There are stringed instruments from many different cultures and times that each, indirectly or directly, have had a part in the development of the instrument now known as the violin. These instruments, such as the Greek kithara dating from the 7th century BC or the Chinese erhu dating from the middle 8th century AD, while important to the development of stringed instruments and bowed stringed instruments, do not directly relate to the violin. It is my intent in this article to show only the immediate precursors to the violin and give the reader an idea how this instrument form came to exist, then dominate our western music culture. The origins of the violin are uncertain and open to debate, but it is generally agreed the instrument we know today in western music as the violin had its origin in the Arabic rabab. The rabab had two strings made of silk attached to an endpin and strung to pegs used to tune the strings in fifths. The rabab was fretless with a pear shaped body made of gourd and a long neck. The instrument was held on the lap and played using a bow with resin rubbed on its string. No images or examples exist of this instrument but it is described in documents dating from the late 9th century. As a result of the European crusades, an instrument called the rebec based on the rabab appears first in Spain during the middle 11th century. The rebec differs from the rabab only slightly: The rebec has three strings instead of two, the body is made of wood rather than gourd, and the instrument is placed at the shoulder to play rather than on the lap.

The Violin Museum, Cremona

Blue Hour II. October Rose IV. Ship of Stars V. Tea Leaves VI. Resting in the Green VII.

A Stradivarius violin dating from has been loaned to the leader of the Manchester Camerata for a season of upcoming concerts.

The Met Fifth Ave opens August The Met Cloisters opens September Your health is our top priority. Antonio Stradivari Italian, — Maple, spruce, ebony. Establishing the exact date that a great instrument was made can be an important way of understanding how it fits into musical history and also within the development of an individual maker’s craft. Antonio Stradivari — had an extraordinary career building instruments for more than seven decades, during which time he became known as an innovative maker who was constantly trying new ideas.

Because he clearly marked the year on his labels, violin experts have been able to understand differences between instruments built during different periods of his career.

A short tale of a digital twin, a simple Simcenter SCADAS and the secrets of violins…

Knowing who made your violin is one of the most important clues to its value. Unfortunately for most instruments you might need the help of an expert, such as our team of specialists at Amati. However, here is a quick run down of what you might be able to do at home. The label might tell you who made your violin. You can find a label inside the usually left hand f-hole in the violin.

Not all violins have labels, and you may have to blow away the dust and move the violin under the light to see whether yours does.

the greatest violinist of the 20th century, Yehudi Menuhin, recognized Édua’s Édua Amarilla Zádory plays a masterpiece of a violin dating from and.

The pedagogical treatise is generally understood to be a manual of singing or instrumental techniques that is largely practical in approach, yet a critique of violin tutor books dating from the early twentieth century, especially those written by the renowned violinists Joseph Joachim writing in conjunction with Andreas Moser , Leopold Auer, and Carl Flesch, reveals an extensive engagement with a range of wider ideologies.

The approach of these texts is not explorative, however, so much as a rather defensive championing of the idea of mind or vitality: ideologies of self, health, and nationalism ultimately prevail over an engagement with historical evidence in Moser’s discussion of ornaments, and Auer’s intolerance of any mitigating influence that might qualify the artist’s final word on aesthetic matters is reminiscent of a reductive, Nietzschean ideal of vitality.

Nevertheless, writers struggle to reconcile it with the messier realities of performing, as an embodied and collaborative activity, and subsequently what speaks louder in their texts are anxieties over affronts to notions of self, expressed using pathological notions common to the era. Whereas at times writers encourage students of the violin to share in their lauding of vitalistic ideals, more often than not they try to impose disciplinary measures as a means of inculcating them.

Recipient s will receive an email with a link to ‘Vitalistic Discourses of Violin Pedagogy in the Early Twentieth Century’ and will not need an account to access the content. Sign In or Create an Account. User Tools. Sign In. Article Navigation. Close mobile search navigation Article navigation. Volume 38, Issue 2.

French violin by René Jacquemin 1927

Henri D. Grissino-Mayer, Paul R. Sheppard , Malcolm K.

Hofner Violin Bass Demo 【Black Areion】 – : Black Areion 31 .

Peter Ratcliff uses dendrochronology–tree-ring dating–to pin down the age and suggest the provenance of stringed instruments. As he prepares to speak at the Woodmusick instrument-identification conference in Cremona, Italy, on 30 September, he talks about the science of spotting fakes, and the 14 Stradivarius instruments made from the same spruce tree.

