Violin

Across the centuries, the violin has proven itself a favorite across multiple genres, styles, and cultures, and most composers have written for it in one form or another. Usually carved from wood, fitted with four strings tuned a fifth apart and performed with a wooden bow strung with horsehair, the modern violin descends from the Arabian rebab and the medieval rebec. The modern violin, however, appeared in 16th-century Italy—the city of Cremona, the acknowledged birthplace of violin-making excellence, is synonymous with master craftsmen Stradivarius and Amati whose violins are still regarded as the finest ever made. Many of today’s instruments are modeled on their superior design and sound. Over the past half century, violinists and composers have pushed the boundaries of what sounds can be created, including the dramatic pizzicato “snap” in Vivaldi’s “Winter” from The Four Seasons, and the col legno (“with the wood of the bow”) technique adopted by Holst in “Mars” from The Planets. But bowed as originally intended, the violin is perhaps the sweetest instrument of all, its voice one of the most dominant in classical music, from its role at the forefront of the symphony orchestra to the virtuosic pyrotechnics of the great concertos, and the intimate profundity of Bach’s solo sonatas and partitas.