them are playing strings, which are sounded by drawing a bow across them, just as with a violin. The other seven are sympathetic strings which are not played directly but vibrate in sympathy with the notes played. A common variation is six playing strings, and instruments exist with as many as fourteen sympathetic strings alone. Despite the fact that the sympathetic strings are now thought of as the most characteristic element of the instrument, it is thought that some early examples may have lacked them.

There is no standard tuning scheme for the strings as there are with modern string instruments. Players will frequently need to change the tuning from one piece to another. However, the range of the instrument is usually from the D below middle C to the D two octaves above it.

Largely thanks to the sympathetic strings, the viola d'amore has a particularly sweet and warm sound. Leopold Mozart, writing in his Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule, said that the instrument sounded "especially charming in the stillness of the evening."

The instrument was especially popular in the late 17th century, although even then a specialised viola d'amore player would have been highly unusual. Most players of the instrument would have seen it as a variation on some other instrument, as the piccolo might be seen as a variation on the flute, for example. Later, the instrument fell from use, although there has been renewed interest in it in the last century. The viola players Henri Casadesus and Paul Hindemith both played the viola d'amore in the early 20th century, and the film composer Bernard Herrmann made use of it in several scores. Leos Janacek also used it in his operaCharles Garnier's Opera, Paris, opened 1875 Opera is an art form consisting of a dramatic stage performance set to music. The drama is presented using the typical elements of theater such as scenery, costumes, and acting. However, the words of the opera, Katya Kabanova , where it represents the title character. It is also seen in musical ensembleA musical ensemble is a group of several musicians who gather to perform music. There are several denominations of ensembles according with their size and composition. The terms duet, trio, quartet, quintet, sextet, septet, octet, and nonet are used to des that specialise in historically accurate performancesThe authentic performance movement is an effort on the part of musicians and scholars to perform works of classical music in ways similar to how they were performed when they were originally written. The movement had its beginnings in the performance of M of Baroque musicBaroque music is Western classical music from the Baroque era, after the Renaissance music era and before the Classical music era proper. This roughly covers the time period from Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) through Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)., such as TafelmusikTafelmusik (German: literally, "table-music") is a term denoting music from the 16th and 17th centuries which was used as background music for feasts, banquets and other outdoor events. Often the term was also used as a title for collections of music, som.