Zan violin research paper
Violin Bow History
The Baroque Bow
Making the Baroque bow is a story of many attempts and fails. When the Baroque violin was invented is the late 16th century, the making of stringed instruments reached a peak so high, that it triggered a musical revolution. The violin's ancestors were mainly used to keep time on the dance floors of weddings and festivals. But with the invention of the newer form of the instrument quickly separated itself from other stringed instruments. At first, violin makers paid no thought of making a proper bow. Many people continued to play the Baroque violin using fiddle and rebec bows. Rebec, fiddle and other bows were designed for rhythm. Some of the bows were only 8 to 12 inches long with
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However, the Baroque bow is equally liable to misinterpretation, because like the Classical bow, it describes a variety of certain styles that were still only evolving at the time. Fairly speaking, the Classical bow has a more appropriate name, the Transitional bow. In the history of bow making, the Classical period was a very short one that was open to all influences. It was during this time that advances made in the field were stabilized.
During the Baroque era, music itself was what provided the main force to keep refining the violin bow design. While the focus during the 17th and early 18th century was on fulfilling the increasing demands of challenging compositions. The compositions were orientated towards solo performance. The emphasis for compositions shifted during the 18th century towards bourgeois concert performance, which called for a powerful sound. The more powerful sound was so that it could assert itself in larger spaces. The violin had become established as a solo instrument that was able to hold its own in larger ensembles such as symphonic orchestras. The musical world of today is focused more and more on outstanding virtuosi. A virtuosi is someone who is a master or genius at something. The performance style of these virtuosi was defined by a multi-facetted bowing
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His name was François Xavier Tourte (1747/1835). His reputation was known as the “Stradivarius of bow making”. It is thought that Tourte’s son was initially trained as a watchmaker before joining his older brother, Léonard, at his workshop and learning the family trade of making bows.
Tourte's bow design took the accomplishments of Classical bow making and perfected them. Tourte always had an eye to satisfy the growing demand of the era's soloists. One of his earliest innovations still stands the test of time. Tourte used premium Pernambuco wood. By using this wood, it allowed to him to apply complicated physics to the shape of the stick. Since the wood is a natural material, it remains unbeaten to this day. Tourte's bows is an amazing and historical achievement in terms of mathematical complexity and the related challenges in mechanical accuracy. It was not until a generation had passed that along came a guy named Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume (1798-1875). He managed to understand and describe the precision of Tourte
Compound hunting bows are a modern type of bow using a levering system of cables
...are presented, the development beings. This is where the composer develops his themes; it is similar to the body paragraphs of an essay. During the development the violins carry the majority of the theme, while the main theme is fragmented, and then varied in the solo violin part. As the development ends the solo violin descends into the lower register, and the orchestra crescendos. After the development, comes the cadenza. The cadenza is the place in the music where the soloist is allowed to show off his virtuosic quality. The first composer to use a cadenza was Mozart, however the first composer to use virtuosic quality was Vivaldi. Mendelssohn’s cadenza is unique because he wrote it all out, leaving no room for interpretation or improvisation. The cadenza is played with the solo violin only, and is made up of broken chords and many trills. The main melody is
The Baroque era spanned the times of about 1600 to 1750 and was characterized by ornate melodies and characterized by the many religious musical forms such as the oratorio and cantina. The Classical era spanned from about 1743 to about 1820 and more or less built upon the previous period, the Baroque period. Instrumentally the Baroque era introduced the sonata, symphony and concerto in which there was a small group of instruments accompanying several soloists. On the other hand within the classical period the configuration of the concert was that of a single soloist with and orchestra consisting of strings and brass would accompany this soloist. The musical styles and use of it within operas also differed between these two eras. For example within the Baroque era there would be two or more singers
The use of firepower also began to put an end to the use of headlong charges and hand-to-hand combat during the Renaissance years. The differences between firearms and the bow were obscene at the beginning of the rifle’s evolution. An archer could accurately hit a target at lengths of 200 meters and discharge ten arrows a minute, whereas the arquebus, or rifleman, only had accuracy at 100 meters and took several minutes to reload. Although the new weapons at primacy did not have the accuracy or the range of the bow, the Italians immediately implemented them into their arsenals.
The Baroque Period, 1600-1750, marked another unique era of musical experimentation and evolvement. Titled after the trendy ornate architectural style during this period, the Baroque period, 1600 to 1750, witnessed a widespread change in the composer’s musical desires as they widely rebelled against the traditional styles that were prevalent during the Renaissance. With this era stained with monarchs attempting to outperform one another with pride and pageantry the development and grandeur of music excelled to new heights. The powerful monarchs of the period utilized composers heavily as they served as employed performers with the sole purpose to develop and perform musical pieces at the desire of the monarch. This servant-composer culture
Baroque era covers the period between 1600 and 1750 beginning with Monte Verdi (birth of opera) and ended with deaths of Bach and Handel. The term baroque music is borrowed from the art history. It follows the Renaissance era (1400-1600). It was initially considered to be a corrupt way of Renaissance by conservatives. The dominant trends in Baroque music correspond to those in Baroque art and literature. Some features of Baroque art included a sense of movement, energy, and tension (whether real or implied). Strong contrasts of light and shadow enhance the effects of paintings and sculptures. Opera is one of the types of music in the Baroque era. It represented melodic freedom. Baroque era was usually referred to as the thorough-bass period. In early Baroque era no tonal direction existed, but experiments in pre-tonal harmony led to the creation of tonality. [1] Baroque genre included instrumental suite, ritornello, Concerto grosso and chant. There were important composers of the Baroque period such as Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Antonio Vivaldi William Byrd Henry Purcell and George Phillip Telemann. Starting in northern Italy, the hierarchical state -- led by either the urban bourgeoisie or despotic nobles -- replaced the fluid and chaotic feudal system of the middle Ages. [2] For this reason, some historians refer to the Renaissance as the Early Modern Era. Sculptors, building on the techniques of artists such as Giovanni Bernini (1598-1680), found ways to create the illusion of energetic and even violent movement in their works. Painters created larger and more crowded canvases. Virtuosity was used in all the arts. The arts became an important measure of learning and culture. Music moved from the science of number to an expressive art viewed as an equal to rhetoric.
