Oxford Music Online
article url: http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com:80/subscriber/article/grove/music/41161pg1
Violin, §I: The instrument, its technique and its repertory
I. The instrument, its technique and its repertory
1. Introduction.
The violin is one of the most perfect instruments acoustically and has extraordinary musical
versatility. In beauty and emotional appeal its tone rivals that of its model, the human voice, but at
the same time the violin is capable of particular agility and brilliant figuration, making possible in
one instrument the expression of moods and effects that may range, depending on the will and
skill of the player, from the lyric and tender to the brilliant and dramatic. Its capacity for sustained
tone is remarkable, and scarcely another instrument can produce so many nuances of
expression and intensity. The violin can play all the chromatic semitones or even microtones over
a four-octave range, and, to a limited extent, the playing of chords is within its powers. In short, the
violin represents one of the greatest triumphs of instrument making. From its earliest
development in Italy the violin was adopted in all kinds of music and by all strata of society, and
has since been disseminated to many cultures across the globe (see §II below). Composers,
inspired by its potential, have written extensively for it as a solo instrument, accompanied and
unaccompanied, and also in connection with the genres of orchestral and chamber music.
Possibly no other instrument can boast a larger and musically more distinguished repertory, if
one takes into account all forms of solo and ensemble music in which the violin has been
assigned a part.
The most important defining factor of the Western orchestra, ever since it emerged during the
17th century, has been the body of ‘strings’ (i.e. violin-family instruments) playing together with
(usually) more than one player to a part. The violin (and violin family), however, had originated well
before the 17th century – the three-string violin was certainly in existence in the 1520s and
perhaps even earlier – and by the early 17th century the reputation and universal use of the violins
were such that Praetorius declared (Syntagma musicum, ii, 2/1619): ‘since everyone knows about
the violin family, it is unnecessary to indicate or write anything further about it’.
The present article concerns the violin as part of the heritage of Western art music.
David D. Boyden/Peter Walls
2. Structure.
(i) Components of the modern violin.
Grove Music Online
Violin, §I: The instrument, its technique and its repertory
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 1/50
Component parts of the modern
violin
Wood cut (a) on the quarter,
and (b) on the…
The violin gives an appearance of deceptive simplicity to the eye, but
is in fact constructed of some 70 parts, which require the skill of a
master craftsman to cut and assemble. Acoustically it is one of the
most complex of instruments (see §2(ii) below). The body is a
hollow box (fig.1) about 35·5 cm long, consisting of an arched top
plate (‘belly’) and arched back plate, joined by sides (‘ribs’) of
slightly varying heights (a typical Stradivari measurement is 2·8 cm
at the top end of the instrument and 3·2 cm at the bottom). The
edges of the belly and back are not flush with the ribs as is usual in
a viol, but project beyond, overhanging the ribs slightly. The belly is
made of softwood, generally European spruce, and the back and
sides are fashioned of hardwood, usually maple. The neck, pegbox
and scroll are also customarily of maple. The fingerboard runs along the neck and extends over
the belly towards the bridge; it is now normally made of ebony. It is unfretted, a feature that
distinguishes the violins from the viols.
Both top and back may be made of one piece of wood, or (much
more usually) of two pieces joined. The wood may be cut either
radially ‘on the quarter’ (fig.2a and b) or in layers (‘on the slab’).
One-piece backs (either quarter- or slab-cut; see fig.2c and d) are
not uncommon but one-piece slab-cut tops are rare because for
acoustical reasons they seldom give satisfactory results. Radial
cutting is generally favoured, especially for tops, because the
properties of the various radial sections are about the same from
one piece to another. Fig.3 [not available online] shows how a radial
section is split from the top and the resulting two sections then
glued base to base. In this way the resulting piece of wood will have
the same properties relative to the join in the middle. The
appearance of the wood surface depends on which of the two methods of cutting is used. The
‘waves’ in the veined wood are generally called ‘curls’, and in the one-piece back shown in fig.2c
these are seen to run continuously upwards from left to right. In two-piece backs the curls (if there
are any) would not be continuous because they would be interrupted by the join in the middle (as
in the ‘Messiah’ Stradivari violin; see STRADIVARI, [not available online]). The pattern of curls is
referred to as ‘figure’. Highly-figured wood looks very beautiful, but it is not necessarily
acoustically better than plainer maple (which has often been used by the great makers). Figure is
distinct from ‘grain’, the latter being the arrangement of the fibres of the wood which are
distributed in alternating strata of impacted resin (summer growth when the sap is rising) and
paler wood (winter carbohydrate growth). In a cross-section of a tree trunk the grain is seen as
annular rings, but in radial sections used for violin backs and bellies they appear as parallel lines
running longitudinally from pegbox to tailpiece. The grain is generally more prominent in the
spruce of the belly than in the back where the eye tends to be distracted by the figure in the maple.
The distance between the parallel grain lines varies, sometimes being narrow (‘close’ grain),
sometimes wider (‘open’ grain); for violins the ideal range is between 1 and 2 mm. In a typical
belly the spacing of the grain lines widens symmetrically from the centre join. Grain is important
acoustically since the resin lines conduct sound while the carbohydrate growth acts as a damper;
the balance of these two features, especially in the belly, determines the suitability of the wood.
For further information on cutting, preparation and other matters with respect to wood used in
violin making, see Drescher (MGG2, ‘Streichinstrumentenbau’, §A), Leipp (A1965) and Rubio
(B1984).
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 2/50
Component parts of the modern
violin
The four strings of the violin are anchored in the upper end of the
tailpiece, strung over a carefully fitted bridge of maple, then carried
over and above the fingerboard to the ebony (or ivory) nut and
secured by the pegs of ebony (or rosewood) in the pegbox (fig.1).
The latter is crowned by an ornamental scroll. At the lower end of the
violin, the tailpiece is secured by the tailgut (traditionally a heavy
piece of gut but now sometimes wire or nylon) that runs over the
ebony saddle (figs.1 and 4) and is looped over, and secured by, the
end-button (‘end pin’). The tension of the strings is regulated by
turning the pegs to bring the four strings to their proper pitches: g, d′,
a′ and e″. In modern violins the steel E string (and sometimes the
others also) is generally fine-tuned by means of a mechanical
adjuster attached to the tailpiece (see fig.4).
The strings of the violin were originally all gut. From the 1660s, however, the lowest (G) string was
commonly wound with silver wire to give a better response. Today violinists generally use wound
strings for the D and A strings as well and also use a steel E string, the latter being far more
durable. Other kinds of stringing have been developed in the 20th century; strings with a steel
core (overwound with, usually, silver) or a core of synthetic material (e.g. nylon). Both types are
widely used, though neither has displaced the gut-core string as the preferred choice of most
professional players.
Inside the violin, the top-, bottom- and corner-blocks and the side linings (see fig.1) strengthen
and stabilize the structure. The soundpost and bass-bar give additional support for the interior of
the instrument. The soundpost, ordinarily of spruce, stands vertically between back and belly and
is located under the right foot of the bridge – not directly under the bridge's foot but on a line with it,
slightly towards the tailpiece. The position of the soundpost is a critical factor in producing the
best sound from the instrument. The bridge too must be fitted exactly to the contours of the belly
and is positioned in line with the notches of the f-holes. The BASS-BAR, also normally of spruce, is
glued to the undersurface of the belly, running under the left foot of the bridge. Like the soundpost,
the bass-bar helps support the top and also serves an acoustical purpose (see §2(ii) below). The
CHIN REST is made of wood (usually ebony) or vulcanite. Many players also attach a shoulder rest
to the underside of the instrument. These devices, the first invented by Spohr in about 1820
(though much improved since) and the second a 20th-century development, make it possible for
players to support their instruments without any assistance from the left hand.
The beautiful design and shape of the violin are not merely ornamental but are functional to a
considerable degree. The vaulting of the back and the belly is essential for strength and for
acoustical reasons, the whole body being designed to furnish the best amplification of sound.
The narrow waist – that is, the ‘middle bouts’ – permits ease of playing on the highest and lowest
strings. The scroll is decorative, although the instrument may be hung up by it. The line of
PURFLING which runs just inside the outer edge of back and belly not only emphasizes the beauty
of the outline but also minimizes cracks and prevents any damage to the overhanging edges from
going further into the body. Some acoustical experts (see Backus, B1969, 2/1977) think that
purfling may be a factor in the fine tone of a violin. The soundholes (f-holes) and the bridge are
basically acoustical in function (see §2(ii) below), though their actual forms are influenced by
decorative considerations. In any case, early bridges vary in design somewhat from modern
bridges.
Finally, the varnish, so beautiful in the finest violins, is functional as well as decorative, being
indispensable as a preservative. Varnish cannot improve the tone, but if it is too hard, too soft or
badly applied it may prevent the best tone qualities inherent in the instrument from being realized.
The composition of the Cremona varnish, which contributes so much to the visual beauty of a
Stradivari and other Cremonese violins, remains something of a mystery, although there could
not have been anything very mysterious about it in its time. Jacob Stainer (?1617–1683) in the
Austrian Tyrol, for instance, knew all about it, and the Venetian makers used an equally fine
varnish. However, easier and quicker methods of varnishing were later applied, and by 1750 or
1760 the old process had nearly disappeared, G.B. Guadagnini being one of the last (c1780) to
use Cremona varnish. Nevertheless, excellent varnishes are once again being used today.
Distinctive structural characteristics of the violin from c1600 to c1785 (‘Baroque violin’) are
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 3/50
(a) French violinist using the
typical 17th-century breast
position and…
described in §4(ii) below.
(ii) Sound production and acoustics.
Any violin has a certain potential of volume, whose realization depends partly on ‘accessories’ –
the type of strings and their tension, the type of bridge, the quality of the bow, even the type of chin
and shoulder rests – and partly on the skill of the player. Fingering, vibrato, bow speed and
pressure, and the relative placing of the bow between the bridge and the end of the fingerboard all
have a direct bearing on the dynamic and tonal characteristics of the sound.
When the bow sets the string or strings in motion, the vibrations are transmitted to the belly and
the back via the bridge and the soundpost. The soundpost renders the right foot of the bridge (the
nearest to the E string) effectively immobile, leaving the left one relatively free to transmit
vibrations to the bass-bar and belly (which functions as the soundboard of the instrument) and
thence, through the sides to the back (whose primary function, however, is as a reflector). The
total area of the soundbox then further amplifies the vibrations and transmits them eventually to
the ear of the listener. The soundholes operate as a secondary and complementary acoustical
system, adding considerably to the resonance.
The quality and character of the tone depend on the vibrating string and how well its fundamental
pitch frequency and upper partials are received and transmitted by the wood of the violin's body.
The string vibrates (for any given pitch) not only as a whole – that is, as stopped between nut and
bridge by the player's finger – but also in various parts of its length so as to produce the other
harmonics of the fundamental, thus giving richness and complexity to the timbre. Some individual
tones are the result of the complex interaction of as many as 20 upper partials in addition to the
fundamental.
The role of the violin body is to amplify and project the string vibrations to the outer air. What
makes a particular violin good is the degree to which it transmits the string vibrations of the
fundamental and its harmonics with equal response over the whole register of the instrument.
The tone of the violin, then, depends initially on the capacity of the many resonance frequencies of
the wood to respond to the string vibrations. Many makers, when adjusting the final thicknesses
of the back and belly of a new violin, tap the plates (or fix them in a clamp and bow their edges) to
tune them. The notes produced are known as ‘tap tones’. (The natural resonance of the interior
air space – the so-called ‘air tone’ – has a frequency normally in the area of the D string in
superior violins.)
Many experiments have been made, especially in the last 50 years, to determine which factors
affect the timbre of a single note or of all the notes of a particular violin, thus distinguishing one
violin from another. Modern acoustics, using electronic equipment, has shown that some
previously accepted theories, including the ‘formant’ theory, will have to be modified or even
discarded. There are still major questions regarding the acoustics of the violin (not to mention
related areas in the physiology of hearing) that are not yet completely or satisfactorily answered –
for example, what makes a violin a ‘good’ one, and whether old violins are better than modern
ones (at present, the best available answer to the second question is ‘Not necessarily’).
Since its origins, the violin has undergone a considerable evolution
of detail to meet the changing requirements of successive
generations of performers and composers. The first century and a
half of the ‘true’ violin culminated in the magnificent ‘classical’
model of Antonio Stradivari shortly after 1700. But this was not the
end of the instrument's evolution; in the early years of the 19th
century it was altered in a number of respects to attain greater power
and a more mellow tonal quality (see §5 below). It was in this era,
too, that the Tourte bow gained universal acceptance. Today the
violin is a more powerful instrument, supporting greater tensions
and pressures thanks largely to the move away from gut strings
described above. These changes in the violin (and bow) were occasioned by new styles of music
and new techniques of playing. Fig.5 juxtaposes the radically different approaches to violin playing
in the 17th and 20th centuries. Whether we regard these changes as improvements is an entirely
subjective matter. Many musicians now take the view that a particular repertory will be served best
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 4/50
by performing it with instruments set up (and played) in the way the composers of the time
expected. It is in response to this approach that so many violinists have now acquired ‘Baroque’,
‘Classical’, or even ‘Renaissance’ violins (while some, too, perform Romantic literature on violins
strung as they would have been in the 19th century).
See also ACOUSTICS, §II, 1; for an account of attempts to make mechanically self-playing violins, see
VIOLIN PLAYER, AUTOMATIC.
David D. Boyden/Peter Walls
3. History and repertory to 1600.
(i) Antecedents and origins.
As with many instruments, the violin has traditionally been defined mainly by its shape. However,
it came into being at a period of rapid change and adventurous experimentation in instrument
making, and the ‘classic’ outline only became standard in Italy around 1550; in northern Europe
non-standard variants were still in use well after 1600. For this reason studies of the early violin
need to take into account the way it was played and how it was used as well as its appearance,
and need to be informed by a wide understanding of the development of instruments and
instrumental music in the late Middle Ages.
15th-century pictures show two main types of bowed instrument: the alto-range medieval fiddle,
usually with five or more strings (one of which could be a bourdon running off the fingerboard),
and the small pear-shaped rebec, with two or three strings. Both are routinely depicted with a flat
bridge or no bridge at all, which means that they must have been used essentially to play
monophonic music in chords – the way folk survivals such as the Greek lira and the Norwegian
Hardanger fiddle are still played today. To play single-line polyphonic music on them would have
required arched bridges of the modern type, and there is no convincing evidence of these before
the second half of the 15th century, when polyphony played on pairs of soft, or bas instruments
became fashionable. Johannes Tinctoris (De inventione et usu musice, c1481–3) described a
bowed viola with strings ‘stretched in a protuberant manner so that the bow … can touch any one
string the player wills, leaving the others untouched’ and reported a recent performance in Bruges
of polyphonic songs played on fiddles by the brothers Jean and Charles Fernandes.
The instruments played by the Fernandes brothers probably had three strings tuned in 5ths – the
most usual tuning by that time, according to Tinctoris – and must have been similar to the earliest
alto/tenor members of the violin family. However, there is no indication that they, or any other
bowed instrument, had been developed in more than one size as early as the 1480s. The idea of
creating instruments in sets or consorts of several sizes to make them suitable for polyphonic
music was first developed in the 14th century with the bombarde, a tenor-range shawm, and was
subsequently applied to the flute, the recorder and the douçaine, all apparently made in sets in
the 15th century. This ‘consort principle’, as we might call it, does not seem to have been applied
to bowed instruments until the 1490s, when the earliest viol consorts were apparently developed
on the orders of Isabella d'Este, wife of Francesco Gonzaga of Mantua, from a large, single-size,
guitar-like drone instrument recently imported into Italy from Catalonia. Isabella ordered three
viols of two sizes from an unnamed maker in Brescia in March 1495, and a letter dated 19 March
1499 reveals that her brother Alfonso was in Venice and wanted to order five ‘viole da archo’
made ‘in all the possible sizes [modi] in the world’, which suggests that the third size, the
soprano, had been developed by then.
The consort principle was apparently applied about a decade later to the fiddle, producing the
violin family. Circumstantial evidence suggests that it happened in Ferrara, Isabella d'Este's
home town. A three-string violin-like instrument and a large four-string viola-like instrument are
depicted in Ferrarese wall paintings executed between about 1505 and 1510, and two Ferrarese
court documents suggest the existence of a violin consort by 1511. References to ‘Una viola, zoè
un basso’ and ‘Una viola, zoè un tenore’ in an inventory of that year can be identified as violins by
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 5/50
a process of elimination: ‘Viole da gamba’, ‘lauti’ and ‘violoni alla napolitana’ (vihuelas) are also
listed. On 20 December 1511 ‘maestro Sebastian da Verona’ was paid to look for timber for
making ‘violette’ for the Ferrara court, and for repairing its ‘viole e violoni’. In 16th-century Italian,
violins were usually distinguished from the larger-bodied viols by the addition of the descriptive
phrases ‘da braccio’ and ‘da gamba’ to the generic term viola, or by qualifying it with the
diminutives violette and violini and the augmentative violoni. It should be emphasized that these
terms applied to violins and viols as a class, irrespective of the size of particular instruments.
Violino did not specifically mean a soprano violin, or violone a contrabass viol, until much later.
The viol and violin families seem to have been developed as part of a humanist cultural agenda
that preferred ‘noble’ strings to ‘ignoble’ winds. Isabella d'Este commissioned a cycle of
allegorical paintings for her studiolo in which string instruments are consistently associated with
virtue, spiritual love and harmony, while wind instruments are associated with vice, sensual love
and strife. Isabella also followed the traditions of female patronage of music in preferring soft
string instruments to loud winds, with their indecorous warlike and phallic associations. The two
families should therefore be seen as complementary, and were usually played as alternatives by
professional musicians in the 16th century, though the viol was also played by amateurs. The viol,
soft, sonorous but rather lacking in attack, was suitable for serious contrapuntal music and for
accompanying the voice, while the sprightly violin was quickly recognized as the ideal vehicle for
the new composed polyphonic dance music that developed soon after 1500.
The Ferrarese wall paintings show instruments that conform surprisingly closely to the later
standard shape of the violin, with four corners. However, the earliest Brescian violins may have
had only two corners, connecting a broad lower half to a narrower upper half. The shape can be
seen in several early pictures of viols, as well as a vihuela and a lira da braccio depicted in an
intarsia panel made between 1506 and 1508 for the door of one of Isabella d'Este's cabinets at
Mantua (see MANTUA, [not available online]). We know nothing of the earliest violin makers apart
from Sebastian of Verona (assuming he was the person who made the Ferrarese violin consort),
although G.M. Lanfranco (Scintille di musica, 1533/R) mentioned the Brescians Giovanni Giacobo
dalla Corna and Zanetto da Montichiaro as makers of ‘Liuti, Violoni, Lyre & simili’. Zanetto's son
Peregrino [Pellegrino] Micheli, Girolamo di Virchi, Gasparo da Salò [Bertolotti] and G.P. Maggini
continued to make stringed instruments in Brescia, though a rival tradition was established in
Venice by Francesco Linarol and his son Ventura. With Andrea Amati and his sons Antonio and
Girolamo [Hieronymus] (i), the centre of Italian violin making moved to Cremona.
Peter Holman
(ii) Sizes and tunings.
According to the first detailed description of the violin family, in Lanfranco's Scintille di musica,
there were four sizes of ‘Violette da Arco senza tasti’ (also called ‘Violetta da Braccio, & da Arco’),
‘Soprano’, ‘Contraalto’, ‘Tenore’ and ‘Basso’, with three tunings; the alto and tenor were tuned in
unison. In other words, the consort consisted of a single violin, two violas of different sizes, and a
bass violin. This disposition, confirmed by later treatises, was the standard one for 16th-century
violin consorts, though a third viola was added when five-part dance music became common after
1550. Scorings with two violin parts were gradually adopted in most countries during the 17th
century, though the French court orchestra, the ‘Vingt-quatre violons’, retained the old layout until
after 1700. The earliest violin consorts probably consisted entirely of three-string instruments.
Sylvestro di Ganassi dal Fontego (Lettione seconda, 1543/R) gave the sizes pitched a 5th apart,
as in wind consorts of the period: the bass was tuned F–c–g, the violas c–g–d′, and the violin
g–d′–a′.
This simple and logical arrangement was soon complicated by the addition of a fourth string.
Lanfranco's system of specifying the intervals between the strings rather than absolute pitches
implies the use of a three-string violin and viola tuned as in Ganassi, but with a four-string bass
tuned B ′–F–c–g. This tuning, with the fourth string at the bottom extending the range downwards,
is the one given by the majority of 16th- and 17th-century sources; given the limitations imposed
by the plain gut strings of the time, it must have been used on large instruments with long string
lengths, such as the two in an illustration of the banquet for the marriage in 1568 of Duke Wilhelm
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 6/50
to Renée of Lorraine. C–G–d–aand F–c–g–d′ were specified by Praetorius (Syntagma musicum,
ii, 1618, 2/1619/R), while Adriano Banchieri (Conclusioni nel suono dell'organo, 1609/R) specified
G–d–a–e′. F–c–g–d′ and G–d–a–e′ were evidently arrived at by adding the fourth string at the top
rather than the bottom, and were probably used on instruments made small enough to be played
standing or walking along, supported, in the words of Philibert Jambe de Fer (Epitome musical,
1556), ‘with a little hook in an iron ring, or other thing, which is attached to the back of the said
instrument quite conveniently, so it does not hamper the player’.
Jambe de Fer was the first writer to record four-string violins and violas, with the fourth string
placed at the top as in the modern tunings. It extended their ranges in 1st position to c‴ and f″
respectively, their normal top notes in ensemble music throughout the 16th and 17th centuries.
However, Lodovico Zacconi (Prattica di musica, 1592/R), copied by Daniel Hitzler (Extract aus der
Neuen Musica oder Singkunst, 1623), gave F–c–g–d′ as an alternative for the viola, adding the
fourth string at the bottom, and this has given rise to the modern notion of the ‘tenor violin’. Large
violas tuned in this way may have existed around 1600, but they are not required by the inner parts
of 16th- and 17th-century violin consort music, which never go below c, the lowest note on the
ordinary viola.
Peter Holman
(iii) Dissemination.
(a) Italy.
Little is known about how the violin consort spread outside the Este-Gonzaga circle, for there are
few reliable references to it prior to the second quarter of the 16th century, by which time it was
widely distributed both sides of the Alps. Northern Italy, repeatedly invaded and fought over by
French and imperial armies at the time, was not a promising environment for the creation and
survival of documents, and, according to Jambe de Fer, ‘few persons are found who make use of
it [the violin] other than those who, by their labour on it, make their living’; it was not played by the
literate classes, who might have discussed it in correspondence or literature. We also have no
means of knowing whether some of the many unqualified references to viole – such as the
‘quattro suonatori di liuto, viole e altri strumenti’ who appeared in a Bolognese triumphal car in
1512, or the viole heard in a play during the Roman carnival of 1519 – were to violins rather than
viols.
The French language is less ambiguous in this respect, since the terms viole and violon seem to
have been used consistently to distinguish between the viol and violin from the beginning. It is not
surprising, therefore, that the largest body of unambiguous early references to the violin is in the
French-language accounts of the dukes of Savoy, who ruled Savoy and Piedmont from Turin.
There was a payment to a group of ‘vyollons’ from Vercelli as early as 1523, and dozens of
professional groups across northern Italy were evidently using violins by the 1540s and 50s, often
in small towns such as Abbiategrasso, Desenzano, Rovereto and Peschiera. A large town such
as Milan might support several groups: one day in December 1544 four violinists entertained the
Duke of Savoy during the day, and four others in the evening. In general, the Savoy accounts give
the impression that by then the violin consort was the most popular choice of professional groups
– wind instruments are rarely mentioned – and was being used by quite humble classes of
musician.
The violin spread with remarkable rapidity during the first half of the 16th century, in part because
it was often cultivated by independent, mobile family groups, who recruited their own personnel,
composed or arranged their own music, often made their own instruments, and were prepared to
travel great distances to work for the right patron. The largest courts employed enough musicians
to allow groups to specialize in particular instruments, though most groups had to be versatile:
the six-man Brescian group which Vincenzo Parabosco recommended to the Farnese court in
January 1546 played viole da brazo as well as seven types of wind instrument. The normal
practice of the time was to use the various instrumental families as alternatives on a musical
menu rather than ingredients in a single dish, choosing them according to circumstances: violins
were suitable for dancing, viols for serious contrapuntal music and for accompanying the voice,
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 7/50
loud wind instruments for playing outdoors, and so on. However, mixed ensembles became
more and more common in the second half of the 16th century: Parabosco particularly
recommended ‘the combinations of these instruments, one type with another, and combined in
various ways with vocal music’ because it was ‘something unusual and so new’.
