The Violin A Social History Of The World S Most Versatile Instrument

The life, times, and travels of a remarkable instrument and the people who have made, sold, played, and cherished it. A 16-ounce package of polished wood, strings, and air, the violin is perhaps the most affordable, portable, and adaptable instrument ever created. As congenial to reels, ragas, Delta blues, and indie rock as it is to solo Bach and late Beethoven, it has been played standing or sitting, alone or in groups, in bars, churches, concert halls, lumber camps, even concentration camps, by pros and amateurs, adults and children, men and women, at virtually any latitude on any continent. Despite dogged attempts by musicologists worldwide to find its source, the violin’s origins remain maddeningly elusive. The instrument surfaced from nowhere in particular, in a world that Columbus had only recently left behind and Shakespeare had yet to put on paper. By the end of the violin’s first century, people were just discovering its possibilities. But it was already the instrument of choice for some of the greatest music ever composed by the end of its second. By the dawn of its fifth, it was established on five continents as an icon of globalization, modernization, and social mobility, an A-list trophy, and a potential capital gain. In The Violin, David Schoenbaum has combined the stories of its makers, dealers, and players into a global history of the past five centuries. From the earliest days, when violin makers acquired their craft from box makers, to Stradivari and the Golden Age of Cremona; Vuillaume and the Hills, who turned it into a global collectible; and incomparable performers from Paganini and Joachim to Heifetz and Oistrakh, Schoenbaum lays out the business, politics, and art of the world’s most versatile instrument.

String players face a bewildering array of terms related to their instruments. Because string playing is a living art form, passed directly from master to student, the words used to convey complex concepts such as bow techniques and fingering systems have developed into an extensive vocabulary that can be complicated, vague, and even contradictory. Many of these terms are derived from French, Italian, or German, yet few appear in any standard music dictionary. Moreover, the gulf separating classical playing from fiddle, bluegrass, jazz, and other genres has generated style-specific terms rarely codified into any reference work. All Things Strings: An Illustrated Dictionary bridges this gap, serving as the only comprehensive resource for the terminology used by the modern string family of instruments. All of the terms pertaining to violin, viola, cello, and double bass, inclusive of all genres and playing styles, are defined, explained, and illustrated in a single text. Entries include techniques from shifting to fingerboard mapping to thumb position; the entire gamut of bowstrokes; terms found in orchestral parts; instrument structure and repair; accessories and equipment; ornaments (including those used in jazz and bluegrass); explanations of various bow holds; conventions of orchestral playing; and types of strings, as well as information on a select number of famous luthiers, influential pedagogues, and legendary performers. All Thing Strings is expertly illustrated with original drawings by T. M. Larsen and musical examples from the standard literature. Appendixes include an extensive bibliography of recommended reading for string players and a detailed chart of bowstrokes showing notation and explaining execution. As the single best source for understanding string instruments and referencing all necessary terminology, All Things Strings is an essential tool for performers, private teachers, college professors, and students at all levels. It is also an invaluable addition to the libraries of orchestra directors and composers wishing to better understand the complexities of string playing. With the inclusion of terms relevant to all four modern string instruments played in all genres—from jazz to bluegrass to historically informed performance—this resource serves the needs of every string musician.

Tatjana Goldberg reveals the extent to which gender and socially constructed identity influenced female violinists’ ‘separate but unequal’ status in a great male-dominated virtuoso lineage by focussing on the few that stood out: the American Maud Powell (1867–1920), Australian-born Alma Moodie (1898–1943), and the British Marie Hall (1884–1956). Despite breaking down traditional gender-based patriarchal social and cultural norms, becoming celebrated soloists, and greatly contributing towards violin works and the early recording industry (Powell and Hall), they received little historical recognition. Goldberg provides a more complete picture of their artistic achievements and the impact they had on audiences.

Provides new perspectives on the violin's beloved concert repertoire, its diverse roles in indigenous musical traditions on four continents, and its metaphorical presence in visual arts and literature.

*A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK* 'Utterly enthralling - a beautifully-written voyage of discovery that takes us deep into the heart of music-making' Deborah Moggach From the moment she hears Lev's violin for the first time, Helena Attlee is captivated. She is told that it is an Italian instrument, named after its former Russian owner. Eager to discover all she can about its ancestry and the stories contained within its delicate wooden body, she sets out for Cremona, birthplace of the Italian violin. This is the beginning of a beguiling journey whose end she could never have anticipated. Making its way from dusty workshops, through Alpine forests, cool Venetian churches, glittering Florentine courts, and far-flung Russian flea markets, Lev's Violin takes us from the heart of Italian culture to its very furthest reaches. Its story of luthiers and scientists, princes and orphans, musicians, composers, travellers and raconteurs swells to a poignant meditation on the power of objects, stories and music to shape individual lives and to craft entire cultures.

