Violin

The violin is a bowed musical instrument with four strings tuned in fifths: Gm D1 A1 E2. The highest register variety of the violin family, below which are the viola, cello and double bass.

Together with the piano, the violin is the main instrument of academic music. Since the middle of the XVIII century, it has formed the basis of a symphony orchestra and a string quartet. As a folk instrument continues to exist among Poles, Belarusians, Jews, Northwestern Russians, Czechs, Latvians, Swedes, Norwegians, Estonians, Hungarians, Romanians, Moldovans, Gypsies and other peoples. In the USA it is used in country music, in India - in the classical music of the Karnataka tradition.

The violin was the result of the further development of such instruments as Fidel, lyra da braccio and Rebec. Studies of the 1970s have shown the historical connection of the violin with folk string-bowed musical instruments of the Slavs, including southern and Western ones. Already in the XIV century, folk musicians in Poland, the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus used three-stringed bowed instruments with tuning by fifths without frets on the neck, whereas in Western Europe during this period instruments with a large number of strings, frets on the neck and tuning by thirds and quarts were mainly used. By the end of the 1400s, the so-called pre-classical type of violin had already formed in Polish folk music culture. In the 1500s, mentions of Polish violins are found in the German music theorist M. Agricola, and later in M. Pretorius.

The earliest images of violins of a close to classical form are found in sculptural compositions of the beginning of the XVI century also in Poland, one of the earliest images of a violin in Italian painting is Gaudenzio Ferrari's painting "Madonna of Orange Trees". The Austrian Musical Encyclopedia writes about the existence of such violins of a transitional form - with three strings (G, D and La) and a neck without frets, like Rebek's, and a shape, curly slots and an elongated neck, like the lyre da braccio - around 1520 in the Milan area. The fourth string, apparently, appeared on the Italian violin closer to 1550, however, even in the early violin sonatas by Biagio Marini (early XVII century), the melody is mainly written for three strings, and the fourth, bass, is used only occasionally. On the other hand, five-stringed violins existed for some time in the early 1700s.

The first schools of violin masters appeared in the north of Italy. The masters experimented with the shape and size of the instrument, and the nomenclature of the second half of the XVI century is confusing and inconsistent: for example, in the works of J. Gabrieli, the term "violini" refers to instruments close to the modern viola, and Ludovico Zacconi's treatise "Musical Practice" published in 1592 includes both violas and violins with a higher structure. In 1560-1621, the Brescia school of Gasparo Bertolotti and his pupil J. P. Maggini reached its heyday. The school of Andrea Amati (1505-1577) was founded in Cremona, whose masters, A. Stradivari (1644-1737) and J. Guarneri (1698-1744), the construction and sound of the violin is brought to perfection. The modern shape of the violin was given by Amati, and the optimal length of the violin body at 35.5 cm was established experimentally by Antonio Stradivari. By the second half of the XVIII century, the convexity of both decks decreased in violins, the neck became longer, the spring was strengthened, the height of the stand was increased, which also became thinner. These changes led to a change in the range, the timbre became more saturated and bright compared to the intimate sound of older samples. Well-known representatives of other schools: Austrian-German - Ya. Steiner (1617-1683), Klotz; French - J. B. Villaume (1798-1875); Russian - I. A. Batov (1767-1841), A. I. Lehman (1859-1913), T. F. Podgorny (1873-1958), E. F. Vitachek (1880-1946).

The bow of the modern type was developed in the 1775-1780-ies by the French master F. Tourtom. The violin surdina was introduced into use no later than 1636, when it was mentioned by M. Mersenne, and by 1678 it was already widely used by violinists in the Vienna Court Opera. The chin rest was invented in the 1820s by the German violinist L. Spur, and in 1834 in P. Bayo in his book "The Art of the Violin" for the first time mentioned the use of a bridge for better placement of the instrument on the shoulder. Mass handicraft and then factory production of violins began at the end of the XVIII century, which led to the gradual disappearance of schools of violin makers.

The earliest notes of music intended for violin performance date back to the beginning of the XVII century, although it is possible that the violin was previously used to replace the singing voice in some works. In the early 1600s, the music theorist and composer Agostino Agazzari became the popularizer of the new instrument, emphasizing its universal capabilities. At the beginning of the XVII century, the violin became part of the orchestra, where C. Monteverdi was one of the first to use it for the performance of the opera Orpheus (1607). The first solo works - sonatas with basso continuo - were also written in the early 1600s by B. Marini, M. Uccellini, J. Legrenzi, J. B. Vitali. The first works of the concert style were created by A. Yazhembsky (1627) and J. Torelli, works with signs of concerto grosso - A. Stradella (1676), A. Corelli (1680). By the middle of the XVIII century, violins became the basis of a classical symphony orchestra and a string quartet. Ensembles of violinists appeared even before that moment — already at the court of King Louis XIII there was an "ensemble of 24 violins", which accompanied court ballets and feasts with its music.

In the XVII—XVIII centuries, violin composing schools were formed: Italian (A. Vivaldi, F. Geminiani, P. Locatelli, D. Tartini, G. Pugnani), French (J.B. Lully, J.M. Leclair, P. Gavinier, D.B. Viotti), Polish (A. Yazhembsky, F. Duranovsky, F. Yanevich), Czech (F. Benda, J. Stamitz, P. Vranitsky, A. Vranitsky), German (I. Walter, I. Westhoff), Austrian (G. Biber, K. Dittersdorf), Russian (I.E. Khandoshkin). The best examples of violin music of the XVIII century were written by J.S. Bach, A. Vivaldi, D. Tartini, G. Handel, J. Haydn, V.A. Mozart.

In the 2nd half of the XVIII century, the violin from Europe penetrated into the musical culture of other countries, especially those who had already created their own bowed instruments. In particular, in India, the violin has become an important part of classical Carnatic music. The Middle East has become another region in whose musical culture the violin has taken root. It also remains a part of the folk music tradition in Eastern and Northern Europe, as well as Jewish and Gypsy music.