(b) France and England.
A Parisian woodcut dating from 1516 shows that consorts of bowed instruments were known in
France in the second decade of the century, however unlikely the situation (the players are Plato,
Aristotle, Galen and Hippocrates) and fanciful the details. A six-man group described variously as
‘viollons, haulxboys et sacquebuteurs’ and ‘violons de la bande françoise’ was already
established at the French court by 1529. The musicians all have French names, so they may have
come into contact with the violin while accompanying the French court on its forays south of the
Alps. But several groups of Italian violinists served in Paris during the 1530s and 40s, and in
about 1555 a violin consort led by Balthasar de Beaujoyeux is said to have arrived there from the
Milan area.
It is not clear when an orchestral violin band was established at the French court, for a number of
received ‘facts’ seem to be no more than hearsay. For instance, the idea that Andrea Amati made
a complete set of 38 instruments for Charles IX (reigned 1560–74) seems only to go back to a
statement in Jean-Benjamin de La Borde's Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne (1780/R),
and Moens (B1998) has recently challenged the authenticity of the surviving instruments
decorated with devices relating to Charles IX (see §V below). In any case, they include small- as
well as large-pattern violins, which were probably made for different pitch standards and are
unlikely to have been played together in a single band. However, legal agreements between
members of the Paris musicians’ guild, the Confrérie de St Julien-des-Ménétriers, show that
groups of orchestral size were formed in the middle of the 16th century – there are instances of
nine players in 1547, eight in 1551 and 11 in 1552 – and violins are always given as one of the
options, usually as an alternative to cornetts, when particular instruments begin to be mentioned
in the 1580s.
The violin was apparently brought to England by a group of six Jewish string players from Milan,
Brescia and Venice that arrived at Henry VIII's court in the spring in 1540; the institution they
founded served successive monarchs up to the beginning of the Civil War in 1642, and during the
Restoration it formed the basis of the 24 Violins (see LONDON, [not available online]). Surviving
documents suggest that violins began to appear in English aristocratic households in the 1560s,
and began to be taken up by town waits, theatre groups and the more humble classes of
musician around 1600. Most violins played in 16th-century England were probably imported or
made by the instrumentalists themselves. Members of the Lupo family, who served in the court
violin consort between 1540 and 1642, are known to have made instruments, though the earliest
English violin maker so far identified is the Cambridge University wait Benet Pryme: an inventory
drawn up at his death in 1557 includes ‘vii vyalles & vyolans’ valued at £3, as well as ‘a nest of
unp[er]fyte vyall[e]s’ and ‘unp[er]fytt regall[e]s & oth[e]r lu[m]ber’ – evidently the contents of a
workshop.
(c) Germany and Poland.
The same pattern was repeated in German-speaking areas of Europe. The violin consort at
Munich was founded by four members of the ‘Bisutzi’ family in the 1550s, and was enlarged
around 1568, probably for Duke Wilhelm's marriage with Renata of Lorraine (see MUNICH, [not
available online]). The five newcomers, who included three members of the Morari family, may
have been part of Renée's entourage; the court at Nancy acquired a set of violins as early as
1534. Italian violinists (including three members of the Ardesi family from Cremona) were at the
Viennese court by the 1560s, at Weimar in 1569, at Innsbruck in the 1570s and 80s, and at
Hechingen in the Black Forest from 1581. Italian instruments mentioned in inventories include a
set of Brescian ‘geig’ at Augsburg (1566), ‘Ein Italinisch Stimwerckh von Geigen, darinn ein
discant, drey tenor und ein Bass’ at Baden-Baden (1582), and ‘Funf venedische geugen’ at
Hechingen (1609).
The use of the term ‘Geige’ presents another thorny terminological problem. Around 1400 it
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 8/50
Violin consort: detail from the
title-page of Andreas
Hammerschmidt’s ‘Missae’…
seems to have been used in opposition to Vedel to distinguish the rebec from the medieval
fiddle, just as it was used around 1600 in opposition to Phyolen or Violen to distinguish violins
from viols. Early 16th-century German writers such as Sebastian Virdung (1511), Hans Gerle
(1532) and Martin Agricola (1529, 5/1545) used the term Geigen for both instruments, qualifying it
with grossen and kleinen as in Italian terminology of the period. These treatises illustrate kleinen
Geigen with instruments shaped like rebecs, so it is not clear when the term began to be used for
the violin. In 1545 Agricola described a third type, the ‘Polischen Geigen’; there are no illustrations
but the instrument was apparently played without frets, using fingernails to stop the strings. It had
three strings; there was also a four-string bass version. Several violin makers, including Mateusz
Dobrucki, Bartłomiej Kiejcher and Marcin Groblicz the elder, are known to have been active in
16th-century Poland, and some apparently 16th-century Polish violins survive, often with nonclassic
shapes, though not enough research has been done into them (or contemporary German
instrument making for that matter) for us to be sure at present what relationship they had with
Italian violin-making traditions.
By 1600 the violin consort must have been one of the most familiar
sounds in the courts and towns of northern Europe (fig.6). But in the
northern Italian courts, its cradle, it seems to have been in decline.
Regular violin consorts do not seem to have been employed at the
Mantuan and Ferrarese courts in the late 16th century – Mantua
hired violini from Parma and Casalmaggiore in 1588, presumably
because it had no group of its own – and in 1608 the Florentine
court recruited 12 violinists from France. Vincenzo Giustiniani wrote
in about 1629 that consorts made up of a single type of instrument,
‘with the uniformity of sound and of the consonances, became
tiresome rather quickly and were an incentive to sleep rather than to
pass the time on a hot afternoon’. He associated shawms and
‘bands of violins’ with unfashionable milieus such as ‘festivals in small towns and country
districts, and also in the great cities at the festivals of the common people’. As discussed below,
the fashion in advanced musical circles in Italy was for mixed ensembles, in which the violin was
often used without the other members of its family. The lead in the development of violin consorts
passed to northern Europe, and it was more than half a century before Italy recovered it.
Peter Holman
(iv) Usage.
(a) Consort dance music.
It cannot have been an accident that the violin consort developed at a time of profound change in
courtly dance and dance music. Soon after 1500 the pavan and its related saltarello or galliard
replaced the old basse danse. The new dance music was composed rather than improvised, and
was usually written in simple block chords in four, five or six parts with the tune in the soprano
rather than the tenor. There are no sources of this repertory earlier than Six gaillardes et six
pavanes and Neuf basses dances deux branles (both Paris, 1530), the first two books in the
series of Danceries published by Pierre Attaingnant, though they contain italianate pieces that
were probably fairly old by the time they were published; a similar repertory with slightly more
antique features survives in D-Mbs Mus.ms.1503h.
As an increasingly popular vehicle for courtly dancing, violins must be regarded as a principal
option for these and later collections of consort dance music, such as those published by
Jacques Moderne (Lyons, c1542), Tylman Susato (Antwerp, 1551), Giorgio Mainerio (Venice,
1578) and Pierre Phalèse (ii) and Jean Bellère (Antwerp, 1583), though the repertory continued to
be written in a neutral style, with limited ranges so that it could be played on as many different
types of instruments as possible. Composers only began to specify particular instruments when
they began to write in idioms that favoured one rather than another, and that did not happen until
after 1600. The odd exception, such as the five-part dances printed in Beaujoyeux's Balet comique
de la Royne (Paris, 1582/R; ed. in MSD, xxv, 1971), proves the rule: the accompanying text
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 9/50
mentions that they were played on violins in the original performance, though there is nothing
intrinsically violinistic about them.
(b) New roles.
The violin family was particularly associated with dance music throughout the 16th century,
though it acquired a new role and a new repertory when it began to be used in churches. There
are references to Brescian violini playing in church as early as 1530 and 1538, and the Venetian
Scuola Grande di S Rocco employed ‘sonadori di lironi’ (probably violins rather than viols, for viols
could not be played on the move) in ‘masses and processions’ from at leat 1550, when the
governors ordered them to play motets and laudi rather than canzoni and love songs. References
to instrumentalists in Italian churches become common from the 1560s, and some of them were
violinists: Giuseppe Maccacaro, for instance, was given a post at Verona Cathedral in 1566. They
probably initially played instrumental versions of French chansons and motets – a Venetian print
of motets by Gombert mentions lyris and tibijs as early as 1539 – but a repertory of ensemble
canzonas soon developed. Significantly, two of the earliest composers of canzonas, Marc’Antonio
Ingegneri and Florentio Maschera, were violinists, and served respectively as maestri di cappella
at the cathedrals in Cremona and Brescia.
The four-part ensemble canzonas of the 1570s and 80s were doubtless played mostly by
conventional monochrome consorts, though the development of polychoral music in the 1590s
inevitably involved the creation of ensembles mixing cornetts and trombones with violins – which
usually involved detaching particular sizes of violin from the rest of the consort. Most of the
canzonas and sonatas in Giovanni Gabrieli's Sacrae symphoniae (1597) are for unspecified
instruments, though an alto-range violino is specified with cornetts and trombones in two pieces,
and there are similar specified parts in two motets of his posthumous Symphoniae sacrae
(1615); there are also a number of soprano-range violin parts in Gabrieli's Canzoni et sonate
(1615).
Violins were also used in secular mixed ensembles, such as the ones mentioned in the
description of the 1568 Munich wedding, or the ones that accompanied intermedi at the Florentine
court. In the 1589 intermedia five-part sinfonia by Luca Marenzio was played by ‘dua Arpe, due
Lire, un Basso di viola, due Leuti, un Violino, una Viola bastarda, & un Chitarrone’, while a chorus
by Cristofano Malvezzi was accompanied by ‘quattro leuti, quattro viole, due bassi, quattro
tromboni, due cornetti, una cetera, un salterio, una mandola, l'arciviolata lira, un violino’. A third
type of mixed ensemble involving the violin was the sets of passaggi or variations on the soprano
parts of vocal music, intended to be accompanied by a keyboard reduction of the original vocal
lines; examples were published by Girolamo Dalla Casa (1584) and Giovanni Bassano (1591).
This viruoso repertory, the ancestor of the early Baroque violin sonata, was doubtless partially
conceived for the agile, expressive violin, though Dalla Casa only specified ‘fiato, & corda, & di
voce humana’ while Bassano used the standard formula ‘con ogni sorte di stromenti’ for the solo
part.
Histories of instrumentation have traditionally focussed on Italian ad hoc ensembles, though the
English mixed or broken consort was arguably more significant, since it was the first to have a
scoring that was sufficiently standardized to attract a sizeable repertory that exploited its peculiar
characteristics. It was developed in the 1560s and 70s, possibly at Hengrave Hall near Bury St
Edmunds, and consisted of violin or treble viol, flute or recorder, bass viol, lute, cittern and
bandora. The treble viol is mentioned in some of the early descriptions of the group, and is called
for in the collections of mixed consort music published by Thomas Morley (1599, 2/1611) and
Philip Rosseter (1609), though all the surviving pictures show a violin, and one of the manuscripts
of mixed consort music at GB-Cu has pages headed ‘Treble violan’ and ‘The treble violan parte’.
Furthermore, there is some evidence that the word ‘viol’ in Elizabethan English could mean a
violin.
Peter Holman
(v) Authenticity and surviving instruments.
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 10/50
The study of the early violin relies on written and iconographical sources, as well as on surviving
instruments. Dozens of instruments from the violin family preserved in museums and private
collections are attributed to 16th-century makers such as Zanetto di Montichiaro, his son
Peregrino, and Gasparo da Salò, all from Brescia, the Venetian Ventura Linarol, the Cremonese
Andrea Amati, Dorigo Spilmann from Padua, and Gaspar Tieffenbrucker from Bologna and Lyons,
as well as to anonymous makers. Attributions to Tieffenbrucker and a number of obscure builders
are no longer taken seriously, but other instruments are still used as trustworthy evidence
material. Current knowledge on the early violin is based on instruments attributed to about six
Italian builders, on some anonymous examples and on a few, mainly Italian, iconographical
representations. Surviving instruments of primitive (or ‘rustic’) form are given dates mainly in the
first half of the 16th century, while instruments resembling modern violins are said to be from the
second half of the century.
These widely accepted views on the early violin need to be questioned. Thorough critical
examination of the instruments at stake has cast doubt on their authenticity: signatures on
instruments attributed to a single maker usually differ greatly and are often poorly forged; several
instruments said to be from the same maker may show substantial differences of design or
construction; some components of an instrument have been shown to have different origins or to
have been heavily adapted or restored, whether or not with fraudulent intent. The signature, shape
and construction of many of these instruments are thus unreliable and therefore useless as
evidence material for the study of the 16th-century violin. Proven historical facts uphold this
conclusion. For example, while it is true that a Paris account dating from 1572 mentions a ‘violin
façon de Cremone’, it is almost certain that the long-held belief that Andrea Amati made an
extensive range of instruments for King Charles IX of France is false: close investigation of
preserved instruments bearing the arms of Charles IX uncovers too many inconsistencies for
them to be from a single maker.
We therefore have no clear picture of the violins made by the early famous masters. Lire da
braccio and viols attributed to 16th-century makers have the same problems of authenticity and
therefore are also unreliable as reference material.
However, a small number of little-known instruments from the 16th century or the early 17th have
been preserved practically in their original form: considered together with iconographical sources
and folk instruments with archaic forms from later periods, these can shed new light on the
construction and shape of a representative part of late 16th-century violin making. Perhaps the
most remarkable of the surviving instruments are a group of five instruments attributed to
members of the Klemm family from Randeck, near Freiberg in Saxony, and now in Freiberg
Cathedral (where they are held by a group of angel musicians in the roof of one of the chapels; for
a detailed description, see Heyde and Liersch, B1980). The group is a rare example of an
complete violin consort, consisting of a small three-string discant violin (or VIOLINO PICCOLO), a
treble violin, a tenor violin and two bass violins (all with four strings). These instruments share
characteristics that are at variance to those of the violins attributed to famous 16th-century
makers, but which often recur in regional varieties of fiddle that persisted in later periods (and in
some cases are still played), including the 17th-century Allemannische violin (then common in
the Black Forest and German-speaking districts of Switzerland and France; see Adelmann,
B1990), the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle, the Swedish nyckelharpa, the Sorbian Klarfidel (Cz.
skřpsky) of the jihlava district of the Czech Republic (see also HUSLA), the Polish mazanki, and
18th- and early 19th-century violins from North and South America. These shared characteristics
include the following: a strongly curved belly and back; long and pointed bevelled corners to the
ribs; an entirely or partly flat pegbox back; a deeply-cut scroll clearly separated from the pegbox;
painted inlaid decorations on the belly and back; lobe and brace forms on the tailpiece and
fingerboard; the belly carved with a thickening in the inside (instead of separate bass-bar); the
neck fitted directly into the body rather than into a top-block; the absence of a bottom-block; and
the ribs anchored into grooves cut into the back and belly.
Karel Moens
4. History and repertory, 1600–1820.
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 11/50
(i) The instrument.
(a) Violin makers.
At the dawn of the 17th century, the violin was beginning to develop a role as an expressive and
virtuoso solo instrument. New idiomatic repertory appeared at a rate which suggests an almost
feverish excitement in its possibilities. Already two towns, Brescia and Cremona, had emerged as
pre-eminent in the manufacture of the instrument. Brescia had been known for its string
instruments since early in the 16th century; its reputation as a centre for violin making was
established principally by two makers, Gasparo da Salò (1540–1609) and Gio Paolo Maggini
(bap. 1580; d ?1630–31). Cremona's fame was due at first to Andrea Amati (b before 1511; d
1577) and his descendants. In the early 17th century his sons Antonio and Girolamo (i) were
making superb instruments, working together as ‘the brothers Amati’. The violins made by
Girolamo's son Nicolò are generally considered the pinnacle of the Amatis' achievement.
Although the family's traditions were carried into the next generation by Girolamo (ii), Nicolò's
mantle passed to more illustrious pupils outside the family, most notably Antonio Stradivari (b
1644–9; d 1737) but also Andrea Guarneri (1623–98). Guarneri in turn founded a dynasty, the
most distinguished member being his grandson Giuseppe Guarneri (‘del Gesù’) (1698–1744).
The latter has for the past two centuries been regarded the greatest maker after Stradivari. His
contemporary Carlo Bergonzi was followed into the trade by a son and grandsons. Numerous
references in writings of the period point to the prestige of acquiring a Cremona violin. English
court records from 1637 onwards distinguish between the purchase of Cremona and other, by
implication more ordinary, violins. In the early 18th century Roger North observed that so many
fine instruments had been imported ‘that some say England hath dispeopled Itally of viollins’.
Distinguished violin makers in other parts of Italy in the late 17th century and the 18th included
Matteo Goffriller, Sanctus Seraphin and Domenico Montagnana in Venice, David Tecchler and
Michael Platner (fl 1720–50) in Rome, the Gagliano family in Naples, Giovanni Grancino and the
Testore family in Milan, Camillo Camilli and Thomas Balestrieri in Mantua, Giovanni Tononi in
Bologna and his son Carlo in Bologna and Venice.
One non-Italian maker was of cardinal importance in the 17th century: Jacob Stainer, who worked
in Absam in the Tyrol. His characteristically high-arched violins are easily distinguished from
Cremonese models and were greatly prized (and imitated) in the 17th and 18th centuries (for
illustration see STAINER, JACOB; see also fig.13a below). Two other centres were the source of a
large number of well-made, though not especially sought-after, violins. Mittenwald in Germany
became identified with violin making in the 17th and 18th centuries through the work of Mathias
Klotz and his descendents, and to this day it has sustained a reputation as a centre for violin
making (and for the teaching of the craft). Mirecourt in France had similar associations in the 17th
and 18th centuries, though many makers who learned their skills there moved on to Paris. (The
last and most famous of these was Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, who left in 1818.) By the early 19th
century Paris had in fact taken over as the violin-making capital of the world; Nicolas Lupot,
especially, was thought to have absorbed the principles of Stradivari better than the makers still
working in Cremona. Fine instruments were produced by his friend and business associate
François-Louis Pique and by his apprentice Charles-François Gand. (Paris was also identified
with bows of the most advanced design and superb craftsmanship thanks to the work of the
Tourte family.)
Preferences in the late 18th century do not match up with the modern view that Stradivari
represents the doyen of violin makers. The 1785 edition of the Encyclopédie Méthodique names
Jacob Stainer as the maker of ‘greatest reputation’ followed by the Amatis (and principally Andrea
and the brothers Amati rather than Nicolò). ‘Among the skilled makers of more recent date’,
Stradivari is singled out as having made ‘a very large number of good violins; the merit of his
instruments consists in their masculine, powerful, and melodious tone’. This hierarchy was
endorsed in the later 18th century by the violin makers Antonio Bagatella (1786) and Giovanni
Antonio Marchi (1786) and, in a less clear-cut way, the theorist Francesco Galeazzi (1791). The
change in fashion is thought to have started in France, thanks to G.B. Viotti's persuasive playing in
the 1780s on Stradivari and Guarneri instruments. Michel Woldemar expressed a preference for
Stradivari and Guarneri over Amati and Stainer because of their more vigorous sound but also
because he considered the less pronounced arching more convenient for holding the violin when
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 12/50
playing virtuoso music. A history of violin making written by the Abbé Sibire (1757–1827), La
Chélonomie, ou Le parfait luthier (Paris, 1806), culminates in a paean to Stradivari:
"I prostrate myself in front of the patriarch of violin makers. … If in his century a
competition had been staged in which all the great violin makers had been
judged by their best works, the five Amatis would have obtained honourable
mention, Stainer would have been runner-up, but without hesitation and
unanimously, Stradivari would have been awarded the prize. … The first six are
simply admirable, each one in a particular aspect of the art, while the last is
perfection itself."
That reputation remains intact: ‘Stradivari’ has become a byword for perfection and value.
(b) Characteristics of ‘Baroque’ and ‘Classical’ violins.
Violins of the Baroque period are distinct in a number of basic features from their modern
counterparts. The neck, usually shorter than on modern instruments, projects straight out from
the body so that its upper edge continues the line of the belly's rim. The neck is fixed by nails (or
occasionally screws) through the top-block rather than mortised into it as in modern instruments.
The fingerboard is wedge-shaped and, again, shorter than the modern fingerboard. Bridges were
cut to a more open pattern and were very slightly lower. The bass-bar was shorter and lighter and
the soundpost thinner. Violins (and violas) lacked chin rests. The tone of these instruments is
brighter, clearer, less loud and less ‘mellow’ than that of their modern counterparts.
Such a summary, necessarily peppered with inexact comparative adjectives, may be useful
enough; but getting beyond it is no easy matter. Throughout the period all these instruments
underwent change, which took place unevenly in different parts of Europe. To acknowledge this is
to recognize the term ‘Baroque violin’ as merely a serviceable generalization. Instruments which
have never been altered are scarce and may be of dubious value as models: their survival intact
may be attributable to their lack of appeal to discriminating players. Contradictions and
approximations in other sorts of evidence create difficulties. The James Talbot manuscript of
around 1695 (GB-Och Music MS 1187) gives measurements for a whole range of wind and string
instruments but its laconic notes are sometimes tantalizingly inconclusive. Another late 17thcentury
manuscript, the violin method attributed to Sébastien de Brossard (F-Pn Rés.Vm),
contains a few apparently detailed measurements, but these are surprising. The bridge, for
example, seems thinner rather than thicker than modern bridges: ‘about a demie-ligne’ (1:125
mm) for the base, and the top should be ‘thin, but not too much so or it will cut the strings’.
The term ‘Classical violin’ is another convenient generalization. The key features of violins that
were used in the second half of the 18th century and the early years of the 19th were the size of
the soundpost and bass-bar and the length of the neck and fingerboard. (Chin rests and shoulder
rests still did not exist.) Not surprisingly, these dimensions on Classical instruments lie mostly
somewhere between 17th-century and modern averages. This is not to say that the Classical
violin should be regarded as a ‘transitional’ instrument, at least not without acknowledging that
the violin has always been and continues to be in a state of transition.
Hardly any extant soundposts can be positively identified as late-18th-century, but the manuscript
treatise on violin making completed by the Bolognese violin maker G.A. Marchi (fl from c1755) in
1786 suggests that some makers must have been inserting soundposts as large as the modern
standard (6·5 mm), with a diameter ‘such that it can only just pass through the f-holes’. More
substantial bass-bars were used as the century progressed – but the picture is far from simple.
Surviving examples show great variation within an overall trend towards increase in mass.
Compared with Baroque period models, original necks from the later 18th century tend to be
longer and slightly tilted back. Fingerboards show considerable variation in length (and besides,
some late-18th-century players were using instruments built long before). Mozart owned an early-
18th-century Mittenwald violin which still has its original fingerboard (long enough to play up to
d‴). An unaltered 1783 violin by Antonio Gragnani (Smithsonian, Washington, DC) allows for a
range of a 12th above the open string, that is, up to b‴. Marchi noted that it was better to copy
longer fingerboards ‘because some players today are so good that they can exploit the whole
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 13/50
length’. Galeazzi advised that fingerboards should be long enough to produce the note two
octaves above the open string.
Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the most sought-after violins were those made in the
previous two centuries, especially Cremonese instruments. But virtually all of these have been
altered to bring them into line with later ideas about tonal quality and strength in a violin. Quite a
lot of updating must have taken place as an incidental by-product of repairs and more drastic
alterations. Many over-confident makers and repairers took it into their heads to adjust the
thicknesses of backs and bellies on instruments that came into their workshops. By Marchi's own
account, he made comparatively few new instruments since he was kept very busy repairing and
‘improving the quality and strength of tone’ of old instruments. (He mentions in particular reducing
cellos to smaller forms.)
Antonio Bagatella, in his Regole per la costruzione de' violini (Padua, 1786), said that he got his
break as a violin maker because Tartini sent many violins to him for adjustment. He described
altering a great many old violins to give them either a ‘voce humana’ (suitable for solos) or a ‘voce
argentina’ (for orchestral playing). The essay gives dimensions for the neck (virtually modern
length) and bass-bar (puzzingly small), and describes in detail how the soundpost should be
fitted; but it never even hints that those found in older instruments would need altering. Bagatella
described a gadget he had invented for ensuring that the neck is correctly aligned, and from this it
is clear that he was still using the traditional way of fixing the neck to the body with nails through
the top-block.