This insightful appreciation of musical instruments features more than one hundred extraordinary pieces from the Metropolitan Museum’s collection. Whether created to entertain a royal court, provide personal solace, or aid in rites and rituals, these instruments fully demonstrate music’s universal resonance and the ingenuity various cultures have deployed for musical expression. The results are astoundingly diverse: from Bronze Age cymbals and sistra to violins made by Stradivari, monumental slit drums from Oceania, and iconic twentieth-century American guitars. Stunning new photographs and a lively text reveal these objects to be works of both musical and visual art, as well as marvels of technology and masterpieces of design. Depictions of instruments and music making—paintings, statues, and pottery—further illuminate the narrative, providing a vivid counterpoint to these remarkable objects.

In Violin Secrets: 101 Performance Strategies for the Advanced Violinist, author and violinist Jo Nardolillo surveys the cutting edge of current violin technique, combining tradition and innovation in one volume. Blending traditional strategies that have produced generations of legendary performers with modern ideas, Nardolillo reveals the secrets of today’s most sought-after master teachers, garnered through her decade of study at top conservatories across the nation. With more than a quarter century of experience teaching at the advanced level, she has refined and distilled these essential concepts into clear, concise, step-by-step instructions, complete with original illustrations and helpful tips. Violin Secrets is an indispensable resource for any and all serious violinists. The first chapter tackles the toughest challenge on the wish list of every established professional, dedicated student, and passionate amateur: understanding why immaculate intonation is so difficult (and exploring ways to achieve it). Further chapters address the advanced techniques of fingerboard mapping, mastering spiccato, controlling vibrato, playing into the curve, small-hand technique, and navigating comfortably in high positions. An extensive section on practice strategies blends concepts from learning theory, sports psychology, and Zen, and the chapter on artistry offers insight on creating expressive phrases, connecting with the audience, and developing a unique artistic voice. Violin Secrets examines overcoming performance anxiety, choosing the right music editions, being a strong section player in an orchestra, leading productive chamber music rehearsals, and winning auditions. Violin Secrets is beautifully illustrated with original drawings by T. M. Larsen, musical examples from the standard literature, and a violinist’s family tree that traces these secrets back through to the founding fathers of violin technique. The Music Secrets for the Advanced Musician series is designed for instrumentalists, singers, conductors, composers, and other instructors and professionals seeking a quick set of pointers to improve their work as performers and producers of music. Easy to use and intended for the advanced musician, contributions to Music Secrets fill a niche for those who have moved beyond what beginners and intermediate practitioners need.

We tend to accept that German cities and states run their own cultural institutions (concert halls, theatres, museums). This book shows how this now “self-evident” fact became a reality in the course of the long nineteenth century.

Violins: Local Meanings, Globalized Sounds examines the violin as an object of meaning in a variety of cultural and historical contexts, and as a vehicle for introducing anthropological issues. Each chapter highlights concepts as taught in lower-level anthropology courses, and includes teaching and learning tools. Chapters range from a memoir-like social biography of a single instrument to explorations of violins in relation to technology, labor, the environment, migration, globalization, childhood, cultural understandings of talent and virtuosity, and prestige.

Testing Hearing: The Making of Modern Aurality argues that the modern cultural practices of hearing and testing have emerged from a long interrelationship. Since the early nineteenth century, auditory test tools (whether organ pipes or electronic tone generators) and the results of hearing tests have fed back into instrument calibration, human training, architecture, and the creation of new musical sounds. Hearing tests received a further boost around 1900 as a result of injury compensation laws and state and professional demands for aptitude testing in schools, conservatories, the military, and other fields. Applied at large scale, tests of seemingly small measure-of auditory acuity, of hearing range-helped redefine the modern concept of hearing as such. During the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the epistemic function of hearing expanded. Hearing took on the dual role of test object and test instrument; in the latter case, human hearing became a gauge by which to evaluate or regulate materials, nonhuman organisms, equipment, and technological systems. This book considers both the testing of hearing and testing with hearing to explore the co-creation of modern epistemic and auditory cultures. The book's twelve contributors trace the design of ever more specific tests for the arts, education and communication, colonial and military applications, sociopolitical and industrial endeavors. Together, they demonstrate that testing as such became an enduring and wide-ranging cultural technique in the modern period, one that is situated between histories of scientific experimentation and many fields of application.

Sounding Authentic considers the intersecting influences of nationalism, modernism, and technological innovation on representations of ethnic and national identities in twentieth-century art music. Author Joshua S. Walden discusses these forces through the prism of what he terms the "rural miniature": short violin and piano pieces based on folk song and dance styles. This genre, mostly inspired by the folk music of Hungary, the Jewish diaspora, and Spain, was featured frequently on recordings and performance programs in the early twentieth century. Furthermore, Sounding Authentic shows how the music of urban Romany ensembles developed into nineteenth-century repertoire of virtuosic works in the style hongrois before ultimately influencing composers of rural miniatures. Walden persuasively demonstrates how rural miniatures represented folk and rural cultures in a manner that was perceived as authentic, even while they involved significant modification of the original sources. He also links them to the impulse toward realism in developing technologies of photography, film, and sound recording. Sounding Authentic examines the complex ways the rural miniature was used by makers of nationalist agendas, who sought folkloric authenticity as a basis for the construction of ethnic and national identities. The book also considers the genre's reception in European diaspora communities in America where it evoked and transformed memories of life before immigration, and traces how many rural miniatures were assimilated to the styles of American popular song and swing. Scholars interested in musicology, ethnography, the history of violin performance, twentieth-century European art music, the culture of the Jewish Diaspora and more will find Sounding Authentic an essential addition to their library.

GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK! • Ray McMillian is a Black classical musician on the rise—undeterred by the pressure and prejudice of the classical music world—when a shocking theft sends him on a desperate quest to recover his great-great-grandfather’s heirloom violin on the eve of the most prestigious musical competition in the world. “I loved The Violin Conspiracy for exactly the same reasons I loved The Queen’s Gambit: a surprising, beautifully rendered underdog hero I cared about deeply and a fascinating, cutthroat world I knew nothing about—in this case, classical music.” —Chris Bohjalian, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Flight Attendant and Hour of the Witch Growing up Black in rural North Carolina, Ray McMillian’s life is already mapped out. But Ray has a gift and a dream—he’s determined to become a world-class professional violinist, and nothing will stand in his way. Not his mother, who wants him to stop making such a racket; not the fact that he can’t afford a violin suitable to his talents; not even the racism inherent in the world of classical music. When he discovers that his beat-up, family fiddle is actually a priceless Stradivarius, all his dreams suddenly seem within reach, and together, Ray and his violin take the world by storm. But on the eve of the renowned and cutthroat Tchaikovsky Competition—the Olympics of classical music—the violin is stolen, a ransom note for five million dollars left in its place. Without it, Ray feels like he's lost a piece of himself. As the competition approaches, Ray must not only reclaim his precious violin, but prove to himself—and the world—that no matter the outcome, there has always been a truly great musician within him.

Examines the violin and describes its parts, explains how it makes music and the many different styles of violin music, and introduces famous violinists.

A town built on a landfill. A community in need of hope. A girl with a dream. A man with a vision. An ingenious idea.

The author attempts to analyze Hitler's appeal to German farmers, workers, businessmen, industrialists, women and youth. Beginning with Germany's social situation after World War I, he demonstrates how Hitler improvised a programme that claimed to offer a classless society.

How does a simple piece of wood become a violin, the king of instruments? Watch and find out as Eugene Drucker, a member of the world–renowned Emerson String Quartet, commissions Sam Zygmuntowicz, a Brooklyn craftsman, to make him a new violin. As he tells this extraordinary story, journalist John Marchese shares the rich lore of this beloved instrument and illuminates an art that has barely changed since the Renaissance. Marchese takes readers from start to finish as Zygmuntowicz builds the violin, from the first selection of the wood, to the cutting of the back and belly, through the carving of the scroll and the fingerboard, to the placement of the sound peg. Though much of the story takes place in the craftsman's museum–like Brooklyn workshop, there are side trips across the river to the rehearsal rooms of Carnegie Hall and Lincoln center, and across the world. Stops on the itinerary include Cremona, Italy, the magical city where Antonio Stradivari (and a few of his contemporaries) achieved a level of violin–making perfection that has endured for centuries, as well as points in France and Germany integral to the history of the violin. A stunning work of narrative nonfiction that's also a finely crafted, loving homage to the instrument that most closely approximates the human voice.

One of the most respected and referenced books of its kind, this authoritative volume surveys violins and other bowed instruments from ancient to modern times. Includes 55 rare illustrations.

Suzuki Shin'ichi, the Tokyo String Quartet, Midori - How did Japanese violinists manage to revolutionize violin teaching, win international competitions, conquer Western concert stages, study at world-famous conservatoires and take up positions in leading orchestras and prestigious music faculties? What enabled the Japanese to master Western classical music within a few decades? What are the true origins of the Suzuki Method? How did Mozart and Beethoven come to be more widely heard in Japan today than Japan's own traditional music? Not by Love Alone presents Japan's biggest success story: the complete assimilation of an alien musical tradition within a few decades and Japan's rise to a musical superpower in the latter half of the twentieth century. The violin played a key role in this story and is still one of the most popular instruments. Mass-produced by Suzuki Masakichi already in 1900, it became the vehicle for Suzuki Shin'ichi's pioneering teaching method fifty years later. Not by Love Alone traces the history of the violin in Japan from its beginnings to the present day. It presents the most important pioneers of Western music and the violin, both Japanese and foreign, the first students, violin makers and composers for the violin, early child prodigies, pioneering teachers, and today's leading violinists, including those who have crossed stylistic boundaries. In addition Not by Love Alone discusses the relationship between the violin and the traditional music of Japan as well as the violin's part in expressing Japan's modern identity.