When it comes to classic musical instrument, piano is definitely one of the names that pop up in your mind. Indeed, after its first appearance around the year of 1700, piano has never left the stage of high culture and top class performance. Till today, three hundred years have past since it was first invented. Surely, a lot of changes have been made during this long period of evolution, the designers learnt to utilize better materials but the basic inner mechanism have stayed the same. However, the outside appearance of piano did changed a few times throughout the course of time. The first piano borrowed quite a bit of its look and design from the harpsichord because it was invented by Bartolomeo di Francesco Cristofori, an Italian harpsichord maker. (Powers, W. 2008) Namely, a noticeable amount of improvements have been made during the evolution of the instrument base on the demand of the time and arena. In this essay, stringed instruments with keyboard which are in the
one cantata a week while he was music director at Leipzig. Due to the pace
Giuseppe Torelli, was an Italian violinist, teacher and composer, is considered one of the early developers of the Baroque concerto and concerto grosso. Torelli also composed a significant number of works for the trumpet during the Baroque period (1600-1750). Around 1690, one can begin to see the first works for the trumpet. He was familiar with the virtuoso trumpeter, Giovanni Pellegrino Brandi. Brandi would sometimes play with the San Petronio orchestra, of which Torelli was violin player. This acquaintance could explain Torelli’s awareness of the trumpet’s timbre, dynamic range, and expressive capabilities.
A Brief History of the Bow Arrowheads have been found in Africa that date back as far as 25,000 to 50,000 B.C. Throughout the next few tens of thousands of years, humans had plenty of time to refine their techniques. Fire-hardening arrow heads, fletching arrow shafts to improve their flight characteristics, "tillering" bows so that the upper and lower limbs have the same bend radius, etc. All of these improvements helped increase the efficiency and accuracy of the bow and arrow, and helped humans to survive and advance throughout the ages. One major advance was the creation of composite bows.
The baroque period was during the 1600’s that started in Rome, before spreading quickly throughout Europe. It can be considered a time where a new Art movement flourished as people were expressing themselves in the most creative ways possible. Baroque comes from the Portuguese word Barroco, which means something irregular or strange. At this time, art was being changed. Most of the art of this period is complex, to the point that it evoked feelings towards the “audience”, usually in dramatic ways. Baroque Art wasn’t meant to depict the life style of people at that time, however it is usually noticeable that most of the art have some ties with the catholic religion. While Baroque art is almost its own style, one can compare it to the styles of Renaissance and Neoclassicism. In terms of music, it is believed that Baroque brought about new music styles, including Cantatas, Operas, Canons and Concertos. It is said that the Baroque period end...
Baroque art can be described as a “distinctive new style” in which artists embraced “dynamism, theatricality, and elaborate ornamentation, all used to spectacular effect, often on a grandiose scale”. Baroque art encompasses a vast range of art from the dramatic and theatrical Italian pieces, as the quote suggests, to the more simple and every-day life but still fabulous Dutch pieces. Baroque art can hardly be contained in one description because it describes so many types of art, in great part due to the religious, socio-economic, and political scenes of the time. Religiously, the Catholic Church was responding to the Reformation by creating dramatic pieces to invoke piety and devotion. Politically, monarchies and rulers were using commissioned art to emphasize their authority and their given right to rule. Socio-economically, the middle class was rising and therefore wanting to buy and commission pieces of art to boost their reputation and validate their status in the social scene. These three changes were extremely significant but can by no means generalize the entire historical context of Baroque art. Instead, they stand as specific examples of important reasons for the range and breadth of Baroque art.
...carried into the 14th century. During the 13th century, fiddles were invited into the church as part of the musical presentation of the services. The instrument thrived through the 14th century as a primary stringed instrument until the development of the competing vielles and fiddles, which were fretted bowed instruments, easier to play as the musician did not have to be as accurate with his or her finger placement. By the fifteenth century its appeal in the courtly classes was diminishing, and it was regarded as a rustic instrument, suitable mostly for peasant dances. The violin appears around the middle of the century, and slowly supplanted all other bowed stringed instruments. By the end of the 16th century , the rebec was wholly regarded as a plebian instrument, fit only for public streets and taverns. "Dry as a rebec" became a popular derogatory comment.
After and even before the cello had some changes in sound, around “the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, musicians came not only to accept, but to admire the sound of the instrument (Dunn).” This was a great milestone for the cello, as it seemed to have very little recognition in the past. According to Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia, concertos and unaccompanied suites were written for the cello when the baroque period (one of the musical eras) came along in around the 1720s, allowing it to grow greatly as a solo instrument (1). This allowed the cello to grow significantly as a solo instrument because it gave it a chance to show off what could really be done with a cello, what sound it could really produce. And as previously stated, people thought it was a fabulous instrument, as people “broke out in rapturous applause” for it
I am majoring in violin performance and music has been my passion, life and soul for the last fourteen years. I am devoted to study violin in order to develop all the necessary musicianship, techniques and skills to become a well rounded and solid professional in music with specialty in violin performance.