The Hills, in their pioneering study of Stradivari (B1902), quoted from the journal of Dom Vicenzo
Ascensio who described alterations he made to the quintet of Stradivari instruments at the
Spanish court in the 1783. In the interests of what he called ‘improving the tone’ Ascensio almost
certainly modernized the dimensions of neck and bass-bar (though claiming to be following
Stradivari's principles). But this was all mixed up with more barbaric acts; Ascensio, too,
‘corrected’ thicknesses, as shown by his description of repairs to the violoncello:
"I pieced the centre, replaced the bar by one adjusted to mathematical
proportions based on that of Stradivari. I corrected the thicknesses, pieced the
four corner-blocks, took the back off and inserted a piece in the centre, as it was
too thin. I had to replace the neck, which I did in the most careful manner. I then
adjusted the instrument, the tone of which was rendered excellent by all these
changes."
Marchi, Bagetella and Ascensio were among many craftsmen working in the second half of the
18th century who participated (at least piecemeal) in what we now see as something of a
revolution: the adaptation of old instruments to modern requirements. The nonchalance with
which they write about what would now be considered fundamental transformations in an
instrument suggests that much of the modernization must have been carried out with no other
aim than to apply current best practice in the craft. It was only from the early 19th century onwards
that the practice of replacing bass-bars and resetting necks was explicitly acknowledged. In 1806
the Abbé Sibire wrote at some length on the subject in La Chélonomie. He described these
structural changes as a response to changes in musical expression:
"I shall confine myself hereafter to a daily occurrence …. It is a kind of
restoration (loosely called) which is purely accessory and yet at the same time
crucial. This is a process which does not imply the slightest deterioration and
yet which virtually every old violin, no matter how well preserved it is in other
ways, could not avoid: REBARRING. The revolution which music has
experienced needs to be replicated in instrument making; when the first has set
the style, the other must follow. … Formerly it was the fashion to have necks well
elevated, bridges and fingerboards extremely low, fine strings, and a moderate
tone. Then the bass bar, that necessary evil in the instrument, could be short
and thin because it was sufficient for it to have enough strength to sustain the
weight of five to six pounds which the strings exerted on it. But since then music,
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 14/50
in becoming perfect, has placed a demand on violin making. The tilting back of
the neck, the raising of the bridge, of the fingerboard, and the amplification in
sound, necessitate increasing by a full third the resistant force. Repairers have
only one choice: strengthening the old bar, or replacing it with a new one."
Vincenzo Lancetti (Notizie biografiche, Milan, 1823) suggested that the process of replacing
necks was in full swing by the end of the 18th century and implied that this started in Paris: ‘About
1800 the Brothers Mantegazza were restorers of instruments who were often entrusted by French
and Italian artists to lengthen the necks of their violins, after the Paris fashion, an example which
was followed by amateurs and professionals all over North Italy’.
Violin strings in the 17th and 18th centuries were usually gut, although metal stringing was known
and liked for a short time at the beginning of the Baroque period. In his Syntagma musicum, ii
(2/1619) Praetorius expressed the opinion that ‘when brass and steel strings are used on these
instruments they produce a softer and lovelier tone than other strings’. There were various types
of gut string. Exactly what 17th-century musicians understood by such terms as ‘minikins’,
‘gansars’, ‘catlines’, ‘Lyons’ and ‘Pistoy basses’ is not absolutely clear, but the vehemence with
which these were variously recommended or condemned indicates that the distinctions were
important. The invention in the late 20th century of strings made of roped gut to which the term
‘catline’ has been appropriated is not based on secure historical evidence, although they can
sound good. By the early 18th century gut strings wound with silver were being used on various
instruments. These appear to have been invented in Bologna in the mid-17th century (see Bonta,
B1977). They must have reached England by 1664 since John Playford (i) advertised them then
as a ‘late invention … which sound much better and lowder than common Gut Strings, either
under the Bow or Finger’. Because they allowed for an increase in mass without an increase in
diameter (and consequent loss of flexibility), covered strings could produce good-sounding bass
notes from a shorter vibrating length than pure gut strings of the same pitch. For the violin this
meant a more resonant and refined-sounding G string. There is, however, evidence that in parts
of Europe (notably Italy and Germany) violinists continued using pure gut G strings until well into
the 18th century. French sources mention strings which are half covered (‘demi-filée’ i.e. wound
with a single open spiral of metal thread). The manuscript treatise attributed to Brossard
recommends them for the D string. Such strings are extremely resonant and mediate well
between the covered G string and a pure gut A. (See also STRING, §3.)
For discussion of bows of the period see BOW, §I, 3 and 4.
(ii) Violinists and repertory.
(a) Italy.
If violin making was virtually an Italian preserve at the beginning of the 17th century, so too was
the development of an idiomatic soloistic repertory for the instrument. It is, of course, coincidence
that the greatest stile moderno composer, Monteverdi, came from Cremona – though his
realization of the violin's rhetorical power and his exploration of its technical resources in such
works as Orfeo (1607) or Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (1624) may owe something to
his origins. Works by other composers of the period also seem to be born of excitement at the
possibilities of the instrument: notably, Tarquinio Merula, also Cremonese, G.P. Cima from Milan;
Salamone Rossi from Mantua, one of Monteverdi's colleagues there; Biagio Marini, a Brescian
composer and instrumentalist who also worked under Monteverdi, this time in Venice; Marco
Uccellini from Modena; Maurizio Cazzati, associated primarily with Bologna; Giovanni Legrenzi,
whose career took him from Bergamo to Ferrara and elsewhere; and Carlo Ambrogio Lonati, who
played throughout Italy. Their contributions to the repertory, and many others, are surveyed in Apel
(F1983). Their works poured from the presses in Venice (which dominated Italian music
publishing in the first 60 years of the century), and then also from Bologna and, to a lesser extent,
other Italian cities. Allsop (D1996) noted that the paucity of surviving manuscripts means that we
are hugely dependent on printed sources for our knowledge of 17th-century Italian violin music,
which may give us a distorted view of the technical achievements of these composer-violinists. It
is possible that Italian violinists were just as adept at multiple stops, for example, as their
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 15/50
German confrères; but the limitations of movable type ensured that, if this was so, it has not been
recorded.
In the early part of the century the terms ‘canzona’, ‘sonata’ and ‘sinfonie’ were largely
interchangeable. Many pieces were based on popular songs (and were often given titles which
point to their origin); others (with titles like ‘Sonata sopra l'aria di Ruggerio’) were variations on
stock themes or bass lines (the numerous ciaccone and passacaglias). Single-movement
pieces, in which contrasting sections initiated by new thematic material or different metre run on
one into the next, gave way in the 1620s to single-movement sonatas with sections separated by
full cadences. In the early 1640s the first sonatas divided into distinct movements appeared. (See
also SONATA, §§I–II.)
Almost all publications were miscellanies for different combinations of instruments, often
unspecified (‘per ogni sorte d'istrumenti’) and often, at least until around 1640, naming cornett as
an alternative to the violin. Hindsight, moulded by the way these genres developed in the early
years of the 18th century, has encouraged the notion that two combinations were especially
important in the violin repertory of the Baroque era: the trio sonata and the sonata for solo violin
and continuo. Any examination of the full range of violin music of the period, particularly before
1650, gives a rather different picture: these were only two possibilities in a wide range of
dispositions. It was not until the later 17th century that collections of pieces for any one
standardized combination involving violin appeared. Corelli's orderly arrangement of Sonate a tre
in opp.1–4 (Rome, 1681–94) was a new development in the 1680s. The inadequate modern term
‘trio sonata’ is used to describe music written both for two treble instruments and basso continuo
and for two treble instruments with a more thematically significant bass part plus, often, a
continuo part which may be identical to, or a simplification of, the melodic bass. Italian practice in
the 17th century (even then not properly understood outside Italy) was to designate pieces a2, a3
etc. by the number of melodic lines, disregarding any basso continuo part. A sonata a2 may well
involve two violins and basso continuo while a sonata a3 might also require only three players,
not four.
Italian virtuosity was exported as violinists and composers for violin moved around Europe. G.B.
Buonamente left Mantua to work at the Viennese court. Biagio Marini spent long periods in
Düsseldorf between 1623 and 1645, and Carlo Farina worked in Dresden with Schütz. The
Florentine G.B. Viviani spent substantial periods between 1656 and 1676 at the court at
Innsbruck. It is in the eccentricities of these composers that the connections are most easily
seen; virtually every special effect (see §(iii) (e) below) in Farina's Capriccio stravagante (1627) is
matched in J.J. Walther's Hortulus chelicus (1688), except col legno, which was, however, used by
H.I.F. von Biber. However, these are obviously symptoms of a more general cross-fertilization, a
shared enthusiasm for the violin's potential. Other Italian composers of violin music, not
necessarily violinists themselves, who spent part of their careers north of the Alps include G.M.
and G.F. Cesare, Tarquinio Merula, Massimiliano Neri, Antonio Bertali and P.A. Ziani. The violinist
and composer Giuseppe Torelli, most closely associated with the orchestra at S Petronio in
Bologna, was from at least 1698 to the end of 1699 maestro di concerto for the Margrave of
Brandenburg in Ansbach.
The steady stream of musicians into Italy was another way in which the Italian style was
disseminated. Schütz had two periods of study in Venice, first with Gabrieli and then with
Monteverdi. Johann Rosenmüller spent more than 20 years working in Venice. As a young man
Johann Jakob Walther entered the service of Cosimo III de Medici in Florence. The influx of foreign
musicians seeking instruction, inspiration and good instruments in Italy reached flood
proportions by the later 17th century, especially after Corelli came to prominence; notably, Georg
Muffat, N.A. Strungk and J.G. Pisendel all studied in Rome.
Arcangelo Corelli had an extraordinary influence. To him more than to any other composer of the
central Baroque period may be attributed the acceptance of certain instrumental genres as
deserving of composers' attention: what we now call trio sonatas, continuo sonatas and concerti
grossi. He thus had a classicizing role; and this extended beyond the broader structures into
musical detail of all kinds. Sir John Hawkins was later to comment that ‘Men remembered, and
would refer to passages … as to a classic author’ (1776). Corelli's reputation as a violinist was
already well established by 1686 when the Roman agent of Francesco II d'Este reported that
‘There is much doubt that he would leave Rome because he is so highly esteemed, cherished,
and paid here’. The op.5 violin sonatas, published in Rome in 1700, were eagerly awaited by a
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 16/50
European-wide audience. The collection went through a prodigious number of editions in the
course of the 18th century. The edition published in Amsterdam by Roger in 1710 purporting to
contain embellishments for the Adagio movements ‘as M. Corelli himself plays them’ (for an
illustration from the third edition of 1715, see ROGER, ESTIENNE), was controversial from the outset;
whether or not the ornamentation was supplied by Corelli (which seems likely), the publication
provides evidence of the performing practice expectations surrounding Italianate slow
movements in the period.
Corelli's op.5 provided a model for many other sonata collections. Francesco Geminiani's op.1
sonatas (London, 1716), though technically more advanced than Corelli's op.5, acknowledge a
debt to them in the opening sonata, which has a first movement alternating between short adagio
passages and brilliant allegro passage-work. Other works also take their points of departure from
one or another of Corelli's sonatas. Tartini's L'arte dell'arco (1758) is a set of 38 variations on the
Gavotte from op.5 no.10. The Dissertazioni … sopra l'opera quinta del Corelli by Francesca Maria
Veracini is a more back-handed compliment since, as J.W. Hill (The Life and Works of Francesco
Mária Veracini, Ann Arbor, 1979) demonstrated, it consists of reworkings of the op.5 sonatas to
enhance the compositional structures (tightening up the counterpoint etc.). Telemann's Sonate
metodiche (Hamburg, 1728 and 1732) provide models (rather different in approach from the
Roger edition) for playing Corelli-style Adagios, while the Sonates corellisantes (Hamburg, 1735)
represent a more general tribute.
The violinists who either learned from Corelli or acknowledged his influence were legion.
According to Roger North, ‘divers young gentlemen [travelled] into Italy, and after having learnt of
the best violin masters, particularly Corelli, returned with flourishing hands; and for their delicate
contour of graces in the slow parts, and the stoccata, and spirit in other kinds of movements, they
were admired and imitated’. Many Corelli disciples (both pupils and other violinists who were
perceived as wearing his mantle) made their careers outside Italy. Giovanni Steffano Carbonelli
(d 1752), Pietro Castrucci and his brother Prospero all, like Geminiani, ended up in London,
Michele Mascitti in Paris, and P.A. Locatelli in Amsterdam. Locatelli’s L'arte del violino, 12
concertos with written-out cadenzas and 24 virtuoso caprices for unaccompanied violin, have
earned him the title ‘the Paganini of the 18th century’. Corelli's pupil Giovanni Battista Somis
taught Jean-Marie Leclair l'aîné, Louis-Gabriel Guillemain and Gaetano Pugnani, who, in turn,
was Viotti's teacher. Geminiani's pupils included Matthew Dubourg, Michael Christian Festing and
Charles Avison. Many of these musicians seem to have regarded the ability to perform a Corelli
sonata as the touchstone of musical sensitivity. Hubert Le Blanc wrote that ‘one of the most
beautiful things to hear was an Adagio of Corelly played à la Geminiani’. Though Locatelli was
famous primarily for the strength of his playing, his rendering of the opening Adagio of Corelli op.5
no.4 was, according to Blainville, enough to make a canary fall from its perch in a swoon of
pleasure.
Unlike Corelli, Antonio Vivaldi died in reduced circumstances, and his music fell out of fashion
within a few decades. Yet he had been both prolific and popular. He had a formidable technique:
in 1715 Uffenbach heard him play a cadenza in which ‘he brought his fingers up to only a straw's
distance from the bridge, leaving no room for the bow – and that on all four strings with imitations
and incredible speed’. Two enduringly important Vivaldi collections were published in Amsterdam
during his lifetime: L'estro armonico in 1711 and Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione (the
collection which includes the ‘Four Seasons’ concertos) around 1725. The first is an orderly
presentation of four concertos each for four, two and one solo violins (some also with cello
obbligato). Forkel asserted that Bach studied these works as models, and Bach transcribed
several of them as harpsichord concertos or solo organ works. Quantz (in his autobiography of
1754–5) also said that ‘the magnificent ritornellos of Vivaldi served me as excellent models’.
Certainly Vivaldi established a three-movement template for the solo concerto which was to
become the norm during the 18th century. The ‘Four Seasons’ concertos prompted imitations
(G.A. Guido's Le quattro staggioni dell'anno op.3) and arrangements (Nicolas Chédeville's Le
printems ou Les saisons amusantes, 1739). They became a standard part of violinists’ repertory;
Michel Corrette (c1782) gave fingerings for some of the more difficult passages (this is not the
only work by Vivaldi to have received his attention in this way).
Giuseppe Tartini was a figure of immense importance. His early biographers insist that, after
hearing F.M. Veracini play in Venice (probably in 1716), Tartini went into seclusion for several
years in order to perfect his technique (which, as his more than 125 concertos reveal, was
prodigious). In 1721 he became first violinist at the basilica of S Antonio in Padua. In about 1728
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 17/50
he founded what became known as the ‘School of Nations’, attracting students from all over
Europe, including Pietro Nardini. Some of his teaching principles are encapsulated in the Traité
des agréments de la musique (Paris, 1771), which also survives in various manuscript versions
copied by his pupils and in the letter to Signora Maddelena Lombardini, published in Venice in
1770 and then in English (1771), French (1773) and German (1784) translations. Quantz, who
had heard him in Prague around 1723, recorded his impressions in his autobiography:
Tartini is a violinist of the first order; he produces very beautiful sounds. His fingers and bow obey
him equally well. He executes the greatest difficulties with ease. He does trills and double trills
with all his fingers perfectly and he plays in high positions a great deal. But his performance has
nothing moving about it; his taste is not noble and often it is absolutely contrary to good style.
Tartini's favourite and most illustrious pupil was Nardini, known particularly for the beauty of his
tone and his expressive performance of Adagio movements. Nardini, in turn, taught or influenced
many others who were to affect the development of violin performance and repertory: Thomas
Linley (ii), Antonio Lolli, Pollani (the teacher of Pierre Baillot), Bartolomeo Campagnoli (whose
violin method was influential) and Cambini (another author of a violin method). Nardini and Lolli
were both employed at the Stuttgart court in the 1760s; Lolli subsequently toured throughout
Europe.
Gaetano Pugnani was similarly influential. His playing was characterized by power and richness.
He is said to have adopted a straighter, longer bow and used thicker strings. Viotti, who came to
prominence at the end of a two-year European tour with his teacher, described himself as ‘pupil
of the famous Pugnani’.
(b) England.
In the first half of the 17th century, expert playing of the violin (as distinct from the viol) in England
seems largely to have been confined to the court. The major strides in the development of violin
technique in England seem to have been prompted by players from Europe. The best performers,
at least until the 1630s, were such French imports as Jacques Cordier (also known as Bocan)
and Stephen Nau (who was appointed composer for the violins, and effectively leader of the violin
ensemble, early in the reign of Charles I). Davis Mell, one of the violinists under Nau, was the
composer of twelve ‘suites’ (GB-Och Mus. 433) and various pieces in Playford miscellanies
(notably The Division Violin, 1684). These require good left-hand facility (though never extending
beyond 3rd position) and agile bowing for rapid division work. There was a new wave of French
fashion after the Restoration when Charles II (who had spent his formative years in France)
reconstituted the court violin band as an ensemble of 24 violins under the directorship of Louis
Grabu. Foreign influences were not exclusively French. About 1656 the German violinist Thomas
Baltzar came to England after the dissolution of Queen Christina's Swedish court, and about 15
years later the Italian Nicola Matteis (i) arrived. These two virtuosos revolutionized English
attitudes to violin playing. The diarist John Evelyn recorded that the English had considered such
players as Mell ‘as excellent in that profession as any were thought in Europe’ until Baltzar came
on to the scene. 18 years later, he described Matteis's virtuosity with a sense of wonder, saying
that he ‘seem'd to be so spiritato'd & plaied such ravishing things on a ground as astonished us
all’. A group of solo violin pieces by Baltzar (GB-Ob, Mus. Sch. F.573) require considerable facility
in chordal playing and string crossing. Matteis's four books of airs (1676 and 1685) demonstrate
a highly developed technique and a fiery imagination.
By the end of the century Italian violin composition had an enormous impact on English taste.
Purcell three times acknowledged the importance of Italian models for his own work: in the
prefaces to the Sonnata's of III Parts (1683) and Dioclesian (1691), and in the section on
composition he contributed to the 12th edition of Playford's An Introduction to the Skill of Music
(1694). In the 18th century London, as the largest and most cosmopolitan city in Europe, became
a mecca for foreign virtuosos, many of whom (Geminiani, F.M. Veracini, Felice Giardini and Viotti)
settled there at least for a time. Native English violinists seem not to have been able to hold their
own against this sort of competition. Had he not died in a boating accident at the age of 22,
Thomas Linley (ii) might have been an exception to this trend. Linley, an able composer, studied
with Nardini in Florence (and struck up a warm friendship with Mozart whom he met there).
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 18/50
(c) Germany and Austria.
German violin playing in the first half of the 17th century seems, on the basis of the surviving
repertory, to have been comparable to that in England. In fact, such English expatriates as
Thomas Simpson and William Brade had a significant influence in the first quarter of the century,
though their published works consisted essentially of non-virtuoso consort dance arrangements.
Brade knew Johann Schop (i) and taught Nicolaus Bleyer, whose variations on English Mars
(c1650) are among the earliest German pieces for violin and bass. It was the next generation of
Germans who, inspired by Italian violinists, emerged as virtuosos. The progression from
technically-modest consort repertory to extremely demanding soloistic showpieces can be traced
through the works of a succession of violinists employed at the court of the Elector of Saxony at
Dresden. J.W. Furchheim (in Dresden by 1651), J.J. Walther and J.P. von Westhoff (both there
from 1674), N.A. Strungk (from 1688) and J.G. Pisendel (from 1712) might well be considered a
‘Dresden school’. Of these, Walther, Westhoff and possibly Pisendel take their place alongside
J.H. Schmelzer and H.I.F. von Biber in the first rank of violinist-composers of the 17th century.
Schmelzer seems to have been playing at the Viennese court from around 1635, though he had to
wait until 1649 (the year in which Antonio Bertali was appointed Kapellmeister) for an official
appointment. In 1679 Schmelzer was himself promoted to Kapellmeister. He was the first nonItalian
to hold the post, and his Sonatae unarum fidium (1664) were the first published sonatas
for solo violin and continuo by a non-Italian. His music is extrovert and technically demanding. In
1660 Schmelzer was described by J.J. Müller as ‘the most famous and nearly most distinguished
violinist in all Europe’. Biber (1644–1704) may have studied with Schmelzer and was certainly
well aware of his achievements; the opening of Biber's sonata ‘La Pastorella’ is a transcription
using double stops of Schmelzer's trio sonata of the same name. A penchant for multiple stops
and chordal playing (evident in both the ‘Rosary’ or ‘Mystery’ Sonatas (c1676) and the Sonatae
violino solo of 1681) distinguish Biber's writing from Schmelzer's.
Walther seems to have taken a somewhat competitive attitude to Biber. His preface to Hortulus
chelicus (1688) claims that the collection is based on a sound orthodox technique rather than
ostentatious virtuoso tricks such as ‘squeaking on two or more strings falsely tuned ad nauseam'
– a barb clearly aimed at Biber's fondness for scordatura writing (see §(iii) (e) below). For all that,
Hortulus chelicus and the earlier Scherzi da violino solo (1676) provide a compendium of virtuoso
devices; they represent the technical summit of German violin playing at that time.
As a composer of violin works, J.S. Bach neglected the main genres of his age. The solo violin
concertos (BWV1041 and 1042) and the concerto for two violins (BWV1043) are in the Vivaldian
mould, though they far outstrip their models in musical content (especially in harmonic
complexity). But with the exception of that contained in the Musical Offering there are no authentic
trio sonatas involving violin, and there are just two continuo sonatas, dating from early in Bach's
career. He did, though, invent new genres of his own. The six sonatas for harpsichord and violin
(BWV1014–19) are the earliest such compositions, effectively trio sonatas in which the harpsichord
acts as both second violin and bass. There is a significant repertory of unaccompanied violin
music before Bach's (1720): by Thomas Baltzar (in GB-Ob Mus. Sch. 573), J.P. von Westhoff (a
suite for violin ‘sans basse’, 1683, and six partitas, 1696), Biber (Passacaglia, c1676) and J.G.
Pisendel (unaccompanied sonata, ?1716). But nothing approaches the Bach solo violin sonatas
and partitas (BWV1001–6) either for musical architecture or for a comprehensive exploration of the
technical and expressive capabilities of the violin.
Pisendel was a pivotal figure in the history of the violin in 18th-century Germany. A pupil of
Giuseppe Torelli (at Ansbach) in his youth, Pisendel travelled in the entourage of the Elector of
Saxony to both France and Italy where, in 1716, he took lessons from Vivaldi. His seven violin
concertos show his indebtedness to this composer. Pisendel was influential in what is
sometimes referred to as the Prussian school. Quantz paid tribute to his playing of Adagio
movements; it may well be Pisendel's practice which is codified in Quantz's systematic account
(Versuch, 1752) of how to decorate such movements. Pisendel taught Johann Gottlieb Graun,
who in turn taught Franz Benda, a prolific composer for the violin who was also famous for his
affecting performance of Adagios (some of his ornamentations survive).
The four great composers of the classical Viennese School all studied the violin. Joseph Haydn
did so at St Stephen's in Vienna during his childhood, and though he was to describe himself
later as ‘no conjuror on any instrument’, his writing for the violin shows a player's understanding.
