Violin/violin

The violin is a string instrument which belongs to the box-necked lutes. The four strings (g-d1-a1-e2) are mainly bowed with the bow hair (ital. coll’arco), more rarely with the bow stick (ital. col legno) or the bow hair (ital. battuto) or plucked with the fingers (ital. pizzicato). The instrument plays a prominent role in the tradition of classical European music. Important works have been written for the violin in all eras of music history since its emergence. Violins are made by violin makers. The word “violin” was adopted from Italian into German in the 17th century and actually means “small viola”. Originally there were various names such as “lira”, “violetta” or “viola”. The violin is the instrument of the year 2020.

History

The violin originated in Italy at the beginning of the 16th century and seems to have evolved from two medieval instruments that were played with a bow: the fiddle, also known as the vielle or fiddle, and the rebec. The Renaissance lira da braccio (a violin-like instrument with drone strings outside the fingerboard) is also a direct predecessor. The viole is related to the violin, but is not a direct predecessor. The viole is a six-stringed instrument with frets. It emerged in Europe before the violin and existed alongside the violin for more than 200 years.

Among the most important early violin makers were the northern Italians Gasparo da Salò (1540-1609) and Giovanni Maggini (1579 to around 1630) from Brescia and Andrea Amati from Cremona. In the Violin making flourished in the 17th and early 18th centuries in the workshops of Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri, both from Cremona, and Jacob Stainer in Austria.

Compared to today’s instruments, the early violins had a shorter and thicker neck with less of a slope towards the top, a shorter fingerboard, a flatter bridge and only gut strings. The early bows also differed from today’s bows. These changes all date from the 18th and 19th centuries and are the result of attempts to make the violin sound even more beautiful and powerful.

Despite these attempts, the basic construction of the violin has hardly changed since the 17th century. Some 20th century violinists have had their 18th century instruments restored according to the original plans because they believe that this allows them to play early music in a more contemporary way.

The violin was initially regarded as an instrument of low social status. However, its reputation rose in the mid-seventeenth century through its use in operas such as Orfeo (1607) by Claudio Monteverdi and through the musical ensemble of the French King Louis XIII, the 24violins du roi (24 violins of the king), founded in 1626. This boom continued in the Baroque period with the work of many famous composers who were also virtuosos on this instrument, such as Arcangelo Corelli, Antonio Vivaldi and Giuseppe Tartini in Italy and Heinrich Biber, Georg Philipp Telemann and Johann Sebastian Bach in Germany.

The violin became the leading voice in the instrumental forms of the time (solo concerto, concerto grosso, sonata, trio sonata and suite) and in opera. By the middle of the 18th century, the violin was already the most common solo instrument in European music. Violins were also the leading voices in the orchestra, the most important instrumental ensemble of the Baroque and Classical periods. In modern orchestras, more than half of the musicians play instruments from the violin family. The predominant chamber music ensemble, the string quartet, consists of two violins, one viola and a violoncello .

In the 19th century, internationally renowned violin virtuosos undertook extensive tours throughout Europe. These included the Italians Giovanni Viotti and Nicolò Paganini, the Germans Louis Spohr and Joseph Joachim, the Spaniard Pablo de Sarasate and the Belgians Henri Vieuxtemps and Eugène Ysaÿe.

In the 20. In the 20th century, violin music was shaped by masters such as Isaac Stern, Yehudi Menuhin, George Enescu, Fritz Kreisler, Bronislaw Huberman, Jascha Heifetz, Mischa Elman, Nathan Milstein, Arthur Grumiaux, Henryk Szeryng, Joseph Szigeti, Dawid Oistrach and, in recent years, Dawid Oistrach, Dawid Oistrakh and, in the younger generation, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Gidon Kremer, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Viktoria Mullova, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Iona Brown, Simon Standage, Jaap Schröder and Midori have achieved new technical and artistic heights.

Structure

Body

The violin body, consisting of the top, back and ribs, together form a resonating body around 35 to 36 cm long.

Ceiling

The top of fine-grained spruce forms the upper part with F-holes. The wood is carefully selected, with preference given to slow-grown wood from high mountain regions, felled in winter and dried over several years. The thickness of the soundboard under the bridge is ideally 2.4 to 3.5 mm, whereby harder woods are processed thinner than softer ones in order to achieve the desired flexibility.

Floor

The back, usually made of maple, is curved and can be in one or two parts. The grain is mirror-symmetrical, very rarely poplar or willow are also used.

Frames

The sides are the side parts of the body and are glued to the back and top. Their material is usually the same as that of the back.

Edge inlays or veins, three narrow strips of wood, often dyed black, decorate the edge of the top and back and stabilize the edges that protrude beyond the rim.

Inner life

There are important components inside the body. The spruce bass bar is glued under the inside of the top at a slight angle to the grain direction to increase anisotropy and rigidity.

The soundpost, a cylindrical rod made of spruce wood with a diameter of approx. 6 mm, is fitted between the soundboard and the back, has a decisive influence on the sound and is not glued. Its exact positioning is crucial.

Top, bottom and end blocks as well as internal hoops stabilize the frames. The blocks are made of spruce, the hoops of spruce or willow.

Sound or sound generation

The adhesive force of the bow cover, caused by the surface structure of the horsehair and the application of the rosin, has a decisive influence on tone production. When the string is bowed, it is deflected until the restoring force is greater than the static friction. A precise interplay of stroke position, stroke speed and bow pressure creates the stick-slip effect, which causes the string to vibrate.

The frequency of these vibrations determines the tone played. The string with its limited effective area only moves a small amount of air, which is not sufficient for the human ear. This is where the body comes into play as an impedance converter. By transferring the vibrations from the string to the body, the radiating surface is increased, resulting in a perceptible sound.

The bridge, on which the string rests, and the top of the violin play a decisive role in this. The vibrating movement of the bridge is influenced by the soundpost. This shifts the axis of rotation of the movement so that the left bridge foot is more active at low frequencies and the right bridge foot is more active at high frequencies. As a result, the vibrations are radiated either more strongly from the top or from the top and bottom. This complex interaction creates a broadband cavity resonator that radiates the sound through the F-holes.

Playing technique

The violin rests on the violinist’s left shoulder and chest and is supported by the left edge of the lower jaw or occasionally by the chin, depending on the posture or rotation of the head. To grip the neck or to support certain fingering techniques, the left hand takes over the function of the thumb. The remaining fingers act exclusively on the strings to produce the desired notes. Depending on the violin school, the left hand can also take on a supporting or holding function for the instrument during certain playing techniques.

The right hand guides the bow, which normally strikes the strings between the end of the fingerboard and the bridge, in modern compositions occasionally also behind the bridge. This point of contact is called the contact point. The combination of weight, speed, point of contact (close to the bridge, close to the fingerboard or in between) and angle of the bow hairs has a great influence on the change in volume, timbre, precision of articulation, legato playing and other nuances when touching the strings.

Instrument of the year 2020

The violin was voted Instrument of the Year 2020 by the regional music councils. The importance and versatility of the violin and its outstanding role in music are recognized with this special award.