The bellies of most Western stringed instruments are made from spruce, whose tight, even growth is easy to analyse. When I am sent an instrument, I measure the width of each ring in the varnished wood. The unique pattern formed by the rings can be matched with those on thousands of instruments in databases, as well as cores extracted from the oldest living trees and ancient timber. The year of the most recent ring on an instrument is the earliest it could have been built. Ring patterns depend on weather, climate, soil composition and other local factors, so the pattern in any tree resembles those of its neighbours.

I list other instruments whose wood grain is the closest match. Occasionally, I will find some by the same maker or, more rarely, by different makers who used the same tree–such as a violin made by Giuseppe Guarneri Del Gesu from Cremona, for instance, matched to a Sanctus Seraphin from Venice, and

David Nebel plays on loan a “Golden Period” violin by Antonio Stradivari dating from 1707

Currently music director of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Zhang has held other conducting positions with major orchestras in England and Italy. In the Bruch, Maxim Vengerov seemed to channel the finest features of Russian violin playing dating back to the great David Oistrakh He could draw a huge but finely focused and polished sound from his ex-Kreutzer Stradivarius, but also the sweetest and most delicate pianissimos.

His was a noble performance, and Zhang coordinated skilfully. Those soft wind chords in the first movement might have sounded together with much smaller and more precise beats.

Where are violins made? violin makers us with older, master made instruments (typically violins) dating from the late s through s.

A Bethlehem-made violin dating back nearly years was presented yesterday as a special gift to officials of the Moravian Historical Society in the Whitefield House Museum, Nazareth. Arthur Nehring of Bethlehem, society president. The original printed label inside the violin indicates it was made by C. Hartmann in in Bethlehem. Christian Frederick Hartmann, who came to America in the middle of the 19th century from the town of Mark Neukirchen in Saxony, was the grandfather of Theodore F.

Hartmann, in attendance yesterday, noted that the C. Martin Guitar Co.

Antonio Stradivari

Sign In. Hide Spoilers. Unique styles of master violinists howard. A perfect companion piece to The Red Violin is the two-part documentary called The Art of Violin, directed by Bruno Monsaingeon, a Paris-based concert violinist, who has devoted himself to making films about music David Oistrakh, Artist of the People?

Dating Old Violins · Curator’s Corner. History Perfected in the very late 17th century, the violin is the most ubiquitous antique object form in our daily lives. It is the.

Curator’s Corner. History Perfected in the very late 17th century, the violin is the most ubiquitous antique object form in our daily lives. It is the principal melody instrument in symphony orchestras and mountain string bands. It has not been improved since the s when Stradivari, Guarnieri, Amati and a dozen others worked in Cremona, Italy.

Fine violins were also made in England, France and Germany. Value: As everyone knows, the instruments made in Cremona fetch fabulous prices at auction. Everyone who finds an old violin thinks that he has a fortune in his hands because it generally has a Stradivarius label in it. It stands to reason. The problem: Every so often someone wants me to look at an erstwhile Strad and tell them if it is real or not.

This fiddle has been in his family for many years. It was made by some old violin maker in their old home town.

Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute

Music historians have long suspected that the inventors of the violin wanted to imitate the human voice, and a study out Monday May 21 shows how 16th to 18th-century luthiers in Italy did it. Researchers at National Taiwan University asked a professional violinist to play 15 antique instruments, including one from by Andrea Amati, the early 16th-century luthier from Cremony, Italy who is considered to be the father of the modern four-string violin. Others played in the study were from the Stradivarius family, conceived by Antonio Stradivari, who improved upon Amati’s design.

First, researchers recorded scales played on the 15 antique instruments played by a professional violinist and recorded at Taiwan’s Chimei Museum. Then, they recorded the voices of eight men and eight women, ranging in age from 16 to 30 years, who sang common English vowels. Performing a thorough acoustic analysis, they found that an Amati violin dating to and a Gasparo da Salo violin dating to mimicked the basses and baritones of male singers, “raising the possibility that master violinmakers from this period may have designed violins to emulate male voices,” said the report.

Polish school of lutherie and the “Polish violin” In conclusion, the dating of extant instruments of the Polish school of lutherie needs to be systematically.

Just the other day another Strings reader wrote inquiring about the value and authenticity of his violin. Even if the little tag inside your instrument is original, the information printed on it might be accurate but obscure, genuine but inaccurate, misleading, or downright false. A cursory investigation of the aforementioned Rocca label provides an illustration. Using a few key words to search the Internet turned up several instruments bearing the same label.

Among them, a genuine Joseph Rocca, certified by a famous dealer and sold by a reputable auction house. A second violin bearing the same label was made by John Lott, perhaps the best of the English makers.