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 19/50
W.A. Mozart doubtless began his instruction on the instrument with his father, whose Versuch
einer gründlichen Violinschule (1756) was the most comprehensive work on violin playing yet to
have been published. Mozart's abilities as a violinist were exceptional, even though after he
settled in Vienna in 1781 he chose to concentrate as a performer on the piano (he continued to
play the viola in informal chamber music gatherings). From 1789 to 1792 Beethoven was
employed as a viola player in the Bonn court orchestra; Schubert, during his years as a pupil at
the Imperial and Royal City College in Vienna, became leader of the first violins in Josef von
Spaun's student orchestra. All four wrote works for violin and orchestra. The last three (K216, K218
and K219) of the violin concertos Mozart wrote in Salzburg in 1775 give cause to wonder what
masterpieces might have ensued had he contributed to this genre during his Vienna years. The
Beethoven violin concerto (op.61, 1806), a work driven by musical rather than virtuoso
imperatives, has been a cornerstone of the repertory ever since Pierre Baillot and Joseph
Joachim rescued it from near oblivion in the mid-19th century. Perhaps the greatest contribution
of the Viennese composers to violin repertory is in chamber music. The string quarters of all four
are of exceptional importance. In his violin and piano sonatas Mozart transformed the
accompanied sonata into the duo sonata. This development was consolidated and extended in
the ten great sonatas by Beethoven, whose ‘Kreutzer’ sonata (op.47, 1803) establishes a new
register both technically and musically for the genre; Beethoven described it as being ‘written in a
very virtuoso style like a concerto’.
(d) France.
The link between dance and violin playing dominated the history of the instrument in 17th-century
France. French dancing masters, for whom violin playing was essentially an ancillary skill, were in
demand all over Europe and in England. The music they composed was simple, often little more
than an assemblage of stock melodic formulae subsequently scored for five-part string
ensemble. In this form, though, the music and their performances became the envy of Europe.
The Ballet de la délivrance de Renaud, performed at the French court in 1617, mentions 24
violins playing together (a number which may owe less to any musical rationale than to an
allusion to the courtly ensemble of 24 musicians surrounding the throne in Revelation v.8).
Exactly when this became a fixed ensemble (as distinct from a group assembled for a particular
occasion) is unclear but there seems no particular reason for specifying 1626, the date so often
given. By the time Lully came to prominence at the French court, the 24 Violons du Roi were an
established court orchestra; they remained an important institution into the 18th century, although
under Lully the élite ‘Petits Violons’ (c1656–c1664), otherwise known as ‘La Petite Bande’, soon
surpassed them.
The next generation began writing music which made virtuoso demands on performers.
Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre composed two sonatas for violin, bass viol and continuo (c1695)
which contain the first documented use of double stops in French violin music. In 1704 Michele
Mascitti, who had recently settled in Paris, published the first of nine collections of violin sonatas
and François Duval his first book of Sonates; in 1705 Jean-Féry Rebel published his Pièces de
violon avec la basse continue. Both Rebel and Duval were members of the court orchestra, but
both were influenced by Italian practices. Michel Corrette (1753) claimed that Rebel heard and
was inspired by the first Paris performance of Corelli's sonatas. He also asserted that these
works seemed too difficult at first for French violinists and that Duval and Baptiste, who studied
with Corelli in Rome, were among the first to master them.
In the next generation of violinists two figures stand out: Jean Baptiste Senaillé and Jean-Marie
Leclair l'aîné. Senaillé, who is thought to have studied with G.A. Piani, published five books of
violin sonatas between 1710 and 1727. Senaillé's music exploits a wide range of bowstrokes and
requires a well-developed left-hand technique (reaching 7th position on the fingerboard). In 1738
the Mercure credited him with the development of violin playing in France, claiming that his music
was so attractive that violinists were keen to master its technical difficulties. Senaillé taught other
important violinist-composers, notably Jacques Aubert and Louis-Gabriel Guillemain.
J.-M. Leclair l'aîné began as a promising dancer and violinist in Lyons. But after publishing his
op.1 violin sonatas in Paris in 1723 he went to Turin, where he studied with Giovanni Battista
Somis. He performed with Locatelli in Kassel in 1728 before returning to Paris where, for the next
eight years or so, he was a frequent performer at the Concert Spirituel. His sonatas are
demanding by any standards, ranging up to 8th position and requiring an agile left hand with such
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 20/50
devices as double trills in combination with a wide vocabulary of bowstrokes. His younger brother,
Jean-Marie Leclair le cadet, spent most of his career in his native Lyons, but his set of violin
sonatas, op.1 (1739) require a sophisticated technique.
Two other brothers associated with the coming-of-age of violin virtuosity in France were Louis and
François Francoeur, both members of the 24 Violons. Jean-Joseph Cassenéa de Mondonville
further extended the technical demands of the French violin sonata, especially in his sonatas for
violin and continuo (1733) and Les sons harmoniques (1738). His Pièces de clavecin en sonates
avec accompagnement de violon (1734) are among the earliest examples of the accompanied
sonata, and, at least from the violinist's point of view, the most musically satisfying.
While in the late 17th century and the early 18th French virtuoso violin playing and composition
were dependent on Italian teachers and Italian models, by the 1740s an independent French
violin school was thoroughly established. The key figures had been taught by their compatriots.
L'abbé le fils studied with J.-M. Leclair, and at the age of 14 made his debut at the Concert
Spirituel playing a Leclair duo with the 13-year-old Pierre Gaviniés. Gaviniés's Vingt-quatre
matinées (pieces for solo violin in all keys) indicate an advanced technique. He had a huge
influence on the next generation of violinists in France; he taught Marie-Alexandre Guénin, Abbé
Robineau (who went on to study with Lolli in Naples), Simon Leduc and Nicolas Capron.
In the last 20 years of the 18th century Paris could lay claim to being the violin capital of Europe;
the greatest makers worked there and the greatest performers gave concerts there. Most
importantly, in 1782 G.B. Viotti made a spectacularly successful début at the Concert Spirituel.
Viotti, who made Paris his base for ten years (until political developments forced him to leave for
England), had a profound influence. His preferences for the bows of François Tourte and the
violins of Stradivari made them the most sought-after. His playing was an inspiration for
Rodolphe Kreutzer, Pierre Baillot and Pierre Rode. These three great violinists were professors at
the Paris Conservatoire from its founding in 1795, and together in 1803 they produced the
Conservatoire's official Méthode de Violon, which provided the basis for Baillot's encyclopedic
L'art du violon (1834).
(iii) Technique and performing practice.
(a) Treatises.
Roger North wrote of techniques ‘which may be knowne but not described’. Some subtleties are
indescribable, and some, particularly in the 17th century, may have been kept as mysteries of the
trade. For all that, the most obvious sources of information on technique and performing practice
are treatises. A great deal of fascinating information is contained in two great encyclopedic works,
Praetorius's Syntagma musicum and Mersenne's Harmonie universelle (1636–7). With these
outstanding exceptions, however, most 17th-century treatises were written by generalists and
directed at amateur players, and confine themselves to rudimentary matters. This tradition of what
Boyden (1965), picking up on the title of a 1695 publication, called ‘self-instructors’ continued
throughout the first half of the 18th century.
Many tutors addressed to amateurs do little more than sketch the topography of the fingerboard
and provide a few simple tunes. Speer (1697) concluded his instructions for the violin with the
frustrating comment: ‘a true teacher will be sure to show his student what remains: how to hold
the violin properly, how to place it on the breast, how to manage the bow, and how to play trills,
mordents, slides and tremolos combined with other ornaments’. Where these writers did venture
into technical matters their advice may be suspect. Some, like Prinner (1677) and Berlin (1744),
are manifestly non-specialist since they were probably not string players and set out (like Speer)
to give instruction in a whole range of musical instruments. Such volumes are, however, not
entirely without interest. John Lenton's The Gentleman's Diversion, or the Violin Explained
(London, 1693), for example, manages – despite its quite explicit targeting of hobbyists – to give
us some tantalizing glimpses of the practices of advanced players in turn-of-the-century England.
Even such a publication as Robert Bremner's Compleat Tutor for the Violin (London, after 1761)
helps in an oblique way to fill out the picture. Addressed to beginners, its eight pages of
instruction contain almost nothing useful about violin technique. But it includes a charming
frontispiece of a violinist with portraits behind him of Corelli and Handel (an indicator of taste), a
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 21/50
revealing one-page dictionary of musical terms, and a fascinating advertisement for musical
accessories (e.g. ‘mutes or sardines’) sold by Bremner.
The picture changed markedly in the mid-18th century with an explosion of treatises written by real
violinists for those aspiring to be real violinists: Geminiani's The Art of Playing on the Violin
(London, 1751), Leopold Mozart's Violinschule (Augsburg, 1756), Herrando's Arte y puntual
explicación del modo de tocar el violín (Paris, 1756) and L'abbé le fils's Principes du violon
(Paris, 1761). Two other manuals should really be included in this group: Quantz's Versuch einer
Anweisung die Flöte traversiere zu spielen (Berlin, 1752), since it contains a great deal which is
specifically relevant to violin playing, and Tartini's Traité des agréments, published posthumously
in 1771 but circulating in manuscript for some years before that. Of the many later 18th-century
manuals, probably the most significant are G.S. Löhlein's Anweisung zum Violinspielen (1774),
the French publications of C.R. Brijon (1763), T.-J. Tarade (c1774) and Antoine Bailleux (1798),
and the first volume (on violin playing) of Francesco Galeazzi's Elementi teorico-pratici di musica
(1791).
All of these treatises must be approached with a sense of context (and hence of the limits of their
applicability). Quite apart from broad differences in stylistic orientation, performers obviously had
diverse ideas, then as now, on matters of technique and interpretation. Geminiani, the pupil of
Corelli, is often regarded as an exponent of an Italian violin tradition, but by 1751 he had become
fascinated with French music. The hybrid character of his style led John Potter to observe in 1762,
‘his taste is peculiar to himself’, and even his great admirer, Sir John Hawkins, doubted ‘whether
the talents of Geminiani were of such a kind as qualified him to give a direction to the national
taste’ (1776). Hence he should be regarded as a rather idiosyncratic guide to Baroque practice. It
is difficult even to establish a context for some volumes. Giuseppe Tartini’s precepts were
published in the Traité des agréments de la musique (Paris, 1771) shortly after his death, but it is
generally assumed that at least some of it must have been written before 1756 since Leopold
Mozart referred in his Violinschule (1756) to Tartini's remarks on the augmented-2nd trill, and
virtually plagiarized Tartini's notes on vibrato. It is not known when exactly this work was compiled
or how much of it was written by pupils; nor is it clear how to reconcile, for example, Tartini's
advice (in the letter to Signora Maddalena Lombardini) to ‘make yourself a perfect mistress in
every part of the bow’ with his puzzling injunction (in the ‘Rules for Bowing’) never to play near the
point or heel. As sources of information on performing practice, treatises must take their place
alongside other invaluable (but often also equivocal) forms of evidence such as paintings,
observers’ accounts of performances, records of payment for instruments and musical services –
and, most importantly, the music itself.
(b) Holding the violin.
Where exactly on the upper body the violin rested was not completely standardized until late in the
18th century. In the early Baroque era, violinists might hold their instruments almost as low as
their waists (as some traditional fiddlers still do). When Nicola Matteis arrived in England in the
1670s, observers were struck by the way he held the violin against ‘his short ribs’. Many players
preferred to support the violin against their chests just beneath the collar-bone. John Playford (i)
(1654), addressing amateurs, advocated this breast position, but so too did Geminiani writing
nearly a century later with much more accomplished players in mind. Even in the later 17th
century some chose to rest the violin on the collar-bone with the option of using their chins to
steady the instrument, particularly when shifting. Lenton (C1693) advocated resting the
instrument on the collar-bone but without chin pressure:
"I would have none get the habit of holding an Instrument under the Chin, so I
would have them avoid placing it as low as the Girdle, which is a mongrel sort of
way us'd by some in imitation of the Italian. … The best way of commanding the
Instrument will be to place it something higher than your Breast your fingers
round and firm in stopping."
Obviously, none of these positions can be regarded as standard. G.B. Rangoni's essay on
Nardini, Lolli and Pugnani published in 1790 argues that:
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 22/50
"Just as each person is differently built, it follows that the position of the
instrument shouldn't be the same for all; and that making anyone hold the violin
in a way contrary to their natural bearing (which is always related to the
constitution of their limbs) would introduce obstacles in a student's progress
and prevent the development of their talent."
As early as 1677, however, Prinner asserted that the violin should be held ‘so firmly with your chin
that there is no reason to hold it with the left hand – otherwise it would be impossible to play quick
passages which go high and then low or to play in tune’. Corrette (C1738) and Berlin (C1744)
both regarded chin support as essential when shifting (advice repeated by Bailleux in 1779). In
1756 Leopold Mozart offered violinists a choice between a chest-high hold (elegant, he thought,
but inconvenient for shifting) and an under-the-chin method (comfortable and efficient). In the
same year, Herrando stated simply that ‘The tailpiece must come under the chin, being held by it
there, turning the head slightly to the right’.
Various other methods in the second half of the 18th century describe the violin as being held on
the collar-bone without specifying whether or not to stabilize it with the chin. In 1761 L'abbé le fils
proposed that the chin should be on the G-string side of the instrument, but this practice was
apparently still not completely accepted by the end of the 18th century. In 1796 Francesco Galeazzi
attacked the idea of playing with the chin on the E-string side, and his vehemently defensive tone
makes it clear that this must still have been an issue; he claimed that it looked ridiculous,
necessitated unwieldy movements with the bow and numbed the left ear because of the proximity
of the instrument. The Paris Conservatoire Méthode of 1803 states quite unequivocally that ‘the
violin is placed on the collar-bone, held by the chin on the left-hand side of the tailpiece, and
inclined a little to the right’. By the late 18th century chin pressure on one side or the other must
have been standard; but this meant something quite different from modern practice. Bartolomeo
Campagnoli's treatise of 1824 stresses that the pressure exerted by the chin on the tailpiece
must be light and that the head should be held as upright as possible. The inventor of the chin
rest, Louis Spohr, listed among its advantages the fact that it makes it easier to hold the head
upright. He claimed in his Violinschule (1832) that in the ten years since he had invented it, the
chin rest had found favour with many violinists; but the Méthode de violon (1858) by the great
Belgian violinist Charles-Auguste de Bériot fails to acknowledge its existence.
With the exception of Herrando, all of these writers identified shifting as the principal reason for
applying pressure with the chin (see FINGERING, §II, 2). Yet it is obvious that many skilled violinists
who held the instrument beneath the collar-bone (and probably others who held it on the collarbone
but without chin support; for illustration see VERACINI, FRANCESCO MARIA) were capable of
playing virtuoso repertory requiring an advanced shifting technique. Even Prinner, the earliest and
most vehement advocate of chin-on playing, conceded (1677): ‘I have known virtuosos of repute
who irrespective of this put the violin only against the chest, thinking it looks nice and decorative’.
Pictorial evidence from the 17th and 18th centuries seems to reflect what must have been a
genuine diversity in ways of holding the violin. A number of paintings, in fact, depict several
violinists, each holding his instrument differently, playing in a single ensemble. For all that, the
vast majority of violinists depicted in the art of the period use holds in which the chin could not be
used to stabilize the instrument. Geminiani's instructions for shifting (described in FINGERING, §II,
2(I)) are predicated on such a hold and we can only assume that many virtuosos had mastered
such a technique (as, in fact, a good number of period instrument players did in the later 20th
century).
It may be that chin stabilization was disdained by 17th-century virtuosos but adopted by amateurs
as a stratagem that got them around the most perplexing technical problem: that of shifting. In the
course of the 18th century the situation reversed itself; by around 1800 professional players were
unanimous in resting the chin (however lightly) on the tailpiece, while chin-off methods (especially
ways of holding the violin lower than the collar-bone) were the preserve of tavern and traditional
fiddlers. (There is a parallel with the adoption of the end-pin on the cello, recognized as a
possibility by the early 18th century but spurned by advanced players for almost two centuries
thereafter.)
For discussion of bowing technique and other aspects of performing style on the violin in this
period, see BOW, §II; COL LEGNO; ORNAMENTS, §§5–9; PIZZICATO; SCORDATURA, §1; and VIBRATO.
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 23/50
David D. Boyden/Peter Walls
5. Since 1820.
(i) The instrument.
(a) The violin.
Most violins made before about 1800 have been modified to yield greater tonal power and
brilliance. The flat-model Stradivari flourished as concert instruments, while the highly arched,
smaller-toned Stainers and Amatis lost their former popularity. The main body of the violin
remained unaltered despite further attempts at ‘acoustical improvement’, ranging from the
construction of instruments from metals, glass, leather, plastics and ceramics to experiments
with various shapes, notably Félix Savart's trapezoidal violin with straight sides and straight slits
for soundholes (1817) and François Chanot's guitar-shaped model with small crescent
soundholes (also of 1817).
During the 1960s and 70s, Carleen Hutchins and her associates developed a ‘concert violin’, with
a longer, revamped body and larger f-holes, and a string octet, compromising mathematical,
acoustical and violin-making principles to produce instruments in different frequency ranges that
possess the dynamic power and timbre of the violin family (see NEW VIOLIN FAMILY). These
instruments range from the contrabass violin (body length 130 cm, tuned E′–A′–D′–G) to the small
treble (or ‘sopranino’) violin (tuned an octave above the normal violin).
Experiments with building electric instruments based on the violin family, often with solid bodies
and amplified usually by means of one or more sets of electromagnetic pickups or contact
microphones (see PICKUP), have continued since the 1920s (see ELECTRONIC INSTRUMENTS, §I, 2(I)
(C)). The kit-like Raad violin was developed in the late 1970s to dispense with the earlier primitive
arrangement of surface pickups and to cultivate a more sophisticated sound. By allowing the
instrument's signal to be amplified, modified or altered through changes in frequency response,
rapid changes in amplitude, harmonic alteration (of overtones), echo and reverberation effects,
and distortion, it has served a wide range of classical and popular musical styles.
(b) Makers.
The burgeoning concert activity and educational opportunities of the early 19th century increased
demand for instruments, especially for cheaper ‘factory fiddles’, mass-produced in France at
Mirecourt and in Germany at Mittenwald and Markneukirchen. Mirecourt is still a centre for
specialist craftsmen, having a violin-making school and a small factory which produces highquality
instruments at reasonable prices by implementing some mechanized processes. Similar
schools have been established in recent years in Britain (especially in London and Newark-onTrent),
the USA, Italy (Cremona), Switzerland (Brienz), Poland (Poznań) and many other countries.
Although there were some significant 19th-century Italian makers such as G.F. Pressenda (1777–
1854), Giuseppe Rocca (1807–65) and Gaetano Chiocchi (1814–81), the leadership in violin
making passed to the French, notably Nicolas Lupot (1758–1824), F.-L. Pique (1757–1822) and
Lupot's pupils C.-F. Gand (1787–1845) and S.-P. Bernardel (1802–70). Most influential was JEANBAPTISTE
VUILLAUME (1798–1875), who worked for François Chanot and Simon Lété in Paris
before establishing his own business in 1827. In 1855 he purchased Luigi Tarisio's collection of
fine Italian violins. His talented workforce copied these instruments, including the ‘Messiah’
Stradivari, producing many high-quality violins. Most of these bear Vuillaume's label and brand,
serial number and the date of manufacture. Among skilled craftsmen who worked for Vuillaume
were Paul Joseph Bailly (1844–1907), Honoré Derazey (1794–1883) and Hippolyte Silvestre
(1808–79).
J.F. and J.B. Cuypers, the sons of J.T. Cuypers (1724–1808), continued their father's work in The
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 24/50
Hague, but to a lesser standard. Central to the British violin market was the firm of W.E. Hill &
Sons, formally established in 1835, as well as the family businesses of J.T. Hart, the younger
Georges Chanot, Edward Withers and John Beare. Several skilled foreign luthiers also lived and
worked in Britain, among them the younger B.S. Fendt (1800–52), George Craske (1795–1888)
and J.F. Lott (1776–1853).
Leading 20th-century makers include C.G. Becker (1887–1975), Sergio Peresson (1913–91),
Dario D'Attili (b 1922), David Burgess (b 1953) and Luiz Bellini (b 1935) in the USA; Annibale
Fagnola (1866–1939), Giuseppe Fiorini (1861–1934), Cesare Candi (1869–1947), Fernando
Sacconi (1895–1973), Vittorio Bellarosa (1907–79), Francesco Bissolotti and Giovanni Battista
Morassi (b 1969) in Italy; Joachim Schade and Eugen Sprenger (1882–1953) in Germany; Pierre
Gaggini (b 1903), Etienne Vatelot (b 1925) and Frédéric Becker in France; the Portuguese Antonio
Capela (b 1932); and the Czechs Přemsyl Špidlen (b 1920), Vilém Kužel, and Tomáš and
Vladimír Pilař, as well as several fine Japanese craftsmen. In the postwar resurgence of violin
making in Britain the work of William Luff (1904–93), Thomas Earle Hesketh (1866–1945),
Geroge Wulme-Hudson (1862–1952), Arthur Richardson (1882–1965), Maurice Bouette (1922–
92), Wilfred Saunders (b 1927), Clifford Hoing (1903–89), Lawrence Cocker (1912–82), Roger
Hargrave (b 1948) and Gimpel Solomon (b 1934) is outstanding. The early music revival has
encouraged craftsmen such as Ronald Prentice (b 1932), Derick Sanderson (b 1932), Colin
Irving (b 1945), Rowland Ross and David Rubio (b 1934) to make reproduction instruments to
Baroque dimensions.
(c) Strings and accessories.
A report by François-Joseph Gossec presented to the Institut national, later published in Procèsverbaux
de l’Académie des beaux-arts, i (1937), 156–61, puts forward some of the perceived
disadvantages of gut stringing: the need to keep them moist; their tendency to unravel; their
sensitivity to variation in atmospheric temperature and the common incidence of knots. Yet
despite the increased preference for overspun D strings and these well-publicized disadvantages
of gut stringing, H. Welcker von Gontershausen strongly advocated all-gut stringing (Neu
eröffnetes Magazin musikalischer Tonwerkzeuge, Frankfurt, 1855). However, the combination of
plain gut E and A, high-twist gut D and a G with copper, silver-plated copper or silver round wire
close-wound on a gut core was the norm throughout the 19th century. The gut E was gradually
replaced by a more durable and responsive steel variety, and the metal adjuster for greater facility
in fine tuning, championed by the violinists Willy Burmester (1869–1933) and Anton Witek. Only a
few performers, most notably Fritz Kreisler, persevered with a gut E string as late as 1950. Flesch
(C1923) documents the use of an overspun A string, while the high-twist D was replaced by gut
with aluminium winding. By the mid-20th century, flat-ribbon and flat-ground round windings (with
interleaved plastic) were applied to roped steel and plastic as well as gut, for A, D and G strings;
the development of more flexible woven core led to the introduction of metal strings, which have
the advantages of longer wear, easier tuning with adjusters (usually on specially designed
tailpieces), minimal stretching, and precise moderation of thicknesses for true 5ths. However,
their perceived tonal inferiority and the additional pressures they place on the instrument have
encouraged a preference for metal-wound strings with a gut or nylon core. Early music specialists
employ gut strings almost exclusively; this revival of interest is prompting research into, and
attempts at reconstructing, the manufacturing techniques of the late Renaissance period and the
Baroque.
Mutes of various types and weight have been employed. The three-pronged clamp model
(sometimes two- or five-pronged) made from wood, metal, ivory or, latterly, bakelite remained
virtually unchallenged until the mid-19th century, when Vuillaume, J.F.V. Bellon and others
attempted (with little success) to introduce models which could be applied more quickly and
conveniently. In the 20th century, designs for mutes which are stored between the bridge and the
tailpiece, notably the ‘Tourte’, ‘Heifetz’ and ‘Roth-Sihon’ models, have gained preference (see
MUTE, §1).
The CHIN REST has become a standard accessory, ensuring the stability of the instrument and
increased left-hand mobility. Invented by Spohr in about 1820, it was originally of ebony and
placed directly over the tailpiece, not to the left side as later became customary. The chin rest only
gradually achieved general approbation but has come to be adopted by most violinists. It is
normally made from wood (usually ebony or rosewood) or vulcanite, and is available in numerous
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 25/50
forms and sizes.
Pierre Baillot (1834) was the first to recommend ‘a thick handkerchief or a kind of cushion’ for the
correct and comfortable support of the instrument. The production of shoulder rests has been a
growth industry since the 1950s, designs ranging from wooden models made in various sizes, to
pads affixed to metal frames which grip the instrument with feet covered with rubber protectors,
and to inflatable cushions. Late 20th-century pedagogical trends have largely discouraged their
use, due to their perceived adverse effect on tone-quality and their causing unwanted body
tensions for many violinists.
(d) The bow.
