Did you know that of the one hundred or more musicians in a symphony orchestra, over thirty are violinists? The beauty of tone and wide range of expression of a violin is considered greater than those of any other instrument.
The violin took many centuries to develop. Its history begins in India. It was here that the use of a bow to play stringed instruments was probably invented. During the Middle Ages in Europe, various stringed instruments were played with a bow.
One of these was the vielle, which was probably introduced to Europe in the tenth century. Like the violin, the vielle was held against the player's shoulder. Later the vielle was changed through the influence of the rebec. This was an Arabic instrument that spread from Spain to the rest of Europe. By combining the sturdy body of the vielle with the clever arrangement of the pegs in the rebec, a new group of instruments was born. The violin received its basic shape between 1550 and 1600, and it is impossible to say which individual first made this instrument as we know it today. The most successful violins were made in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Italy produced outstanding families of violin makers. Each had its own secrets that the father handed down to his sons. The Amati family of the city of Cremona produced violins that had a tone of rare sweetness and softness. For a long time, it was believed that no one would ever be able to make better violins.
But Niccolo Amati had a star pupil called Antonio Stradivari.
He has been called the master of all masters, and he developed a larger, flatter type of violin with more tone and power. Stradivari is reported to have built 1,116 instruments, and of these 540 are still known to exist. Each one is worth a great deal of money and is considered to be a great work of art.
The greatest violinist of all time is said to be Niccolo Paganini, who lived from 1784 to 1840.
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