R. Stowell: Beethoven: Violin Concerto (Cambridge, 1998)

g: performers

h: jazz and blues

II. Extra-European and folk usage

1. Europe.

From Praetorius’s time the violin rapidly penetrated throughout Europe finding favour among all strata of society wherever there was already a native tradition of bowed string playing (rebecs, fiddles, viols, bowed zithers etc.); this was probably because of its greater dynamic range and more flexible tone. Nevertheless, use of indigenous predecessors of the violin persisted for centuries making it hard to be precise about the chronology of the diffusion of the violin. Alexandru (1983) remarked on three aspects of the transfer to the violin: firstly, wherever this happened there was a tendency to apply to the violin a playing technique learnt from earlier indigenous instruments; secondly, despite its perfection of form, there were often modifications to the structure of the violin (e.g. adding sympathetic strings in the case of the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle); thirdly, different tunings were adopted to facilitate the execution of the characteristic repertory of each region.

(i) Scandinavia and western Europe.

In this region cheap instruments were readily imported because they proved ideal for dance music, but numerous native variants also appeared. The violin often retained the name of the older instrument, for instance, in the British Isles the term ‘fiddle’ or variants of it is still used synonymously for the violin, though often a difference in the status of the music or the performer is implied in use of one term or the other: fiddlers play indigenous airs and dance music, violinists play a ‘classical’ European repertory. In these regions the instrument was often used solo, the playing style making much use of the open strings as variable drones to enrich the musical texture and help with rhythmic accentuation. Until the middle of the 20th century, most musicians rarely played outside the 1st position; they used the left hand to hold the fiddle along the arm and against the chest rather than under the chin.

Less is known about traditions of fiddling in England than elsewhere in the British Isles. This is probably because there were few, if any, English publishers over the centuries who were interested in fiddle music specifically, compared with those in Scotland and Ireland. But fiddlers’ tune books have been discovered from several areas of England, especially the north, which suggest that the fiddle was popular in the countryside, even if the pipe and tabor and, from the 19th century onwards, free-reed instruments such as the concertina were more frequently favoured by musicians attached to morris and sword dance groups. By contrast, the popularity of the fiddle in both Scotland and Ireland is attested by large collections of the repertory both printed and manuscript, and the proximity of the two traditions by a considerable overlap in the repertory. By the late 18th century a semi-classical influence was discernible in the repertories of fiddler-composers such as William Marshall and Simon Fraser, but found its chief exponent in the flamboyant person of James Scott Skinner (1843–1927). His influence has been considerable in Scotland, causing many humbler fiddlers to try to emulate his style and technique (see Scotland, §II, 6(ii)).

Since the mid-19th century in Scotland, Ireland and Scandinavia the custom of concerted playing has developed along with fiddlers’ societies. The building of community halls and specialized dancing venues led to the single dance fiddler being joined by other players, notably of the accordion, piano and drums. One outcome of the folk revivals in all these countries has been the growth of importance of the ‘session’: usually taking place in public houses, small informal groups of instrumentalists, often including a fiddler, meeting together to play for their own enjoyment (and not usually for dancing).

In Wales, the fiddle (ffidil) superseded the bowed lyre (crwth) during the 18th century as the principal bowed folk instrument and was eventually to challenge the harp as the main accompanying instrument for popular dance (although both instruments frequently performed together in that capacity). From the 18th century onwards, however, dance was vigorously condemned by puritanical nonconformist religion; whereas during the 19th century the harp was retained as a symbol of nationality and granted a respectable place within the eisteddfod, the ffidil was doomed to be associated almost solely with taverns and wild celebrations. By the end of the century it was almost extinct, and played only by gypsy families until around World War I. More lately it has been revived by Welsh folk-dance and song groups.

In Portugal the violin has kept the older name viola; indigenous bowed instruments are distinguished by the name rebecca (from ‘rebec’). The Portuguese played a major role in the dispersal of the violin throughout the world; they took it with them to their trading posts and colonies in the East, e.g. Goa, India and the port of Melaka in Malaysia, as well as along the coast of Angola in Africa.

(ii) Eastern and south-eastern Europe.

As the violin displaced indigenous instruments, it became a favoured instrument of gypsy musicians (see Hungary, §II, fig.8). Sarosi reported (1978) that as early as 1683, ‘nearly every nobleman has a gypsy who is a fiddler or locksmith’. Two violins, a string bass and a plucked instrument make a typical dance ensemble in central Europe, Romania and the Balkans.

The violin is the most popular folk instrument in Poland. The skrzypce is made by villagers themselves out of a single piece of wood, apart from the soundboard, and has three or four strings. The skrzypce podwiązane or skrzypce przewiązane is an ordinary violin with a match or small stick placed under the strings and then bound, so that it can be played as in the 1st position but in a higher register; in the 19th century this instrument began to replace the mazanki, a small fiddle with three strings that was played along with the bagpipe (dudy). The skrzypce is played chiefly as the melody instrument in folk bands. In Slovakia the oktávka (octave-violin) and the shlopcoky (scuttle-shaped violin) are used as well as the standard violin. Instruments are played solo, in combinations such as bagpipe and violin, or in diverse ensembles of bowed string instruments.

In Romania the vioară (violin) is known under several different local names. Players, particularly in Oltenia and Muntenia, use a wide range of scordatura to facilitate the playing of certain tunes, to obtain unusual sounds and to imitate other instruments, such as the bagpipes. The contră of Transylvania has only three strings (tuned g–d'–a), which are stretched over a notched bridge and bowed simultaneously to obtain chords. The violin in south-west Moldova usually has seven sympathetic strings, probably a relic of the Turkish kemençe, with sympathetic strings. The Stroh violin, called vioră cu goarnă (‘bugle violin’) or higheghe in Bihor, became widespread between the two World Wars (it was invented in London for use in gramophone recording studios at the turn of the 20th century). Lăutari (professional folk musicians) make the instrument themselves, replacing the soundbox with a metal bell and resting the strings on a small mica sheet. In Romania and Moldova the violin repertory also includes the virtuoso instrumental doina, a largely improvised genre in rhapsodic style and free metre.