Apart from some minor 19th-century additions and unsuccessful attempts to improve the bow,
Tourte's standardized design has remained unsurpassed. The most significant of his French
successors worked in Paris or Mirecourt, notably Jacques Lafleur (1757–1833) and his son
Joseph René (1812–74), Jacob Eury (1765–1848), Etienne Pajeot (1791–1849), Nicolas Maire
(1800–78), Jean Dominique Adam (1795–1865) and his son Grand-Adam (1823–69), and
François Lupot (1775–1838); their bows are generally more heavily wooded and slightly shorter
than Tourte's. Lupot adopted a narrower outline for the head and probably added (c1820–30) the
metal underslide to prevent wear on the nut caused by friction with the stick.
Vuillaume trained and hired countless bowmakers (among them Dominique Peccatte, Joseph
Fonclause, Pierre Simon, J.P.M. Persoit and F.N. Voirin) in his workshops and disseminated the
best qualities of Tourte's work, publishing in 1856 a theory that the taper of Tourte's sticks
generally corresponded to a logarithmic curve. Among Vuillaume's inventions were: a tubular
steel bow, which was championed by C.-A. de Bériot and Alexandre Artôt, but generally lacked the
resiliency of its wooden counterpart, was deficient in balance, and kinked, dented or bent easily;
and the ‘self-hairing’ bow with fixed frog. His other experiments achieved more lasting
approbation, notably the round-edged frog or curved ferrule combined with the stepped bottom
plate for a good spread of hair at the heel, the indentation of the channel and track of the frog, and
the combination of rear and upper heel plates into one right-angled metal part.
Peccatte (1810–74), Joseph Henry (1823–70), Simon (1808–81) and Voirin (1833–85) also
challenged the supremacy of Tourte's legacy, striving for a lighter, more elegant product.
Particularly characteristic were the slimmer and less-square profile of the head and the different
camber, the progression of which was moved closer to the head for additional strength in the
stick. The balance was redressed by a reduction in the diameter of the lower end of the stick, with
the frog appropriately in proportion.
Outstanding among Voirin's successors were Louis and Claude Thomassin and Eugène Sartory.
The Thomassins were trained by Charles Bazin (1847–1915), himself an imitator of Voirin. Louis
later worked for Voirin and succeeded to his business (1885), while Claude worked for Gand &
Bernardel, Caressa and Caressa & Français in Paris, before opening his own workshop there
(1901). Sartory's predominantly round sticks are indebted to Voirin and A.J. Lamy but are
characterized by their smaller heads and greater strength and weight. Among other leading
makers of the fortified Voirin model were J.A. Vigneron, Victor and Jules Fétique and E.A. Ouchard
(1900–69).
French bowmaking declined during the two World Wars, but the products of André Chardon
(1867–1963), Louis Gillet (1891–1970), Jacques Audinot (b 1922), Jean-Paul Lauxerrois (b
1928), Jean-Jacques Millant (1928–98), B.G.L. Millant (b 1929) and André Richaume (1905–66),
most of whom returned to the style and hatchet head of Peccatte and Tourte, are well respected.
The Mirecourt bowmaking tradition was revived with the establishment of a school (1971–81)
under the direction of Bernard Ouchard (1925–79) and, later, Roger-François Lotte (b 1922).
Among its distinguished ‘graduates’ are Stéphane Tomachot, Jean Grunberger, Pascal
Lauxerrois, Benoît Rolland, Christophe Schaeffer, Martin Devillers, Sylvie Masson and Jean-Yves
Matter. Along with Didier Claudel, Masson and Matter are among France's principal makers of
reproduction pre-Tourte bows.
Bowmaking in 19th-century Britain was founded on the work of the Dodd and Tubbs families, who
favoured functional durability over artistic craftsmanship. John Dodd (1752–1839) experimented
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 26/50
with various weights, shapes of head, lengths and forms of stick and mountings on the nut, his
somewhat crude product approximating to the Cramer type, which, together with the bows of his
father Edward Dodd (1705–1810), most likely served as his model. Many of his bows are slightly
shorter and lighter than Tourte's, and his early examples lack a metal ferrule. William Tubbs
(1814–78) and his son James (1835–1921) retained the robust qualities of the Dodds but
softened the angularity of the earlier English style. William was the first significant maker to use
silver or gold (as opposed to ivory or ebony) facings for the head.
Samuel Allen (1848–c1905) was the chief inspiration behind the ‘Hill bow’. Preserving the robust
English tradition, this model was developed by makers in the workshops of W.E. Hill, notably W.C.
Retford (1875–1970), William Napier (1848–1932), Sydney Yeoman (1876–1948), Charles
Leggatt (1880–1917) and Frank Napier (1884–1969). Among other talented trainees in Hill's
workshops were Arthur Barnes (1888–1945), Edgar Bishop (1904–43), Albert Leeson (1903–46),
W.R. Retford (1899–1960), Berkeley Dyer (1855–1936), A.R. Bultitude (1908–90), Malcolm Taylor
(b 1933) and William Watson (b 1930). Garner Wilson (b 1930), Brian Alvey (b 1949), Michael
Taylor (b 1949), John Stagg (b 1954) and John Clutterbuck (b 1949) have become leading British
makers, while history reserves a niche for Lawrence Cocker's cane bows. Matthew Coltman (b
1955) and Brian Tunnicliffe (b 1934) are among the prominent British makers of reproduction preTourte
bows.
Germany became known during the 19th century for the mass-production of bows made from a
cheaper and harder substitute for Brazil wood, sometimes called ‘Braziletta’. There were few
specialist bowmakers of international repute, but the work of Nikolaus Kittel (1839–70), Ludwig
Bausch (1805–71), and the Knopf, Nürnberger, Pfretzschner and Weidhaas families, is well
respected. Siegfried Finkel (b 1927) continued the Weidhaas tradition in Switzerland and his son
Johannes (b 1947) worked in London and the USA. The roll of distinguished 20th-century
American bowmakers includes John Bolander jr, William Salchow (b 1926), José da Cunha (b
1955), John Lee (b 1953) and Charles Epsey (b 1946). Christophe Landon (b 1959) is renowned
for his reproduction pre-Tourte bows, as are the Netherlanders Luis-Emilio Rodriguez and
Gerhard Landwehr.
20th-century inventions include the highly arched Vega (or ‘Bach’) bow. Promoted in the 1950s by
Emil Telmányi and Albert Schweitzer to address the misconception that Bach's polyphonic violin
music should be sustained precisely as written, it enabled all four strings to be sounded
individually or in combination, its hair tension being controlled by a mechanical lever operated by
the thumb. It had no precedent in the Baroque and made little impression. With supplies of
pernambuco dwindling, bows of fibreglass, metal, graphite fibre and other materials have been
introduced, but without ousting the conventional pernambuco from its favoured position.
Traditionally, bowhair comes from the tails of white horses, but some players use black horsehair
or synthetic substitutes such as nylon, arguably to coarser tonal effect. Bronislaw Huberman
(1882–1947) made experiments with fine-gauge wire which also yielded mixed tonal results.
(ii) Repertory.
(a) The solo concerto after Beethoven.
The violin concerto developed in three main directions during the 19th century. Spohr,
Mendelssohn, Schumann, Bruch, Brahms and Saint-Saëns among others stressed traditional
musical values; Paganini, Bériot, Vieuxtemps, Wieniawski and Ernst followed the virtuoso path.
Some composers introduced a new type of ‘national’ concerto (Joachim, Konzert in ungarischer
Weise; Lalo, Symphonie espagnole and Concerto russe; Bruch, Schottische Fantasie; and works
by Dvořák and Tchaikovsky).
Spohr's 18 concertos are indebted to the French school in their lyrical, expressive slow
movements, dramatic qualities and bravura passage-work; but their structure, texture, thematic
integration and development demonstrate a Beethovenian symphonic breadth. Most
characteristic is his concerto no.7. No.8, the most popular of the 18, is subtitled ‘in modo di scena
cantante’. Its one continuous movement comprises an instrumental da capo aria framed by
dramatic recitative, with a virtuoso cabaletta-like finale. Spohr was both attracted and repelled by
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 27/50
Paganini, rejecting his performing ‘tricks’ at a time when violinists all over Europe wished to
acquire them. He now seems a bulwark against the trivialization of musical taste, a man of the
highest musical standards who salvaged the traditions of Corelli and Tartini and handed them
down to his pupil Ferndinand David and to Joachim.
David composed five violin concertos, but he is better known as adviser for (and the first
performer of) Mendelssohn's E minor Concerto op.64. More experimental in structure and
symphonic in scope than his D minor Concerto (1822), it is remarkable for the soloist's entrance
in the second bar, the central placement of the cadenza before the recapitulation, and the
transitional section, played by the bassoon, from the first movement into the Andante. The bridge
to the finale results in a through-composed design similar to that of Mendelssohn's two piano
concertos.
Mendelssohn's influence on succeeding generations was made more potent through the
achievements of his protégé (and David's pupil) Joseph Joachim, who became the greatest
violinist-interpreter of the second half of the 19th century, and to whom concertos and sonatas
were dedicated by Schumann, Bruch, Brahms, Dvořák and others. Schumann composed two
concertante works for Joachim in 1853: the Concerto in D minor and the Phantasie op.131.
Joachim's misgivings about the violin writing in the concerto along with its structural weaknesses,
uneven content and miscalculations of orchestration, account for its neglect until 1937, when
Schumann's great-niece Jelly d'Arányi gave its first performance. Joachim was also the catalyst
for Bruch's unconventionally structured Concerto in G minor. Its large-scale Prelude comprises
three principal thematic elements punctuated by solo recitatives and linked to an expressive
Adagio. The finale contrasts noble melodies with virtuoso figuration. Among his other music for
violin and orchestra, Bruch composed two more concertos, neither of which is often played today,
and the Schottische Fantasie (1880).
The greatest work inspired by Joachim was Brahms's concerto, which was conceived in
deliberate opposition to the virtuoso trend of the Romantic concerto. Hubert Foss described the
opening Allegro as ‘a song for the violin on a symphonic scale’. In the Adagio (substituted for the
two original central movements) the soloist largely extends and elaborates upon an expansive
oboe melody. Brahms sent Joachim a few sketches of the final rondo, which has a strong
Hungarian character, so that he could ‘prohibit the awkward passages right away’. Joachim
answered ‘It is all playable, some of it even violinistically original – but whether it will be enjoyable
to play in a hot concert hall is a different question’. Even after their joint first performance of the
work in 1879, Brahms urged his friend to make further changes in the violin part, but despite a
considerable correspondence the composer ultimately rejected as many suggestions as he
accepted. Hence the unusual difficulty of the solo part is due not to an ignorance of the instrument
but to broader musical factors. Brahms's Double Concerto for violin and cello, written for Joachim
and Robert Hausmann, demonstrates similar national characteristics in its finale; the first two
movements give little scope for virtuoso display.
Among Russian composers only Tchaikovsky seriously pursued the concerto genre. His concerto
outshines those of Anton Rubinstein (1857), Arensky (1891) and Conus (1896). Its opening
movement and trepak-like finale are technically challenging, but virtuosity is subservient to
musical effect. The central Canzonetta was originally published as ‘Méditation’ in Tchaikovsky's
Trois souvenirs d'un lieu cher for violin and piano. Despite a disastrous criticism by Hanslick after
the première in Vienna, the Tchaikovsky concerto has become a standard repertory piece. Of
lesser significance are the concertos of Franz Berwald, Dvořák, Saint-Saëns, Lalo, Karl Goldmark,
Richard Strauss, Chausson, Enescu and Busoni.
Paganini, whose playing became known to audiences outside Italy in 1828, was the inspiration
for virtuoso concertos by Bériot, Vieuxtemps, Wieniawski, Ernst, Bull and Lipiński. A gifted
melodist and a phenomenal technician, Paganini is believed to have written eight concertos, of
which only six have survived. Their opening movements reveal the influence of the Viotti school,
while their central slow movements are of simpler, aria-like construction with cadenzas; popular
melody generally infiltrates their finales.
At the turn of the century there was a consolidation of concerto traditions, and many of the more
radical composers deliberately eschewed the genre. In Scandinavia, the concertos of Sibelius,
Carl Nielsen, Valen, Larsson, Saeverud, Sallinen and Tuukkanen, and Saariaho's Graal théâtre
(1994) are most significant. Sibelius's rhapsodic opening movement, with its unusual tonal
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 28/50
relationships and a cadenza substituting for formal development, represents a reappraisal of the
traditional form.
Much early 20th-century Russian music was broadly national in spirit, but Glazunov's concerto
displays his affinity with Western European idioms, and Stravinsky's inspiration for his concerto
emanated largely from J.S. Bach. Although Stravinsky enlisted the help of Samuel Dushkin in
shaping the violin part, the violin writing is craggy and not very idiomatic, challenging the soloist to
find solutions to new technical problems. Prokofiev's two violin concertos display various
influences, ranging from the impressionistic opening movement of no.1 to the Russian rondo
finale of no.2. Kabalevsky's absorption of the Russian popular song tradition is exemplified in the
second movement of his concerto, while Khachaturian's concerto features Armenian folk material,
and Eshpay's two concertos reflect his interest in Mari folk music. Shostakovich's two concertos
represent distinct phases in his development. No.1, completed in 1948 but withheld by the
composer until 1955 because the political climate was thought to be unfavourable for a work of
such modernity, is a complex four-movement work with a passacaglia (including solo cadenza)
as its kernel. No.2 (1967), which was received with considerable approval, is a more intimate,
three-movement design with a prominent part for solo horn. Other Russian concertos of note
include those of Myaskovsky, Khrennikov, Karayev, Schnittke and Sil′vestrov (Widmung, 1990–91).
In Germany, Reger and Pfitzner perpetuated the Romantic tradition, while Hindemith's fourth
Kammermusik and Violin Concerto look back respectively on Bach's Brandenburg Concertos and
the 19th-century symphonic concerto. The concertos of Blacher and Fortner are similarly
retrospective, while those of Weill (for violin and wind orchestra), Zimmermann, Henze and H.K.
Gruber (Nebelsteinmusik, 1988) are more experimental. Henze’s Concerto no.1 dabbles with
serialism, while no.2 borders between concert music and Expressionist music theatre.
Schoenberg's op.36, which he said required a ‘six-fingered violinist’, extracts remarkable lyricism
from its fundamentally serialist language, as does Berg's memorial concerto for Manon Gropius.
Intended as a biographical portrait of the young woman, Berg’s work concludes with a moving
Adagio based on the choral Es ist genug in Bach's own harmonization.
German Romanticism gripped many Hungarian composers, notably Dohnányi, Hubay and
Weiner. Bartók's First Concerto adopts the two-movement structure (slow–fast) of a rhapsody, but
his Second, incorporating six variations on a ‘Magyar’ theme, represents the composer's mature
style. Ligeti’s five-movement concerto (1989–93) adopts a Bartókian symmetry, incorporating two
slow movements, the second of which is a passacaglia on a chromatic idea. Its first movement
also involves experiments with tunings, requiring one violin and one viola from the small body of
orchestral strings each to adopt a different scordatura tuning, and harmonics are employed to
striking effect.
Szymanowski's First Concerto (1916), which follows the programme of Miciński's poem A Night in
May, has an oriental flavour and gives the impression of an improvisation, while the more concise
no.2 incorporates Polish folk materials. Other major Polish contributors to the repertory include
Panufnik, Bacewicz, Penderecki and Lutosławski (Chain II).
In France, Milhaud, Martinon, Françaix, Jolivet and Dutilleux (L'arbre des songes, 1979–85) have
made significant contributions. Italy is represented chiefly by the neo-classical works of Respighi,
Casella, Rieti, Pizzetti and Bucchi; however, composers such as Riccardo Nielsen, Malipiero,
Donatoni, Peragallo, Maderna, and Aldo Clementi turned with varying strictness to 12-note
technique.
In the USA composers cultivated a range of styles, from Austro-German dodecaphony (Krenek,
Ross Lee Finney), Expressionism (Sessions) and neo-classicism (Piston) to neo-romanticism
(Barber, Bloch, Korngold, Menotti) and home-cultivated jazz and spirituals (Gruenberg, Harris).
Significant works have been written by Ben Weber, William Schuman, Peter Mennin, Benjamin
Lees, William Bergsma, George Rochberg and Elliott Carter. More experimental have been
Diamond, Lou Harrison (for violin, percussion and orchestra), Kirchner (violin, cello, ten wind
instruments and percussion), Wuorinen (amplified violin), Schuller, Glass and John Adams. In
Latin America, Allende, Chávez, Mignone and Ginastera represent their respective national styles;
the microtonal experiments of Carrillo are also noteworthy.
Elgar's is in the vanguard of 20th-century British violin concertos; as with those of Delius, Walton
and Britten, its unity is achieved by thematic cross-reference and recall. The works of Harty,
Vaughan Williams, Bax, Moeran, Gerhard, Rawsthorne, Hamilton, Leighton, Bliss, McCabe,
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 29/50
Rubbra, Berkeley, Goehr, Wood, Blake, Richard Rodney Bennett, Stevenson, Maxwell Davies,
Holloway, Patterson, Heath, Casken and Maw demonstrate the wealth and diversity of the British
concerto repertory. Heath's Alone at the Frontier is a concerto for electric violin and orchestra in
which the solo part is entirely improvised.
Other notable contributions to the literature include those of Henk Badings (four concertos; two
double concertos for two violins, one double concerto for violin and viola), Arthur Benjamin,
Martinů (two concertos; two double concertos), Skalkottas, Saburo Moroi, Rodrigo, Frank Martin,
Michio Mamiya (two concertos), Akira Miyoshi, Malcolm Williamson, Don Banks, Toshi Ichiyanagi
(Circulation Scenery, 1983), Maki Ishii (three concertos, including Lost Sounds, 1978), Takemitsu
(Far Calls, Coming Far!, 1980) and Joji Yuasa.
(b) Sonata.
Between the violin sonatas of Beethoven, Schubert's three compact sonatas (‘sonatinas’) of 1816
and Schumann's two sonatas of 1851, Germany produced only minor works by Spohr, Weber and
Mendelssohn. Schumann's op.121, which incorporates variations on the chorale melody Gelobt
seist du Jesu Christ, is more ambitious than his op.105, in which the melancholy opening melody
is recalled in the coda of the toccata-like finale. Schumann's Third Sonata evolved from a
collaboration with Albert Dietrich and Brahms in honour of Joachim and based on Joachim's
motto, ‘F.A.E.’ (‘frei aber einsam’). Schumann originally contributed the second and fourth
movements, but later composed two further movements to replace those of his collaborators.
Brahms discarded four sonata attempts before composing his op.78 in G major; much of its
thematic material was inspired by his songs Regenlied and Nachklang (op.59 nos.3 and 4). His
Second Sonata op.100 is more concise, its central movement serving as both slow movement
and scherzo, while op.108 in D minor is of broader design, comprising four movements of
symphonic proportions.
Other German works in the genre include Raff's five sonatas, and sonatas by Richard Strauss
and Busoni. Busoni's Second Sonata makes extensive use of thematic cross-reference and
concludes with variations on a chorale melody. Strauss's work, conceived in orchestral terms,
incorporates numerous quotations, notably from Beethoven's ‘Pathétique’ Sonata, Wagner's
Tristan and Schubert's Erlkönig. Schubert’s three sonatas, published posthumously as
‘sonatinas’, are compact, fully developed sonatas; the first comprises three movements, but the
others are four-movement structures (the third movement being a minuet). His Duo in A (1817)
lacks the varied experimentation of the sonatinas but is broader in scope and more mature.
Lalo and Alkan apart, French composers showed little interest in the sonata until the
establishment, after the 1870–71 war with Prussia, of the Société Nationale de Musique and
various private societies devoted to chamber music performance. Fauré's two sonatas contrast in
style and expression, the second being texturally less opulent and musically more concise,
employing cyclical treatment of its initial motive. Of Saint-Saëns's two published sonatas, the first
features thematic cross-reference, while the second is more polyphonic. The sonatas of Franck
and Lekeu also exploit the cyclical principle. Franck's, which utilizes four main recurrent themes,
is outstanding for its melodic inspiration and thematic integration.
Apart from the works of Pixis, Fibich and Novák, the Czech lands are represented only by Dvořák's
sonata and sonatina (1893). The sonata’s finale is perhaps most indicative of its Czech origins,
while the sonatina blends the native music of the Americas with Dvořák's Czech heritage.
Grieg's three sonatas represent the main periods of his stylistic development: the first naive and
rich in models; the second nationalistic; and the third more dramatic and cosmopolitan. Sinding's
Sonate im alten Stil op.99 (1909) is essentially a suite in five short movements; his three other
sonatas are broadly conceived three-movement works which intermingle the influences of
Wagner, Liszt and Strauss with nationalistic traits. Danish interest in the genre is represented
chiefly by Gade and Nielsen. Grieg's voice is predominant in Sibelius's modest sonata and
sonatine.
Like much early 20th-century French chamber music, d'Indy's cyclical, four-movement sonata
op.59 suffers from a somewhat stultifying intellectual approach. D'Indy's dogmatic instruction is
reflected in the first of Roussel's two sonatas, while the works of Koechlin, Milhaud, Tailleferre,
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 30/50
Françaix (Sonatine) and Poulenc are of lesser significance. Debussy's sonata combines his
impressionistic vocabulary with a rediscovered classicism and some jazz influences. Ravel's
second sonata (1923–7) also incorporates jazz elements, especially in the central ‘Blues’, as well
as bitonality.
Foremost among Russian sonatas in the early 20th century were Stravinsky's Duo concertant
(1931–2), written in collaboration with Dushkin, and Prokofiev's two works, the second of which is
an arrangement, made with the help of David Oistrakh, of his Flute Sonata. Works by Gnesin,
Aram Khachaturian, Myaskovsky, Karen Khachaturian, Medtner, Rakov, Ustvol′skaya, Golubev,
Shebalin and Shostakovich are also noteworthy, along with Slonimsky's response to the
microtonal inflections of Russian peasant vocal style. Schnittke wrote two sonatas, the first of
which he described as ‘a tonal world with atonal means’ including citations from popular music
and Shostakovich's Second Piano Trio.
Reger's admiration of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms is reflected in most of his seven full-scale
sonatas, and in his two Kleine Sonaten op.103b. His influence is also evident in the first two of
Hindemith's four sonatas for violin and piano. Korngold (op.6), Toch (opp.23, 44), Krenek,
Rathaus (opp.14, 43), Blacher, Fortner, Henze, Zimmermann, Stockhausen (Sonatine) and Klebe
also made significant contributions, as did the Austrian Gottfried von Einem.
Czech national elements were perpetuated by Nedbal (op.9), Janáček and Martinů (five sonatas).
Janáček's work has motivic affinities with his opera Kát'a Kabanová, most stemming from the
germ announced in the opening violin ‘improvisation’. Hába's early sonata is atypical of his
mature style. German influence permeates the sonatas of the Hungarians Dohnányi and Weiner.
Effects suggestive of cimbalom and gamelan feature in Bartók's First Sonata, but, apart from the
driving dance rhythms of the finale, this is among his least folk-orientated works. The more
compact, restrained Second Sonata is a continuous two-movement structure, its rondo-like
second movement adopting variation procedures and including several melodic references to its
predecessor.
Foremost among the ‘Young Poland’ group of composers was Szymanowski, whose Romantic
sonata has close affinities with Franck's. Górecki's Sonatina takes after Bartók, and Bacewicz's
five sonatas are in neo-Baroque style. Skalkottas's four sonatinas and two sonatas and Enescu's
three sonatas constitute the core of their violin output. Enescu's Third Sonata, composed ‘dans le
caractère populaire roumain’, is the most individual, including parlando-rubato style and other folk
influences; the violin part occasionally incorporates quarter-tones and gypsy-style music.
Enescu's contemporaries Lazăr, Andricu, Drăgoi and Jora were also strongly influenced by
Romanian folk idioms in their sonatas, while Constantinescu and Dumitrescu adapted folk
material to contemporary international musical trends.
Each of Ives's four surviving sonatas incorporates hymns, popular tunes or dance melodies, the
Fourth Sonata (Children's Day at the Camp Meeting) is based entirely on hymn tunes. Antheil's
Second Sonata includes much percussive violin writing, as well as a part for tenor and bass
drums. Bloch, Moore, Thomson, Piston, Harris and Copland (two sonatas) also made their mark,
along with Quincy Porter (two sonatas), Finney (three sonatas, Duo), Sessions, Kirchner (Duo,
Sonata concertante), Robert Ward, Lees (two sonatas), Samuel Adler (four sonatas), Robert
Palmer, Mennin (Sonata concertante) and Bernard Rogers. More progressive were the works of
Weber (two Sonatas), Diamond (two sonatas), Cowell, Riegger (op.39), Wuorinen (Duo) and
Carter (Duo).
