The string quintet has a long and distinguished history. Violin consorts played four- or five-part dance music from early in the sixteenth century, though at that time they used a single violin part with two or three violas and bass. The classic string quintet scoring—two violins, two violas and bass—appeared soon after 1600; it is specified, for instance, in Monteverdi’s Orfeo of 1607, and in the consort music published in Germany by such composers as William Brade, Thomas Simpson, Johann Hermann Schein and Samuel Scheidt. The German-speaking areas of Europe remained largely faithful to the string quintet scoring throughout the seventeenth century, long after the four-part string quartet scoring had become the norm in Italy and spread to England; French composers continued to use the one violin, three viola layout until after 1700.