Works by 20th-century British composers range from Elgar's passionate Sonata to Bridge's
dramatic, through-composed Second Sonata and the rhapsodic, lyrical works of Delius (three
sonatas) and Ireland (two sonatas). Moeran's and Vaughan Williams's sonatas are inflected by
English folk idioms, whether directly through melodic quotation or indirectly in phrasing, rhythm
and tonality. Walton's Sonata bows towards serialism in its second movement, while Seiber's is a
true serial piece and Rawsthorne's experiments with bitonality. Bax (four sonatas), Howells
(opp.18, 26, 38), Rubbra (three sonatas), Lennox Berkeley (opp.1, 17), Reizenstein, Robin Orr
(two sonatas), Fricker (opp.12, 94), Arnold Cooke (no.2 in A), Malcolm Arnold (opp.15, 43),
Mathias (two sonatas), Hoddinott (op.63, op.73 no.1, op.78 no.1, op.89), Richard Rodney Bennett
and Robert Simpson also contributed to the resurgence of the genre in Britain. Maxwell Davies's
Sonatina for violin and cimbalom is an interesting novelty.
Honegger's two sonatas lean towards French idioms, while Martin's First Sonata, influenced by
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 31/50
Franck, contrasts with his more progressive and cosmopolitan Second Sonata. German influence
is paramount in the sonatas of Conrad Beck (two sonatas), Burkhard (opp.45, 78) and Schoeck
(Albumblatt, two sonatas). Sjögren (opp.19, 24, 32, 47, 61), Stenhammar (op.19) and Rosenberg
(two sonatas) are among the principal Swedish sonata composers; Vagn Holmboe (opp.2a, 16,
89) succeeded Nielsen as the leading Danish contributor. Turina's Sonata espagnola and
Rodrigo's Sonata pimpanteare the most notable Spanish contributions. In Latin America the most
significant works were written by Guarnieri (six sonatas), Villa-Lobos (four), Uribe Holguín (five)
and Ficher (three). Pizzetti, Respighi and Malipiero have been among the most prominent Italians.
Notable among Australians are Sutherland, John Hart (opp.7, 42, 142), Arthur Benjamin and Don
Banks. In Japan, Kishio Harao and Akira Miyoshi have written important works.
(c) Unaccompanied violin music.
19th-century composers showed little interest in writing for unaccompanied violin. Apart from
various concert études, only Romberg's three Etudes ou sonates op.32, Jansa's Sonate brillante,
Bull's Quartet for solo violin (1834), David's Suite and the numerous caprices and variations of
Paganini are noteworthy. One of Paganini's principal successors in the 20th century was Ysaÿe,
who composed imaginative variations on Paganini's 24th Caprice and six sonatas op.27, each
written in the style of a celebrated violinist (Szigeti, Thibaud, Enescu, Kreisler, Crickboom and
Quiroga). Kreisler composed his Recitative and Scherzo Caprice op.6 in homage to Ysaÿe.
Reger's 11 sonatas (op.42, op.91) and numerous short works in neo-Baroque style were imitated
by Hindemith in his two sonatas op.31 and by Jarnach. Notable serialist composers who have
written for unaccompanied violin include Hauer (seven Stücke), Klebe (opp.8, 20), Jelinek
(Sonata) and Gruber (Vier Stücke op.11).
Bartók's sonata, commissioned by Yehudi Menuhin, represents the culmination of the genre in
the 20th century. Its opening sonata-form Tempo di ciacona is followed by a free fugue and a
muted ternary-form movement, its reprise subjected to variation procedures. The mute remains in
place for the beginning of the final Presto, originally written in quarter-tones, and is only removed
for the contrasting parlando Hungarian melody.
Notable Russian contributions include works by Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Shebalin, Kabalevsky and
Schnittke; the latter's charismatic Prelude in Memoriam Dmitry Shostakovich for violin and tape
employs the musical monograms D–S–C–H and B–A–C–H. In the USA significant works have
been written by Bloch, Krenek, Thomson, Persichetti, Sessions, Finney, Diamond, Perle (two
sonatas), Harrison, Wuorinen, Rochberg, Lazarof, Carter and Kirchner. In a more experimental
vein, Reich's Violin Phase was inspired by the sounds produced by multiples of the same
instrument, either ‘live’ or in a mixed ‘live-recorded’ context. Cage's collaboration with Paul
Zukofsky (Freeman Etudes, 1977–80, 1989–90) proved especially progressive, involving
unconventional notation, microtonal inflections and specific performance directions. Glass's
Strung out for amplified violin exposes his minimalist principles in their purest form. Xenakis's
Mikka and Mikka ‘S’ are outstanding, the latter venturing into the language of quarter-tones.
Nono's fruitful collaboration with Gidon Kremer produced La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura
for violin and tape. Other works of note include those by Petrassi, Maderna, the ninth of Berio's
Sequenze, von Einem, Henze (Sonata, Etude philharmonique, Serenade) and Gehlhaar.
(d) Other solo repertory.
The works of lasting significance from the 19th-century French and Belgian schools emanated
from Berlioz (Rêverie et caprice), Saint-Saëns (Introduction et rondo capriccioso op.28;
Havanaise op.83), Bériot (Scène de ballet op.100), Vieuxtemps (Fantasia appassionata and
Ballade et polonaise) and Chausson (Poème op.25). Schubert's Rondo D438, Konzertstück D345
and Polonaise D580, all for violin and orchestra, are more idiomatic than the Rondo D895 and
Fantasie D934 for violin and piano. Sinding's Légende op.46 and Romanze op.100, and
Svendsen's Romance op.26, are representative of the Scandinavian input, while British
composers such as Mackenzie, Coleridge-Taylor and Delius also made worthy contributions.
The air varié was a popular vehicle for virtuoso display in the 19th century; notable examples were
written by Bériot, Vieuxtemps, Ernst, Wieniawski, Boehm, Hubay, Lipiński, Georg Hellmesberger,
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 32/50
Pixis, Bull and Joachim. Most of Paganini's works are based on operatic themes, ‘national’ tunes,
dances or other popular melodies. Many fantasias on operatic themes were written by pairs of
eminent virtuosos such as Lafont and Moscheles, Vieuxtemps and Anton Rubinstein, and Ernst
and George Osborne. Rimsky-Korsakov's Fantasia on Two Russian Themes and Nápravník's
Fantasia on Russian Themes are somewhat awkward attempts at ‘nationalizing’ the concerto.
Szymanowski's Three Paganini Caprices op.40, Messiaen's Thème et variations and Milstein's
Paganiniana (1954) are rare examples of independent 20th-century variation sets for violin.
The various editions and transcriptions of 17th- and 18th-century masterworks by violinists such
as David (Die Hohe Schule des Violinspiels, Leipzig, 1867–72) were a valuable source of
repertory in the 19th century, as were the exemplary arrangements by Joachim of Brahms's
Hungarian Dances, the Schubert-Wilhelmj Ave Maria, the Schubert-Ernst Erlkönig, the BachWilhelmj
Air on the G String, the Wagner-Wilhelmj Träume, Wilhelmj's selections from Wagner's
operas and his concert paraphrases on Siegfried and Parsifal. By the end of the century, however,
abuse of the genre resulted in a glut of inferior arrangements and even falsifications. Although
some of Kreisler's ‘transcriptions’ were genuine, many were pseudo-Classical pieces that he
wrote himself and ascribed falsely to composers such as Pugnani. Similarly, Dushkin arranged
pieces for his own concert use, some of which were actually original compositions attributed to
earlier composers. His collaboration with Stravinsky spawned a transcription from Petrouchka
(entitled Danse russe) as well as more substantial works in other genres. Auer and Heifetz were
also renowned for their transcriptions.
The composition of a large number of short genre pieces (with orchestra or piano) widened the
repertory during the 19th century. Outstanding examples include Wieniawski's Légende op.17
and Scherzo-tarantelle op.16; Hubay's Concertstück op.20; Dvořák's Romance op.11 and Four
Romantic Pieces op.75; Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen op.20; Bruch's Romance op.42 and Swedish
Dances op.63; Paganini's Moto perpetuo op.11; Bazzini's La ronde des lutins; Suk's Four Pieces
op.17 and Fantasy op.24; and Tchaikovsky's Trois souvenirs d'un lieu cher op.42. Some
composers promoted their patriotic feelings, notably Lipiński (Rondos alla polacca), Wieniawski
(Polonaises opp.4 and 21 and Mazurkas opp.12 and 19), Hubay (Szenen aus der Czarda opp.12,
30 and 60, and Hejre Kati op.32), Smetana (Fantaisie sur un air bohémien and Z domoviny),
Dvořák (Mazurek op.49) and Sarasate (Spanish Dances opp.21–3, 26, 27, 29).
In the 20th century the virtuoso concert rhapsodies by Ravel (Tzigane) and Bartók were
particularly significant. Tzigane comprises a long, unaccompanied violin cadenza, full of heavy
Magyar accents, expressive portamenti and rubati, and a traditional series of gypsy
improvisations. Bartók's two rhapsodies follow the Hungarian csárdás plan of an introductory
lassu followed by a more vigorous friss; the First Rhapsody includes a cimbalom in its
orchestration. Nationalistic in another sense, Vaughan Williams's The Lark Ascending (1921)
incorporates a folk-like episode in its evocative canvas inspired by Meredith's verse, while James
MacMillan's After the Tryst was suggested by William Soutar's love poem, and his Kiss on Wood
(1993) is a meditation on the Good Friday versicle ‘Ecce lignum crucis’. Among other notable
British works are Britten's dazzling Reveille and his larger-scale Suite op.6, a series of fantasies
on a four-note motto; Gerhard's complex Gemini and Holloway's Romanza. Rihm's Lichtzwang is
a moving piece of modern impressionism, while his Time-Chant exploits the violin's higher
registers.
The vast repertory of 20th-century ‘character’ pieces includes Sibelius's Humoresques opp.87
and 89, Prokofiev's Cinq mélodies op.35 bis, Reger's neo-Baroque Suite im alten Stil, Schnittke's
neo-classical Suite in the Old Style, Schoenberg's Phantasy op.47, Bloch's Baal Shem, and
Webern's Four Pieces op.7. Copland's Two Pieces are jazz-inspired; other progressive American
impulses came via the experiments of Cowell (Homage to Iran; Hymn and Fuguing Tune no.16)
and Cage (Nocturne, Six Melodies, Cheap Imitation). Szymanowski's works include the three
Mythes op.30, inspired by Greek mythology, and Notturno e tarantella. Penderecki's Capriccioand
Three Miniatures, Baird's Espressioni varianti and Lutosławski's microtonal Partita and Subito
represent the more prominent later Polish contributions.
(iii) Technique and performing practice.
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 33/50
(a) Historical outline.
Giovanni Battista Viotti, the ‘father of modern violin playing’, was trained in the classical Italian
tradition by Pugnani and first went to Paris in 1782. There he taught or inspired the founders of the
French violin school (Baillot, Rode and Kreutzer), who exerted an immense influence on violin
playing in the 19th century. Viotti's cantabile was based on Tartini's maxim ‘per ben suonare,
bisogna ben cantare’. He was also one of the first to appreciate the specific beauties of the
lowest (G) string, including its high positions; and his concertos unite the singing style, the
brilliance of passage-work, and such specialized bowings as the ‘Viotti’ stroke (see §(f) below). In
addition, Viotti persuaded the Parisians of the beauty of the Stradivari violins; and he may have
assisted Tourte in creating the modern bow.
The Italian school reached its final flowering in Nicolò Paganini, who aroused audiences to
hysterical enthusiasm by the technical perfection and verve of his playing and by the intense
projection of his hypnotic personality. His music uses practically all known technical devices in a
grand, virtuoso and frequently novel manner, including glissandos, harmonics of all types,
pizzicatos of both right and left hand, octave trills, the solo on the G string alone (a speciality of
his), multiple stops, extensions and contractions of the hand, and the scordatura. Staccato,
ricochet and mixed bowings of all sorts were also among his stock in trade.
Paganini and Pierre Baillot set the technical standard of the early 19th century. A school of violin
playing similar to the Paris school was founded in Brussels in 1843 by Charles-Auguste de
Bériot, who, like the Parisians, was heavily indebted to Viotti. Among Bériot's illustrious
successors were Hubert Léonard, Henry Vieuxtemps, Henryk Wieniawski and Eugène Ysaÿe; the
latter's bowing facility, energetic personality and golden tone became legendary.
The Germans were generally more conservative in technique and more serious in musical
attitude than the French, whose virtues included great technical facility, elegance and imagination.
Spohr was astonished by the accuracy of intonation of Paganini and Ole Bull but was
unimpressed with such virtuoso devices as their elaborate harmonics, intense vibrato, bounding
bow and the air played solely on the G string. Spohr's pupil Ferdinand David made an important
contribution to the violin repertory in his Hohe Schule des Violinspiels (1867–72). Among David's
pupils was Joseph Joachim, whose editions of such works as the Mendelssohn and Beethoven
violin concertos reveal much about the technique of the 19th century and the implied ideas of
expression (including the deliberate portamento slide in shifting).
Sharp distinctions in schools of instruction became less clear in the course of the 19th century.
There was a strong tendency to mix the teachings of various schools, to amalgamate their styles
and, under outstanding teachers, to select the best from all methods. The old Italian training was
grafted on to the newer precepts in France and Belgium, and the results, in turn, to various
teachings in Vienna, Prague, Leipzig and Budapest. Leopold Auer upheld the Franco-Belgian
tradition at the St Petersburg Conservatory, while in Prague, Kiev and Vienna Otakar Ševčík
revolutionized and systematized basic technique, especially of the left hand, by a system of
numberless exercises based on the semitone system (rather than the diatonic system, as
previously). Among the most distinguished teachers to appear in the course of the 20th century
were Carl Flesch, Max Rostal, Lucien Capet, Pyotr Stolyarsky, Louis Persinger and Ivan Galamian.
(b) Sources of information and pedagogical literature.
Baillot's L'art du violon (Paris, 1834), perhaps the most influential violin treatise of the 19th century
(see fig.18 below), easily surpasses in detail Baillot, Rode and Kreutzer's Méthode de violon
(Paris, 1803), previously adopted by the Paris Conservatoire. Baillot's influence was perpetuated
by his pupils François-Antoine Habeneck (Méthode, Paris, c1835, incorporating extracts from
Viotti's unfinished treatise), Delphin Alard (Ecole du violon, Paris, 1844) and Charles Dancla
(Méthode élémentaire, Paris, 1855). The celebrated études of Rode, Kreutzer and Gaviniés
helped to consolidate the teachings of the French violin school. The principal contributions of the
Belgian school are Bériot's Méthode de violon (Paris, 1858) and Léonard's Méthode (Paris,
1877).
Karl Guhr's Über Paganinis Kunst die Violine zu spielen (Mainz, 1831) focusses on specific
aspects of Paganini's performing style, while Spohr's Violinschule (Vienna, 1832) and David's
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 34/50
Violinschule (Leipzig, 1863) are more comprehensive. The important three-volume Violinschule
(Berlin, 1902–5) of Joachim appears to have been written largely by Joachim's pupil Andreas
Moser.
Flesch attributed the development of technique and pedagogy in the late 19th century principally to
Dont, Schradieck, Sauret and Ševčík, although the works of Kayser and Courvoisier are also
noteworthy. Flesch's Kunst des Violin-Spiels (Berlin, 1923–8) is a synthesis of the techniques and
artistic priorities of the principal schools of violin teaching in the 19th and early 20th centuries. His
Urstudien (1911) also contributed to the systematic development of left-hand technique, and his
Hohe Schule des Fingersatzes auf der Geige (first published in Italian, Milan, 1960) significantly
loosened traditional concepts of fingering.
Other notable 20th-century pedagogical literature includes Capet's Technique supérieure de
l'archet (Paris, 1916), Auer's Violin Playing as I Teach it (New York, 1921), Demetrius Dounis's
Künstlertechnik (Vienna, 1921), Elma and Erich Doflein's Geigenschulwerk (Mainz, 1931),
Galamian's Principles of Violin Playing and Teaching (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1962) and various
works by Menuhin and Bronstein. Kato Havas and Paul Rolland have focussed on developing
relaxation, control and coordination. The ‘Suzuki method’ has revolutionized violin teaching in
some areas, allowing pupils to develop artistic potential simultaneously with technical skills (see
SUZUKI, SHIN'ICHI). However, most 20th-century sources are based on traditional methods; few
account for the extended harmonic language, diversity of styles and the resultant technical and
rhythmic demands of much contemporary music. Exceptions include Galamian and Neumann's
Contemporary Violin Technique (New York, 1966) and Zukofsky's All-Interval Scale Book (New
York, 1977), which are essentially modern approaches to scales and arpeggios, and study books
by Hindemith, Adia Ghertzovici and Elizabeth Green.
(c) Posture and manner of holding the violin.
Not until the early 19th century was there general agreement on the optimum posture and manner
of holding the violin. A ‘noble’ and relaxed position was recommended, with head upright, feet
normally in line but slightly apart, and body-weight distributed slightly towards the left side. The
seated position preserved the erect trunk but required the right leg to be turned inward slightly to
avoid ‘fouling’ the bow. 20th-century attitudes have generally been more flexible, emphasizing
comfort and ease while prohibiting exaggerated body movement; but Flesch (1923) stressed the
importance of feet placement, recommending a ‘rectangular’ leg position in which the feet are
close together; an ‘acutangular’ position in which the feet are separated, with either right or left
foot advanced and the body-weight on the rear foot; and his favoured ‘spread-leg’ position.
Although Spohr's chin rest was originally positioned directly over the tailpiece, a chin-braced grip
on the left of the tailpiece gained universal approval by the mid-19th century, affording firm support
for the instrument and allowing it to be held horizontally at shoulder height and directly in front of
the player at almost 90 degrees. Optimum freedom of left-hand movement and bow management
was thus achieved; some violinists employed a pad to increase security and comfort and avoid
raising the left shoulder. The right arm adopted a position closer to the player's side than formerly,
requiring the violin to be inclined more to the right for optimum bowing facility on the lowest string.
Baillot (1834) prescribed an angle of 45 degrees, Spohr (1832) 25 to 30 degrees. Flesch, Suzuki
and most 20th-century teachers recommend that the violin be held parallel to the floor.
(d) Fingering and shifting.
The ‘Geminiani grip’ (ex.1) remained the most common guide to correct elbow, hand, wrist and
finger placement (in 1st position) until well into the 20th century. The hand and fingers generally
formed a curve to enable the top joints of the fingers to stop the strings from the same height.
With the chin-braced violin hold, shifting proved less precarious, the left hand was able to move
more as a unit than before, and a closer relationship developed between shifting and phrasing.
Baillot (1834) acknowledged this interrelationship, demonstrating Kreutzer's frequent shifts for
brilliance of effect and Rode's more uniform tonal objectives, incorporating ports de voix. Baillot's
discussion of ports de voix and expressive fingering provides clues to the mechanics of shifting.
Anticipatory notes (unsounded) indicate the method of shifting, the stopped finger sliding
forwards (or backwards) in order to be substituted by another finger. Spohr (1832) endorsed this,
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 35/50
especially for rapid shifts involving leaps from a low to a high position in slurred bowing without
glissando (ex.2), and illustrated a fast shift in which the highest note is a harmonic (ex.3). A
sliding effect is clearly intended in another Spohr example (ex.4), and Habeneck (c1835) and
Baillot (1834) allowed the tasteful introduction of portamento, especially in slow movements and
in sustained melodies when a passage ascends or descends by step. Bériot (1858) used signs
to indicate three types of port de voix: vif, doux and traîné.
Ex.1 The ‘Geminiani grip’
Ex.2 Adagio from Spohr, Violin Concerto no.10 in A op.62, 2nd movement
Ex.3 From Rode, Violin Concerto no.7, 2nd movement, quoted in Spohr, Violinschule, p.209
Ex.4 Allegro from Spohr, Violinschule, no.45 (6th position), bar 58
Exploitation of portamento as an ‘emotional connection of two tones’ (commonly in slurred
bowing and with upward shifts) to articulate melodic shape and emphasize structurally important
notes became so prevalent in the late 19th century that succeeding generations reacted strongly
against the false accents it created, its slow execution and its use for convenience in shifting
rather than expressive purpose. Flesch (1923) distinguished three portamento types: a
straightforward one-finger slide; the ‘B-portamento’, in which the beginning finger slides to an
intermediary note; and the ‘L-portamento’, in which the last finger slides from an intermediary
note (ex.5). The first two types were commonly employed in the early 20th century, but the Lportamento
was rarely used until the 1930s. Broadly speaking, the execution of portamento
became faster, less frequent and less prominent as the century progressed.
Ex.5 (a) One-finger slide (b) ‘B-portamento’ (c) ‘L-portamento’
In shifting, the odd-numbered positions began to be emphasized, and an increased use of
semitone shifts facilitated achievement of the prevalent legato ideal. The higher positions were
exploited more frequently for expressive reasons, particularly of sonority and uniformity of timbre.
The fingered-octave technique, first discussed by Baillot (1834), gradually gained favour for its
greater clarity and accuracy, and less frequent displacements of the hand. Geminiani's fingering
for chromatic scales, largely ignored by his contemporaries and successors, achieved more
positive recognition in the 20th century when re-introduced by Flesch (1923), due to its greater
evenness, articulation and clarity. However, the diversity of systems used in 20th-century methods
and studies confirms that fingering is a matter for individual decision rather than textbook
regulation.
Ex.6 (a) From Baillot, L’art du violon (Paris, 1834); (b) From Geminiani, The art of playing on the violin (London,
1751)
Many 19th-century violinists opted for a more advanced thumb-position to achieve greater mobility
and facility in extensions, sometimes avoiding formal shifts between positions. Some of
Paganini's fingerings, for example, anticipate the flexible left-hand usage of 20th-century violin
technique, in which contractions, extensions and ‘creeping fingerings’ liberate the hand from its
customary position-sense and the traditional diatonic framework. In 20th-century music this was
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 36/50
demanded by increased chromaticism, whole-tone, microtone and other scale patterns, and nonconsonant
double and multiple stopping. The increased use of glissandos (by, for example,
Xenakis: Pithoprakta, 1956; Syrmos, 1959; and Aroura, 1971) and Feldman's experiments with
intonation systems are also significant (e.g. Violin Concerto, 1979; For John Cage, 1982; Piano,
Violin, Viola, Cello, 1987). The general application to violin fingering of Cage's concept of a
‘gamut’ of sounds, in which a specific string is assigned for a specific pitch (e.g. Six Melodies for
Violin and Keyboard, 1950), has revealed new possibilities of structural and timbral organization.
(e) Vibrato.
Up to the early 20th century vibrato was employed sparingly as an expressive ornament linked
with the inflections of the bow. It served to articulate melodic shape and assist in cantabile playing
and was employed particularly on sustained or final notes in a phrase, at a speed and intensity
appropriate to the music's dynamic, tempo and character.
Spohr (1832) described four kinds of vibrato: fast, for sharply accentuated notes; slow, for
sustained notes in impassioned melodies; accelerating, for crescendos; and decelerating, for
decrescendos. Like Baillot (1834), he emphasized that deviation from the note should be scarcely
perceptible. Baillot expanded the vibrato concept to include three types of ‘undulated sounds’: lefthand
vibrato; a wavering effect caused by variation of pressure on the bowstick; and a
combination of the two. He recommended that notes should be begun and terminated without
vibrato to achieve accuracy of intonation and provided examples of Viotti's vibrato usage, some of
which link the device with the ‘swell’ effect.
Joachim (1902–5) and Auer (1921), among others, recommended selective use of vibrato;
Ysaÿe's vibrato, though more perceptible, was restricted to long notes. Flesch (1923) attributed
the reintroduction of continuous vibrato (previously practised in the second half of the 18th century;
see VIBRATO, §3) to Kreisler, though it should probably be accredited to Lambert Massart,
Kreisler's teacher. By the late 1920s vibrato was considered more a constituent of a pleasing tone
than an embellishment. Most theorists advocated a combination of finger, hand and arm
movements for optimum vibrato production, but Rolland also included the shoulder.
Several 20th-century composers prescribed extreme applications of vibrato, even reversing
traditional usages by demanding intense, fast vibrato in soft passages, or a slow, wobbly vibrato
in loud passages; others employed the ornamental vibrato-glissando in which the finger slides
up and down the string, creating a siren-like sound (e.g. Penderecki, String Quartet no.1). By
contrast, the senza vibrato indication has been used increasingly for contrast or special effect.
(f) Special effects.
Universal acceptance of harmonics was slow to materialize, but interest was eventually aroused
by virtuosos such as Jakob Scheller and Paganini. Paganini introduced the technique of artificial
harmonics (see HARMONICS, §3) in double stopping, and, by using harmonics, extended the range
of the G string to at least three octaves. Chromatic slides, single trills, trills in double stopping,
double trills, all in harmonics, and some pseudo-harmonic effects were incorporated into his
vocabulary.
The use of the index finger for pizzicato was customary in the 19th century, but the right-hand
thumb was occasionally employed, the instrument sometimes being held guitar-fashion for
sonorous arpeggiation of chords or for soft passages. Berlioz (1843) recommended the second
finger for most pizzicatos but suggested using the thumb and first three fingers in appropriate
rapid passages. Left-hand pizzicato was employed by Paganini and later composers such as
Bartók and Penderecki, sometimes in combination with right-hand pizzicato or simultaneously
with bowed notes (e.g. Bartók's Contrasts). Paganini's Introduction and Variations on Paisiello's
‘Nel cor più non mi sento’, for example, employs left-hand pizzicato in accompanying, melodic
and decorative roles, and the 15th variation of his Carnaval de Venise involves pizzicato for both
left and right hands. Sculthorpe also employs left-hand pizzicato extensively (e.g. in Requiem).
Pizzicato techniques demanded by composers in the 20th century included the prescription of
various pizzicato locations (e.g. mid-point of the string, at or behind the bridge, or either side of the
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 37/50
stopping finger) or specific plucking agents (e.g. with the nail or the fleshy pad of the finger),
requiring strings to be stopped with the fingernail for pizzicato, perpendicular strumming and
oblique strumming of chords, or specifying pizzicato with alternating fingers (e.g. Crumb, Four
Nocturnes). A ‘scooping’ technique was developed to obtain mellow, resonant pizzicatos in single
and double stopping. Other effects involved ‘flicking’ the string with the nail, pizzicato glissando
using the finger or peg (Crumb), pizzicato tremolo (Bartók), ‘snap’ pizzicatos (introduced by Biber
but popularized by Bartók), pizzicato natural harmonics (Crumb) and pizzicato with vibrato in
varying degrees.
Scordatura gradually lost popularity during the 19th century, although it never became obsolete;
Mazas, Spohr, Paganini, Bériot, Prume, Winter, Baillot, Bartók, Mahler, Scelsi and Ligeti are
among those who have employed it. Ligeti's Ramifications (1968–9) for 12 solo strings, which
requires half the ensemble to be tuned a quarter-tone higher than normal pitch, reflects 20thcentury
interest in microtones, initiated by Julián Carrillo's experimental ‘sonido 13’ system (of
equal-tempered quarter-tones) of the 1890s. Among others who experimented with microtonal
effects for expressive purposes or as an integral compositional device were Ives (Quarter-tone
Chorale op.36), Bartók (Sonata, 1944), Hába, Vïshnegradsky, Penderecki, Cage, Boulez, Husa,
Szymanowski, Takemitsu and Crumb.
Sculthorpe and other 20th-century composers have prescribed unconventional violin sounds,
including tapping on various parts of the instrument or on the strings with the fingers or with a
wood, metal, glass or plastic beater. Others have exploited sounds extraneous to the violin, using
percussion, sounds such as floor stamping or finger snapping, or vocal sounds in combination
with violin playing. Pre-recorded tape has further expanded the range of texture and effect, notably
in Reich's Violin Phase.
Robin Stowell
6. Jazz and blues.
(i) Jazz.
The earliest use of the violin in a jazz-related context was as a solo instrument in the ragtime
orchestras of the early 20th century. Most orchestral arrangements of ragtime included parts for
one or two violins, which were of equal melodic and structural importance to that of the clarinet or
trumpet, but gradually the violin became subservient to the brass and woodwind instruments in
the ensemble. A recording such as A.J. Piron’s Lou’siana Swing (1924, OK) provides a late
example of the violin being employed as a full and equal member of the front line. Territory bands
often included a violin in their instrumentation; most notably Stuff Smith developed an innovative
horn-like approach and experimented with acoustic and electric amplification while with Trent in
the late 1920s. Eddie South first rose to prominence in the 1920s in Chicago as musical director
of Jimmy Wade’s orchestra. Multi-instrumentalist Juice Wilson, by all accounts an accomplished
violinist, worked with South in Freddie Keppard’s band and later recorded with Noble Sissle in
London in 1929 before drifting into obscurity. Other early multi-instrumental pioneers were Darnell
Howard and Edgar Sampson. Howard first recorded as a member of a three-violin section with
W.C. Handy’s Orchestra of Memphis in 1917 and later as a soloist with Earl Hines. Some big
bands of the mid-1920s incorporated violin sections, the principal example being that of Paul
Whiteman, where the section was led by Matty Malneck.
Gradually the violin reasserted its position as a solo instrument, particularly owing to the work of
four musicians – Joe Venuti, Eddie South, STEPHANE GRAPPELLI and Stuff Smith. Venuti
established his reputation through his duet recordings with the guitarist Eddie Lang in the mid-
1920s. Similarly, Grappelli formed an association with the guitarist Django Reinhardt in the
Quintette du Hot Club de France. Smith played an important role from the mid-1930s as a leader
and risk-taking soloist in small swing groups. South, a classically trained swing musician with a
fine technique, was influenced by gypsy music (he recorded with Reinhardt and Grappelli).
Other significant violinists of the swing era were Svend Asmussen, Ray Perry and the rhapsodic
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 38/50
Ray Nance. Nance’s best work was as a member of Duke Ellington’s orchestra. During the
1940s Perry became a transitional figure between the harmonic invention of Smith and the new
bop style. But despite the influence exerted by Smith on the bop trumpet virtuoso Dizzy Gillespie,
bop violin lacked solid representation on record until the work of Dick Wetmore and Harry
Lookofsky in the 1950s. Lookofsky, who had played in the NBC Symphony Orchestra under
Toscanini for 12 years, recorded brilliant bop in which his solos, as well as his multitrack section
work, bear all the hallmarks of convincing improvisation but were executed almost entirely from
written arrangements. Inspired by Smith, the early explorations of the Frenchman JEAN-LUC PONTY
and the Polish Michał Urbaniak in the 1960s were in a bop vein, before they turned to free jazz and
fusion. The classically trained Hungarian, Elek Bacsik, recorded virtuoso bop improvisations in
the USA in the 1970s. In the 1980s Max Roach developed convincing bop arrangements for
strings in his double quartet.
Different approaches to violin technique have led to a wide range of styles among jazz players:
some have drawn on the techniques of classical and traditional music players, while others have
invented original methods. Grappelli retained the tonal aesthetic of the classical violin tradition,
and his precise, light sensitivity was itself an influence on virtuoso concert violinists such as Paul
Zukofsky. Venuti and Asmussen made more use of the instrument’s harmonic resources and
employed the bow in a percussive manner. Smith revolutionized the vocabulary of jazz violinists
with his wild, biting attack, wide vibrato, unorthodox fingerings and expressive intonation. Venuti
devised a novel bowing technique that involved wrapping the bow hair around all four strings, and
holding the stick of the bow beneath the body of the violin. Perry introduced the idea of singing in
unison with the violin, a device quickly taken up by several double bass players and by
Asmussen.
The acoustical and musical demands of many types of modern jazz and rock have led to
modifications in the way in which the violin is played. Jazz musicians have always found that the
relatively quiet sound of the instrument has placed them at a disadvantage. Following early
acoustic-amplified designs, such as the STROH VIOLIN, Smith from the late 1930s and Perry in the
40s favoured conventionally built, electrically amplified violins, while Ginger Smock recorded in
1946 on a solid-bodied electric instrument. Since the 1980s the majority of jazz violinists have
relied on amplification, making use of a microphone, a transducer or a purpose-built instrument
with integral transducer. Electronic enhancement devices are also common.
Players have shown great stylistic flexibility in jazz. Zbigniew Seifert, for example, executed fast
trills as a substitute for vibrato, while Lookofsky and Ponty virtually abandoned vibrato altogether.
Others, such as Michael White and John Blake, have experimented with non-Western tonal
systems or have made extensive use of sliding pitch. Early free-jazz violinists, often classically
trained, such as Michel Sampson and Ramsey Ameen, took their cue mainly from the
explorations of Ornette Coleman. Coleman is self-taught on the instrument, and performs in an
intense, percussive manner using unorthodox fingerings and bowing positions, but uses the
violin mainly for colouristic purposes. Two violinists who came to the fore in the immediate wake
of Coleman are Leroy Jenkins and Billy Bang, both of whom consistently play outside the equaltempered
system. Bang traces his lineage to Stuff Smith while Jenkins traces his primarily to
Eddie South, bringing to the idiom a virtuoso classical technique. Coleman and Jenkins have
both written concert pieces for string quartets.
A resurgence of interest in the improvisational possibilities of the violin has spawned a number of
exceptionally gifted violinists who have successfully combined free playing and organized
structures in individualistic ways during the 1990s. India Cooke displays lyrical sensitivity and
imaginative strength, free from cliché. Mat Maneri’s enquiring work is by turns pointillistic and
arching, on a variety of acoustic and electric instruments. Jim Nolet displays wonderfully
controlled dynamics and stylistic shifts. Examples of more conventional approaches to
improvisation are heard in the playing of Mark Feldman and Regina Carter. Feldman epitomizes
what might be termed a flash-classical approach. Malcolm Goldstein is an example of a radical
improvising violinist who has recorded works by such composers as Ornette Coleman and John
Cage.
Efforts by non-improvising concert violinists to record as soloists with jazz musicians have almost
invariably resulted in violinistic compromise and musical failure. An exception might be made for
the Suite for Violin and Jazz Trio released in 1977 by Pinchas Zukerman with the composer
Claude Bolling. Similarly, the French, classically trained jazz violinist Michel Warlop recorded
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 39/50
some of his best playing in his ambitious Swing Concerto (1942), parts of which are Gershwininspired.
A number of 1940s recordings by Heifetz of pieces by Gershwin and others are
successful examples of jazz-tinged performances by a virtuoso concert violinist.
Some musicians have sought ways of expanding the range of the violin downwards. Ponty,
Urbaniak and Bacsik played the violectra, an electric instrument sounding an octave below the
conventional violin. Ponty and Urbaniak later took up a five-string electric violin (the lowest string
on which was tuned to c) and Urbaniak performs on a six-string model (with the addition of a
string tuned to F). The acoustic tenor violin, pitched an octave below the violin, has been used in
jazz to best effect by Lookofsky. Leroy Jenkins and Jim Nolet double on viola. Lakshminarayana
Shankar plays a ten-string violin with two necks, an instrument that he designed himself.
(ii) Blues.
During the 1920s and 30s many African-American violinists, either self-taught or legitimately
trained, played obbligatos on Chicago and New York recordings by blues and vaudeville vocalists
and, to a lesser extent on intrumentals. These included Leon Abbey, Clarence Black, Leroy Parker
with Mamie Smith, Leroy Pickett, Robert Robbins with Bessie Smith, and Cordy Williams. The
remarkable classically trained Angelina Rivera was the first black woman to record in the genre,
with Josephine Baker in Paris in 1926. This tradition differed somewhat from the raw blues of
string band fiddlers such as Eddie Anthony or Will Batts. Nevertheless, urban as well as country
styles may trace their origins to 19th-century plantation fiddling, often on home-made instruments.
Several guitarists, most notably Lonnie Johnson, doubled on violin, as did the electric blues
guitarist Clarence Gatemouth Brown from the 1940s. Later electric blues violinists included Papa
John Creach and Don Sugarcane Harris, both of whom enjoyed second careers in rock bands.
Remo [Ray] Biondi, who doubled on swing guitar and violin, is a rare example of a white American
violinist who recorded raw, authentic blues with black Americans, such as Roosevelt Sykes and
Jimmy Reed, in the 1950s. Like many jazz musicians, the urbane Eddie South recorded a number
of blues instrumentals, while Stuff Smith frequently turned his attention to the form to incisive
effect. From the 1970s, Leroy Jenkins, in particular, has used the structure and emotion of the
blues in several of his improvisations and compositions.
Anthony Barnett, Matt Glaser, Alyn Shipton
Bibliography
A Catalogues, bibliographies, general histories. B Makers, aspects of violin making. C Treatises,
methods. D Commentaries on technique. E To 1600. F After 1600. G Performers. H Jazz and Blues.
A: Catalogues, bibliographies, general histories
MoserGV
F. Regli: Storia del violino in Piemonte (Turin, 1863)
W. Sandys and S.A. Forster: The History of the Violin (London,1864)
J.W. von Wasielew ski: Die Violine und ihre Meister (Leipzig, 1869, rev. 8/1927/R by W. von Wasielew ski)
A.K. Tottmann: Führer durch den Violinunterricht (Leipzig, 1873, rev. 4/1935 as Führer durch die
Violinliterature)
G. Hart: The Violin and its Music (London, 1881/R)
E. Heron-Allen: De fidiculis bibliographia: being an Attempt towards a Bibliography of the Violin and all
Other Instruments played with a Bow in Ancient and Modern Times (London, 1890–94/R)
A. Pougin: Le violon, les violonistes et la musique du violon du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1924)
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 40/50
A. Bachmann: An Encyclopedia of the Violin, ed. A.E. Wier (New York and London, 1925/R)
A. Bonaventura: Storia del violino, dei violinisti e della musica per violino (Milan, 1925, 2/1933)
F. von Reuter: Führer durch die Solo-Violinmusik (Berlin, 1926)
M. Pincherle: Feuillets d'histoire du violon (Paris, 1927)
G.R. Hayes: Musical Instruments and their Music, 1500–1750, ii: The Viols, and Other Bowed Instrumetns
(London, 1930/R)
E. van der Straeten: The History of the Violin (London, 1933/R)
F. Farga: Geigen und Geiger (Zürich, 1940, rev. 7/1983 by K.F. Mages, W. Wendel and U. Dühlberg; Eng.
trans., 1950, rev. 2/1969)
S. Babitz: The Violin: Views and Reviews (Urbana, IL, 1955, 3/1980)
E. Leipp: Le violon: histoire, esthétique, facture et acoustique (Paris, 1965; Eng. trans., 1969)
B.G. Seagrave and J. Berman: The A.S.T.A. Dictionary of Bowing Terms for String Instruments (Urbana, IL,
1968)
Violinspiel und Violinmusik: Graz 1972
W. Kolneder: Das Buch der Violine: Bau, Geschichte, Spiel, Pädagogik, Komposition (Zürich, 1972, 3/1984;
Eng. trans., 1998)
A. Loft: Violin and Keyboard, the Duo Repertoire (New York, 1973/R)
E. Melkus: Die Violine: eine Einführung in die Geschichte der Violine und des Violinspiels (Berne, 1973/R,
enlarged 2/1997)
P. Marcan: Music for Solo Violin Unaccompanied: a Performer's Guide to the Published Literature of the
Seventeenth, Eighteenth, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (High Wycombe, 1983)
B.R. Toskey: Concertos for Violin and Viola: a Comprehensive Encylopedia (Seattle, 1983)
D. Gill, ed.: The Book of the Violin (Oxford and New York, 1984)
K. Osse: Violine: Klangwerkzeug und Kunstgegenstand: ein Leitfaden für Spieler und Liebhaber von
Streichinstrumenten (Wiesbaden, 1985)
H. Edlund: Music for Solo Violin Unaccompanied: a Catalogue of Published and Unpublished Works from
the Seventeenth Century to 1989 (High Wycombe, 1989)
R. Stow ell, ed.: The Cambridge Companion to the Violin (Cambridge, 1992)
R. Daw es, ed.: The Violin Book (London, 1999)
B: Makers, aspects of violin making
LütgendorffGL
MGG2 (’Streichinstrumentenbau’, §A; T. Drescher)
VannesE
A. Bagatella: Regole per la costruzione de' violini, viole, violoncelli e violoni (Padua, 1786/R; Eng. trans.,
1995)
G.A. Marchi: Il manoscritto liutario di G.A. Marchi (Bologna, 1786); ed. and Eng. trans. as The Manuscript
on Violin Making/Il manoscritto liutario, ed. R. Regazzi (Bologna, 1986)
F.-J. Fétis: Antoine Stradivari, luthier célèbre (Paris, 1856; Eng. trans., 1864/R)
E. Heron-Allen: Violin-Making, as it was and is (London, 1884, 2/1885/R)
W.H. , A.F. and A.E. Hill: Antonio Stradivari: his Life and Work (1644-1737) (London, 1902, 2/1909)
G. Fry: The Varnishes of the Italian Violin-Makers (London, 1904)
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 41/50
W.M. Morris: British Violin-Makers, Classical and Modern (London, 1904, 2/1920 as British Violin-Makers)
O. Möckel: Die Kunst des Geigenbaues (Leipzig, 1930, 6/1984)
F. Hamma: Meisterwerke italienischer Geigenbaukunst (Stuttgart, 1931, rev. 2/1964 by W. Hamma as
Meister italienischer Geigenbaukunst, w ith Eng. trans., rev. 4/1976)
W.H. , A.F. and A.E. Hill: The Violin Makers of the Guarneri Family (London, 1931)
C. Bonetti: La genealogia degli Amati liutai e il primato della scuola liutistica cremonese (Cremona, 1938;
Eng. trans., 1989, as A Genealogy of the Amati Family of Violin Makers, 1500–1740)
J.H. Fairfield: Known Violin Makers (New York, 1942, 5/1988)
E.N. Doring: How Many Strads? Our Heritage from the Master (Chicago, 1945, 2/1998)
J. Michelman: Violin Varnish: a Plausible Re-Creation of the Varnish Used by the Italian Violin Makers
between the Years 1550 and 1750 (Cincinnati, 1946)
J.W. Reiss: Polskie skrzypce i polscy skrzypkowie [Polish violins and violinists] (Warsaw , 1946)
F. Hamma: Meister deutscher Geigenbaukunst (Stuttgart, 1948, 2/1961; Eng. trans., 1961 as German Violin
Makers)
E.N. Doring: The Guadagnini Family of Violin Makers (Chicago, 1949)
W. Senn: Jakob Stainer, der Geigenmacher zu Absam: die Lebengeschichte nach urkundlichen Quellen
(Innsbruck, 1951)
K. Jalovec: Italští houslaři/Italian Violin Makers (Prague, 1952; edn in Eng. only, 1957, 2/1964)
R. and M. Millant: Manuel pratique de lutherie (Paris, 1952/R)
Z. Szulc: Słownik lutników polskich [Dictionary of Polish violin-makers] (Poznań, 1953)
W. Henley and C. Woodcock: Universal Dictionary of Violin and Bow Makers (Brighton, 1959–69)
K. Jalovec: Čeští houslaři [Czech violinists] (Prague, 1959; Eng. trans., 1959)
C.M. Hutchins: ‘The Physics of Violins’, Scientific American, ccvii/5 (1962), 78–84, 87–93
J. Backus: The Acoustical Foundations of Music (New York, 1969, 2/1977)
S. Milliot: Documents inédits sur les luthiers parisiens du XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1970)
H.K. Goodkind: Violin Iconography of Antonio Stradivari, 1644–1737 (Larchmont, NY, 1972)
D. Abbott and E. Segerman: ‘Strings in the 16th and 17th Centuries’, GSJ, xxvii (1974), 48–73
S. Bonta: ‘From Violone to Violoncello: a Question of Strings’, JAMIS, iii (1977), 64–99
A. Gauge: ‘“La lutherie” at Mirecourt’, Journal of the Violin Society of America, iii/3 (1977), 68–79
M. Brinser: Dictionary of Twentieth Century Violin Making (Irvington, NJ, 1978)
C. Taylor: ‘The New Violin Family and its Scientific Background’, Soundings, vii (1978), 101–16
F. Prochart: Der Wiener Geigenbau im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Tutzing, 1979)
F. Mele: ‘19th- and 20th-Century Violin Makers’, The Strad, xc (1979–80), 912–15
R.B. Nevin: ‘Violin Varnish’, The Strad, xc (1979–80), 446–8
P.L. Shirtcliff: ‘The Violin-Making Schools of Europe’, The Strad, xc (1979–80), 442–5
H. Heyde and P. Liersch: ‘Studien zum sächischen Musikinstrumentenbau des 16./17. Jahrhunderts’, Jb
Peters, ii (1980), 230–59
C. Vettori: Linee classiche della liuteria italiana/The Classic Lines of Italian Violin Making (Pisa, 1980)
G. Tumminello: Arte, artigianato, società: dall' albero al violino, lavoro e creatività (Cremona, 1981)
W. Prizer: ‘Isabella d'Este and Lorenzo da Pavia, “Master Instrument Maker”’, EMH, ii (1982), 87–127
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 42/50
J.S. and W.R. Robinson: The Guarneri Mold and Modern Violin Making (Oklahoma City, OK, 1982)
I. Vigdorchik: The Acoustical Systems of Violins of Stradivarius and other Cremona Makers (Westbury, NY,
1982)
L.C. Witten: ‘The Surviving Instruments of Andrea Amati’, EMc, x (1982), 487–94
A. Cohen: ‘A Cache of 18th Century Strings’, GSJ, xxxvi (1983), 37–48
A. Lolov: ‘Bent Plates in Violin Construction’, GSJ, xxxvii (1984), 10–15
D. Rubio: ‘The Anatomy of the Violin’, The Book of the Violin, ed. D. Gill (Oxford and New York, 1984), 17–47
E.J. Ward: The Strad Facsimile: an Illustrated Guide to Violin Making (Kaneoho, HI, 1984)
K. Coates: Geometry, Proportion, and the Art of Lutherie (Oxford, 1985)
R. Doerr: Violin Maker's Handbook (Battle Creek, MI, 1985)
K.D. Marshall: ‘Modal Analysis of a Violin’, JASA, lxxvii (1985), 695–709
P.L. Polato: ‘Liutai veneziani nei secoli XVI, XVII e XVIII: ricerca documentaria nell'Archivio di Stato di Venezia’,
Flauto dolce, no.12 (1985), 6–15
W.S. Gorrill and N. Pickering: ‘Strings: Facts and Fallacies’, Journal of the Violin Society of America, viii/1
(1986), 27–40
W. Hamma: Geigenbauer der deutschen Schule des 17. bis 19. Jahrhunderts/Violin-Makers of the German
School from the 17th to the 19th Century (Tutzing, 1986)
R. Hargrave: ‘Safety Pins’, ‘Tried and Tested’, ‘Keeping Fit’, The Strad, xcvii (1986–7), 116–18, 194–9, 257–8
A. Dipper and D. Woodrow , ed. and trans.: Ignazio Alessandro Cozio di Salabue: Observations on the
Construction of Stringed Instruments and their Adjustment, 1804, 1805, 1809, 1810, 1816 (Taynton, 1987)
K. Moens: ‘Der frühe Geigenbau in Süddeutschland’, Studia organologica: Festschrift für John Henry van der
Meer, ed. F. Hellw ig (Tutzing, 1987), 349–88
S. Bonta: ‘Catline Strings Revisited’, JAMIS, xiv (1988), 38–60
D. Draley: ‘The Transition of the Amati Workshop into the Hands of Stradivari, 1660–1684’, Journal of the
Violin Society of America, ix/3 (1988), 71–97
H.M. Brow n: ‘The Trecento Fiddle and its Bridges’, EMc, xvii (1989), 311–29
Liuteria e musica strumentale a Brescia tra Cinque e Seicento: Salò 1990
O. Adelmann: Die alemannische Schule: archaischer Geigenbau des 17. Jahrhunderts im südlichen
Schwarzwald und in der Schweiz (Berlin, 1990)
F. Dassenno and U. Ravasio: Gasparo da Salò e la liuteria bresciana tra Rinascimento e Barocco (Brescia
and Cremona, 1990)
T. Drescher: Die Geigen- und Lautmacher vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart (Tutzing, 1990)
P. Kass: ‘The stati d'anime of S. Faustino in Cremona: Tracing the Amati Family, 1641 to 1686’, Journal of the
Violin Society of America, xii/1 (1992), 3–85
D. Rosengard: ‘Cremona after Stradivari: the Bergonzi and Storioni Families’, Journal of the Violin Society of
America, xii/1 (1992), 91–162
C. Beare and B. Carlson: Antonio Stradivari: the Cremona Exhibition of 1987 (London, 1993)
P. Biddulph: The Violin Masterpieces of Guarneri del Gesù (London, 1994)
D.G. Plow right: Dictionary of British Violin and Bow Makers (Exmouth, 1994)
B.W. Harvey: The Violin Family and its Makers in the British Isles (Oxford, 1995)
J. Jaskulski, J. Podbielski and R.J. Wieczorek: Polakowi tylko boga a skrypic: dzieje lutnictwa na ziemiach
polskich di II wojny światowej [To a Pole, the almighty and a violin: history of the violin-making art in Poland
until the Second World War] (Poznań, 1996)
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 43/50
J. Beament: The Violin Explained: Components, Mechanism, and Sound (Oxford, 1997)
K. Moens: ‘Vuillaume et les premiers luthiers/Vuillaume and the First Violin Makers’, Violons, Vuillaume, 1798–
1875: un maître luthier français du XIXe siècle/Violins, Vuillaume, 1798–1875: a Great French Violin
Maker of the 19th Century, Musée de la Musique, 23 Oct 1998 – 31 Jan 1999 (Paris, 1998), 130–38, 160–62
[exhibition catalogue]
C: Treatises, methods
PraetoriusSM, ii
PraetoriusTI
VirdungMG
M. Agricola: Musica instrumentalis deudsch (Wittenberg, 1529/R, enlarged 5/1545; Eng. trans., ed. W.
Hettrick, 1994)
H. Gerle: Musica teusch (Nuremberg, 1532/R, rev. 3/1546/R as Musica und Tabulatur)
G.M. Lanfranco: Scintille di musica (Brescia, 1533/R); Eng. trans. in B. Lee: Giovanni Maria Lanfranco’s
‘Scintille di musica’ and its Relation to 16th-Century Music Theory (diss., Cornell U., 1961)
S. di Ganassi dal Fontego: Regola rubertina (Venice, 1542/R); ed. W. Eggers (Kassel, 1974); Eng. trans. in
JVdGSA, xviii (1981), 13–66
S. di Ganassi dal Fontego: Lettione seconda (Venice, 1543/R); ed. W. Eggers (Kassel, 1974)
P. Jambe de Fer: Epitome musical (Lyons, 1556); repr. in F. Lesure: ‘L'epitome musical de Philibert Jambe de
Fer’, AnnM, vi (1958–63), 341–86
R. Rognoni: Passaggi per potersi essarcitare (Venice, 1592)
L. Zacconi: Prattica di musica (Venice, 1592/R)
F. Rognoni: Selva de varii passaggi (Milan, 1620/R)
G. Zanetti: Il scolaro (Milan, 1645)
J.J. Prinner: Musicalischer Schlissl (MS, 1677, US-Wc)
J. Lenton: The Gentleman's Diversion, or the Violin Explained (London, 1693, 2/1702 as The Useful
Instructor on the Violin)
Nolens volens, or You Shall Learn to Play on the Violin Whether You Will or Not (London, 1695)
The Self-Instructer on the Violin (London, 1695, 2/1700 as The First, Second and Third Books of the SelfInstructor
on the Violin)
D. Merck: Compendium musicae instrumentalis chelicae, das ist: kurtza Begriff, welcher Gestalten die
Instrumental-Music auf der Violin, Pratschen, Viola da Gamba, und Bass gründlich und leicht zu erlernen
seye (Augsburg, 1695)
G. Muffat: Florilegium secundum (Passau, 1698; ed. in DTÖ, iv, Jg.2/ii, 1895/R)
M. Corrette: L'école d'Orphée, méthode pour apprendre facilement à jouer du violon dans le goût françois et
italien avec des principes de musique et beaucoup de leçons (Paris, 1738/R, enlarged 2/1779)
J.-J.C. de Mondonville: Introduction to Les sons harmoniques, op.4 (Paris and Lille, 1738)
H. Le Blanc: Défense de la basse de viole contre les entreprises du violon et les prétentions du violoncel
(Amsterdam, 1740/R)
J.D. Berlin: Musikalske elementer (Trondheim, 1744); ed. B. Korsten (Bergen, 1977)
R. Crome: The Fiddle New Model'd, or a Useful Introduction for the Violin (London, c1750)
F. Geminiani: The Art of Playing on the Violin (London, 1751/R1952 w ith introduction by D.D. Boyden)
L. Mozart: Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule (Augsburg, 1756/R, 3/1787/R; Eng. trans., 1948, as A
Treatise on the Fundamental Principles of Violin Playing, 2/1951/R)
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 44/50
G. Tartini: L'arte del arco (Paris, 1758); repr. in J.B. Cartier: L'art du violon (Paris, 1798, enlarged 3/c1803/R)
The Compleat Tutor for the Violin: Containing the Best and Easiest Instructions for Learners to Obtain a
Proficiency on that Instrument (London, after 1761)
L'abbé le fils [J.-B. Saint-Sévin] Principes du violon (Paris, 1761/R, 2/1772)
C.R. Brijon: Reflexions sur la musique et la vraie manière de l'exécuter sur le violon (Paris, 1763/R)
G. Tartini: Lettera [dated 1760] del defonto Signor Giuseppe Tartini alla Signora Maddalena Lombardini
inserviente ad una importante lezione per i suonatori di violone, L'Europa letteraria, v/2 (Venice, 1770;
Eng. trans., 1771, 2/1779/R) [It., Eng., Fr. and Ger. edns repr. in E.R. Jacobi, ed. G. Tartini: Traité des
agréments de la musique (Celle, 1961)]
G. Löhlein: Anweisung zum Violinspielen (Leipzig and Züllichau, 1774, enlarged 3/1797 by J.F. Reichardt)
T.-J. Tarade: Traité du violon (Paris, c1774/R)
M. Corrette: L'art de se perfectionner dans le violon … suite de L'école d'Orphée (Paris, 1782/R)
A. Lolli: L'école du violon en quatuor (Berlin and Amsterdam, c1784)
I. Schw eigl: Verbesserte Grundlehre der Violin (Vienna, 1786, 2/1795 as Grundlehre der Violin)
F. Galeazzi: Elementi teorico-pratici di musica con un saggio sopra l'arte di suonare il violino analizzata, ed
a dimostrabili principi ridotta, i (Rome, 1791, enlarged 2/1817), Eng. trans., ed. A. Franscarelli (DMA diss.,
U. of Rochester, 1968); ii (Rome, 1796), Eng. trans. of pt 4, section 2, ed. G.W. Harw ood (M.A. thesis,
Brigham Young U., 1980)
J.A. Hiller: Anweisung zum Violinspielen für Schulen und zum Selbstunterrichte (Leipzig, 1792)
M. Woldemar: Méthode pour le violon (Paris, 1795–8)
A. Bailleux: Méthode raisonée pour apprendre à jouer du violon (Paris, 1798/R)
J.-B. Cartier: L'art du violon (Paris, 1798, enlarged 3/c1803/R) [incl. G. Tartini: L'arte del arco]
M. Woldemar: Grande méthode ou étude élémentaire pour le violon (Paris, 1798–9, 2/1802–3)
G.G. Cambini: Nouvelle méthode théorique et pratique pour le violon (Paris, c1800/R)
P. Baillot, P. Rode and R. Kreutzer: Méthode de violon (Paris, 1803/R)
B. Campagnoli: Nouvelle méthode de la mécanique progressive du jeu de violon … op.21 (Leipzig, 1824; It.
trans., n.d.; Eng. trans., 1856)
K. Guhr: Über Paganinis Kunst die Violine zu spielen (Mainz, 1831; Eng. trans., rev., 1915; new Eng. trans.,
1982, ed. J. Gold)
L. Spohr: Violinschule (Vienna, 1832; Eng. trans., 1843)
P. Baillot: L'art du violon: nouvelle méthode (Paris, 1834)
G. Dubourg: The Violin (London, 1836, rev. 5/1887 by J. Bishop)
J.-D. Alard: Ecole du violon: méthode complète et progressive (Paris, 1844)
H. Wieniaw ski: L'école moderne op.10 (Bonn, 1854)
C.-A. de Bériot: Méthode de violon op.102 (Paris, 1858)
F. David: Violinschule (Leipzig, 1863)
F. David: Die hohe Schule des Violinspiels (Leipzig, 1867–72, 2/1903)
O. Ševčík: Schule der Violin-Technik op.1 (Prague, 1881)
O. Ševčík: Schule der Bogentechnik op.2 (Leipzig, 1895)
J. Joachim and A. Moser: Violinschule (Berlin, 1902–5; Eng. trans., c1907; trilingual edn, 1959, rev. M.
Jacobsen)
O. Ševčík: Violinschule für Anfänger op.6 (Leipzig, 1904–8)
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 45/50
C. Flesch: Urstudien für Violine (Berlin, 1911)
L. Capet: La technique supérieure de l'archet (Paris, 1916)
D. Fryklund: Studien über die Pochette (Sundsvall, 1917)
L. Auer: Violin Playing as I Teach it (New York, 1921/R)
D.C. Dounis: Die Künstlertechnik des Violinspiels/The Artist's Technique of Violin Playing op.12 (Vienna,
1921)
A. Jarosy: Die Grundlagen des violinistichen Fingersatzes (Berlin, 1921; Fr. orig., Paris, 1924, as Nouvelle
théorie du doigté; Eng. trans., 1933, as A New Theory of Fingering)
C. Flesch: Die Kunst des Violin-Spiels, i (Berlin, 1923, 2/1929; Eng. trans., 1924, 2/1939; new Eng. trans.,
2000); ii (Berlin, 1928; Eng. trans., 1930)
L. Auer: Violin Master-Works and their Interpretation (New York, 1925/R)
L. Auer: Graded Course of Violin Playing (New York, 1926)
E. and E. Doflein: Geigenschulwerk (Mainz, 1931, 2/1951; Eng. trans., 1957)
I.M. Yampol′sky: Osnovï skripichnoy applikaturï [The principles of violin fingering] (Moscow , 1933, enlarged
3/1955; Eng. trans., 1967)
S. Babitz: Principles of Extensions in Violin Fingering (Philadelphia, 1947; enlarged 2/1974 as Violin
Fingering)
C. Flesch: Alta scuola di diteggiatura violinistica (Milan, 1960; Eng. trans., rev., 1966/R, as Violin Fingering:
its Theory and Practice; Ger. orig., ed. K. Rebling, Frankfurt, 1995, as Die hohe Schule des Fingersatzes
auf der Geige)
W. Primrose: Technique is Memory: a Method for Violin and Viola Players Based on Finger Patterns
(Oxford, 1960)
I. Galamian: Principles of Violin Playing and Teaching (Englew ood Cliffs, NJ, 1962, 2/1985)
I. Galamian and F. Neumann: Contemporary Violin Technique (New York, 1966)
Y. Menuhin: Violin: six lessons with Yehudi Menuhin (London, 1971/R)
R. Gerle: The Art of Practising the Violin: with Useful Hints for All String Players (London, 1983)
D: Commentaries on technique
BoydenH
A. Pougin: Viotti et l'école moderne de violon (Paris, 1888)
M. Pincherle: ‘La technique du violon chez les premiers sonatistes français (1695–1723)’, BSIM, vii (1911),
no.8, pp.1–32; no.9, pp.19–35; no.10, pp.10–23
G. Beckmann: Das Violinspiel in Deutschland vor 1700 (Leipzig, 1918, music suppl. 1921)
A. Moser: ‘Die Violin-Skordatur’, AMw, i (1918–19), 573–89
E. Lesser: ‘Zur Scordatura der Streichinstrumente’, AcM, iv (1932), 123–7, 148–60
T. Russell: ‘The Violin “Scordatura”’, MQ, xxiv (1938), 84–96
P.G. Gelrud: A Critical Study of the French Violin School (1782–1882) (diss., Cornell U., 1941)
I.M. Yampol′sky: Russkoye skripichnoye iskusstvo: ocherki i materialï [Russian violin playing: essays and
materials] (Moscow , 1951)
A. Wirsta: Ecoles de violon au XVIIIème siècle d'après les ouvrages didactiques (diss., U. of Paris, 1955)
S. Babitz: ‘Differences betw een 18th-Century and Modern Violin Bow ing’, The Score, no.19 (1957), 34–55;
rev., pubd separately (Los Angeles, 1970, enlarged, 2/1975)
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 46/50
B. Seagrave: The French Style of Violin Bowing and Phrasing from Lully to Jacques Aubert (1650–1730)
(diss., Stanford U., 1958)
G.J. Kinney: ‘Viols and Violins in the Epitome Musical (Lyon, 1556) of Philibert Jambe de Fer’, JVdGSA, iv
(1967), 14–20
E. Winternitz: Gaudenzio Ferrari: his School and the Early History of the Violin (Milan, 1967)
F. Neumann: Violin Left Hand Technique: a Survey of Related Literature (Urbana, IL, 1969)
A. Silbiger: ‘The First Viol Tutor: Hans Gerle's Musica Teusch’, JVdGSA, vi (1969), 34–48
A. Wirsta: L'enseignement du violon au XIXième siècle (diss., U. of Paris, 1971, addenda, 1974)
R. Donington: String Playing in Baroque Music (London, 1977)
R. Stow ell: ‘Violin Bow ing in Transition’, EMc, xii (1984), 316–27
P. Walls: ‘Violin Fingering in the 18th Century’, EMc, xii (1984), 300–15
S. Monosoff: ‘Violin Fingering’, EMc, xiii (1985), 76–9
R. Stow ell: Violin Technique and Performance Practice in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth
Centuries (Cambridge, 1985)
M.W. Riley: The Teaching of Bowed Instruments from 1511 to 1756 (Ann Arbor, 1986)
G. Moens-Haenen: Das Vibrato in der Musik des Barok: ein Handbuch zur Aufführungspraxis für Vokalisten
und Instrumentalisten (Graz, 1988)
P. Walls: ‘The Influence of the Italian Violin School in 17th-Century England’, EMc, xviii (1990), 575–87
R. Philip: Early Recordings and Musical Style: Changing Tastes in Instrumental Performance, 1900–1950
(Cambridge, 1992)
P. Allsop: ‘Violinistic Virtuosity in the Seventeenth Century: Italian Supremacy or Austro-German Hegemony?’,
Il saggiatore musicale, iii (1996), 233–58
E: To 1600
B. de Beaujoyeux: Le balet comique de la Royne (Paris, 1582/R)
H. Prunières: ‘La musique de la chambre et de l'écurie sous la règne de François Ier (1516–1547)’, Année
musicale, i (1912), 215–51
F. Lesure: ‘La communauté des joueurs d'instruments au XVIe siècle’, Revue historique de droit français et
étranger, 4th ser., xxxi (1953), 79–109
W.L. Woodfill: Musicians in English Society from Elizabeth to Charles I (Princeton, NJ, 1953/R)
F. Lesure: ‘Les orchestres populaires à Paris vers la fin du XVIe siècle’, RdM, xxxvi (1954), 39–54
D.D. Boyden: ‘The Tenor Violin: Myth, Mystery or Misnomer?’, Festschrift Otto Erich Deutsch, ed. W.
Gerstenberg, J. LaRue and W. Rehm (Kassel, 1963), 273–9
D. Kämper: Studien zur instrumentalen Ensemblemusik des 16. Jahrhunderts in Italien, AnMc, no.10 (1970)
H.M. Brow n: Sixteenth-Century Instrumentation: the Music for the Florentine Intermedii, MSD, xxx (1973)
B. Geiser: Studien zur Frühgeschichte der Violine (Berne, 1974)
K. Moens: ‘Problems of Authenticity of Sixteenth Century Stringed Instruments’, CIMCIM Newletter, xiv
(1989), 41–9
K. Polk: ‘Vedel und Geige – Fiddle and Viol: German String Traditions in the Fifteenth Century’, JAMS, xlii
(1989), 504–46
L. Libin: ‘Early Violins: Problems and Issues’, EMc, xix (1991), 5–6
K. Polk: German Instrumental Music of the Late Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1992)
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 47/50
P. Holman: Four and Twenty Fiddlers: the Violin at the English Court 1540–1690 (Oxford, 1993, 2/1995)
K. Moens: ‘De viool in de 16de eeuw ’, Musica antiqua, x (1993), 177–83; xi (1994), 5–12
K. Moens: ‘La “nascita” del violino nei Paesi Bassi del sud: alla ricerca di un lougo dove collocare l'inizio della
storia del violino’, Monteverdi: imperatore della musica , ed. M. Tiella (Rovereto, 1993), 84–131
R. Baroncini: ‘Contributo alla storia del violino nel sedicesimo secolo: i “sonadori di violini” della Scuola Grande
di San Rocco a Venezia’, Rececare, vi (1994), 61–190
K. Moens: ‘De eerste violisten in Antw erpen, 1554–1560’, Musica antiqua, xi (1994), 170–3
K. Moens: ‘De vroege viool in Brussel’, Musica antiqua, xi (1994), 53–9
K. Moens: ‘De viool in Antw erpen op het einde van 16de eeuw ’, Musica antiqua, xii (1995), 16–20
K. Moens: ‘Geiger in der Münchner Hopfkapelle zur Zeit Lassos und ihre Bedeutung für die Frühgeschichte
der Violine’, Yearbook of the Alamire Foundation, (1995), 383–413
K. Moens: ‘Renaissancegamba's in het Brussels Instrumentenmuseum’, Bulletin van de Koninklijke Musea
voor Kunst en Geschiedenis, lxvi (995), 161–237
J.W. Hill: ‘The Emergence of Violin Playing into the Sphere of Art Music in Italy: Compagnie di Suonatori in
Brescia during the Sixteenth Century’, Musica Franca: Essays in Honor of Frank D'Accone, ed. I. Alm, A.
McLamore and C. Reardon (Stuyvesant, NY, 1996), 333–66
K. Moens: ‘Violes ou violons?’, Musique - images - instruments, no.2 (1996), 18–38
P. Holman: Dowland: Lachrimae (1604) (Cambridge, 1999)
F: After 1600
La LaurencieEF
B. Studeny: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Violinsonate im 18. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1911)
S. Cordero di Pamparato: ‘Emanuele Filiberto di Savoia, protettore dei musici’, RMI, xxxiv (1927), 229–47,
555–78; xxxv (1928), 29–49
E. Reeser: De klaviersonate met vioolbegeleiding in het Parijsche muziekleven ten tijde van Mozart
(Rotterdam, 1939)
B.F. Sw alin: The Violin Concerto: a Study in German Romanticism (Chapel Hill, NC, 1941/R)
D.D. Boyden: ‘Monteverdi's Violini Piccoli alla Francese and Viole da Brazzo’, AnnM, vi (1958–63), 387–402
R. Aschmann: Das deutsche polyphone Violinspiel im 17. Jahrhundert (Zürich, 1962)
K.M. Stolba: A History of the Violin Etude to about 1800 (Hays, KS, 1968–9)
E. Dann: ‘The Second Revolution in the History of the Violin: a Tw entieth-Century Phenomenon’, Journal of the
Violin Society of America, iv/1 (1977–8), 48–56; repr. in College Music Symposium, xvii/2 (1977), 64–71
S. Bonta: ‘Terminology for the Bass Violin in Seventeenth-Century Italy’, JAMIS, iv (1978), 5–42
W. Apel: Die italienische Violinmusik im 17. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden, 1983; Eng. trans., 1990)
D. Johnson: Scottish Fiddle Music in the 18th Century: a Musical Collection and Historical Study
(Edinburgh, 1984)
D. Fox: ‘The Baroque Violin’, Journal of the Violin Society of America, viii/1 (1986), 57–70
N. Zaslaw : ‘When is an Orchestra not an Orchestra?’, EMc, xvi (1988), 483–95
S. McVeigh: The Violinist in London's Concert Life, 1750–1784: Felice Giardini and his Contemporaries
(New York, 1989)
S. Bonta: ‘The Use of Instruments in Sacred Music in Italy 1560–1700’, EMc, xviii (1990), 519–35
A. Pople: Berg: Violin Concerto (Cambridge, 1991)
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 48/50
P. Allsop: The Italian ‘Trio’ Sonata: from its Origins until Corelli (Oxford, 1992)
P. Walls: ‘Mozart and the Violin’, EMc, xx (1992), 7–29
C. White: From Vivaldi to Viotti: a History of the Early Classical Violin Concerto (Philadelphia, 1992)
P. Holman: Four and Twenty Fiddlers: the Violin at the English Court 1540–1690 (Oxford, 1993, 2/1995)
R. Stow ell, ed.: Performing Beethoven (Cambridge, 1994) [incl. C. Brow n: ‘Ferdinand David's Editions of
Beethoven’, 117–49; R. Stow ell: ‘The Violin Concerto op.61: Text and Editions’, 150–94]
C. Bordas: ‘Les relations entre Paris et Madrid dans le domaine des instruments à cordes (1800–1850)’,
Musique - images - instruments, no.1 (1995), 84–97
R. Stow ell: Beethoven: Violin Concerto (Cambridge, 1998)
G: Performers
A. Bachmann: Les grands violonistes du passé (Paris, 1913)
M. Pincherle: Les violonistes, compositeurs et virtuoses (Paris, 1922/R)
C. Flesch: Memoirs (London, 1957/R, 2/1958; Ger. orig., Freiburg, 1960, 2/1961)
J. Szigeti: A Violinist's Notebook (London, 1964)
J. Szigeti: Szigeti on the Violin (London, 1969/R)
M. Campbell: The Great Violinists (London, 1980)
H. Roth: Master Violinists in Performance (Neptune City, NJ, 1982)
B. Schw arz: Great Masters of the Violin: from Corelli and Vivaldi to Stern, Zukerman, and Perlman (New
York, 1983)
Y. Menuhin: The Compleat Violinist: Thoughts, Exercises, Reflections of an Itinerant Violinist (New York,
1986)
Y. Menuhin: La légende du violon (Paris, 1996)
H. Roth: Violin Virtuosos: from Paganini to the 21st Century (Los Angeles, 1997)
H: Jazz and blues
J.-E. Berendt: Das Jazzbuch: Entwicklung und Bedeutung der Jazzmusik (Frankfurt, 1953, rev. and
enlarged 5/1981 as Das grosse Jazzbuch: von New Orleans bis Jazz Rock; Eng. trans., 1982, as The
Jazz Book: from New Orleans to Fusion and Beyond), 288ff
D. Morgenstern: ‘Jazz Fiddle’, Down Beat, xxxiv/3 (1967), 16–19, 38 only
E. Jost: Free Jazz (Graz, 1974/R)
M. Glaser and S. Grappelli: Jazz Violin (New York, 1981) [incl. transcrs.]
G. Low inger: Jazz Violin: Roots and Branches (New York and London, 1981) [incl. transcrs.]
J. Lyonn Lieberman: Blues Fiddle (New York, 1986) [incl. transcrs.]
S. Glass: Die Rolle der Geige im Jazz (Berne, 1991 [recte 1992]) [incl. transcrs.]
Fable Bulletin: Violin Improvisation Studies (1st ser., 1993–9)
A. Barnett: Desert Sands: the Recordings and Performances of Stuff Smith: an Annotated Discography and
Biographical Source Book (Lew es, 1995, suppl., Up Jumped the Devil, 1998) [incl. transcrs.]
J. Lyon Lieberman: Improvising Violin (New York, 1995)
H. Grässer: Der Jazzgeiger Stéphane Grappelli: Untersuchen zur Entwicklung sinseines Personalstils und
zur seiner Violintechnik (Regensburg, 1996) [incl. transcrs.]
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 49/50
Copyright © Oxford University Press 2007 — 2011.
H. Grässer and A. Holliman: Design und Technik der elektrischen Streichinstrumente/Design and
Technique of Electric Bowed String Instruments (Frankfurt, 1998)
D. Lockw ood and F. Darizcuren: Cordes & âme: méthode d’improvisation et de violin jazz (Paris, 1998) [incl.
transcrs.]
A. Barnett: Black Gypsy: the Recordings of Eddie South: an Annotated Discography and Itinerary (Lew es,
1999) [incl. transcrs.]
14.3.2011 Violin, §I: The instrument, its techniq…
…kb.nl/subscriber/article/…/41161pg1… 50/50