The smuikas of Lithuania is also often made by the musicians themselves and accordingly is found in a great variety of sizes and forms, of varying quality. The back and sides are made of maple, apple or ash, the belly of fir or pine and the bridge and tuning-pegs of oak, hornbeam, beech or ash. The instrument may have three, four or more strings, usually tuned in 5ths, but in bands the tuning is adapted to suit the concertina and the clarinet. The player sometimes places a small piece of wood on the soundboard to muffle the timbre; experienced musicians adorn dance melodies with melismata and double or triple stopping. Similar traditions of violin playing are also found in neighbouring countries such as Estonia, where the instrument is known as the viiul, and Belarus, Moldova and the Ukraine, where the skripka has its own folk technique. The instrument is usually tuned in 5ths, but higher and lower tunings are used depending on the genre of music. Players use mainly the bottom two strings, more rarely the third. Fiddle playing has been an established profession in many Belarusian towns since the 17th century and the instrument maintains a strong role in rural musical life.

2. Middle east and south Asia.

The violin has been adopted in a wide range of indigenous art music, from North Africa to South India, and each culture has adapted the holding position to meet its own requirements. In many cases the first introduction of the instrument to these countries was in European-influenced, popular music contexts, such as café music of the Middle East. The violin has shown its flexibility and power as an accompanying instrument, especially where a voice sets the model in timbre and phrasing, as well as for solo playing. In Morocco, one or more violins take a leading part in the vocal-instrumental nawbā suites played by traditional orchestras. In North Africa and Turkey it is usually called keman (from the generic term kemençe or kamānche, the latter used for spike fiddles) and is often played in an upright position, resting on the seated player’s thigh. In Iran, the violin is the only Western instrument to be admitted without reservation into traditional music because it is possible to play the whole of the kamānche repertory on it when technique and articulation are suitably adapted. Its great success at the beginning of the 20th century threatened the existence of the kamānche, and it has now quite eclipsed the traditional instrument.

In India, where it was introduced in the 17th century, the violin became prominent in the classical music of the South from about 1800 after B. Dīksitar and his pupil Vadivelu adopted it for accompanying vocalists at the court of Travancore. It is usually played with the scroll resting on the right foot of the player, who sits cross-legged; the other end is wedged against his left shoulder. The player’s left hand is thus free for the complex gamaka of Karnatak music (see India, §III, 3(i)(b)). The strings are tuned to tonic and 5th of the lower and middle octaves at a pitch nearer that of the Western viola pitch. At this pitch level it gives, in the view of Bandyophadaya, ‘a deep and melodious sound perfectly suited to male musicians’. When accompanying a singer, the violinist’s role is to ‘shadow’ the soloist, echoing each phrase in a virtually continuous canon. During the last two decades of the 20th century, virtuosos such as L.K. Subramaniam have elevated the violin to the status of solo instrument. This has been accompanied by changes in technique, the earlier two-finger left-hand technique, derived from that for the vīnā, developed into one involving all four. In northern India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, where the classical vocal styles dhrupad and khayāl are more long-breathed and relaxed, the violin is much less common in vocal accompaniment; here it is in competition with the deeper-toned, indigenous sārangī fiddle. However, violins form an essential section in each of the modern filmi orchestras of the South Asian broadcasting and television industries. Alternative north Indian names are behalā, bela (Hindi) and behālā (Bengali), which probably derive from the Portuguese viola; in Goa, where the Portuguese ruled for over four centuries, the violin is called ‘rebec’.

The violin was brought to Sri Lanka by Parsi theatrical troupes from Bombay during the 19th century. The ravikiňňa is now used by the Tamils for playing Karnatak music and, less often, for rukada (string-puppet plays).

Violin, §II: Extra-European and Folk Usage

3. South-east Asia.

The violin was introduced into South-east Asia by the Portuguese during the 17th century, and became known as the biola from the Portuguese name. European instruments were played in European fashion in colonial houses by slaves of varied origin. In Batavia (Jakarta) in 1689, a bride who had 59 slaves referred in a letter to ‘a slave orchestra which played the harp, viol and bassoon at meal-times’ (Boxer, 1965, p.240). Ensembles combining Malay instruments and styles with European ones entered the Malay courts of the Riaulinggu archipelago, East Sumatra and the Malay peninsula. Old royal dances combining Portuguese movements with intricate Malay hand and finger movements are still practised in areas such as Bintan Island, Riau; these include the tari makan sirih (‘betel-nut-eating dance’), accompanied by biola, accordion, rebana (frame drum) and gong, and the tari joget jangkung (‘tall joget dance’), accompanied by biola, guitar, rebana and gong. In east Aceh, an ensemble accompanying local dances includes biola, geundrang (double-headed drum), buloh meurindu (bamboo clarinet) or bangsi (bamboo flute) and one or two canang (small bossed gong). Biolas are usually made locally by hand and are generally tuned like the European viola.

The Osinger people of East Java use the biola in their gandrung ensemble. It is played in several other ensembles, including the orkes Dul Muluk (theatre ensemble) of parts of South Sumatra, the orkes gambus of northern Java, Sumatra and Malaysia, and the orkes Lampung of Lampung, Sumatra.

Biyolin is the term used for the violin by many groups in the Philippines. The instrument is used to play European-type songs in serenades or for entertainment in town feasts. String players for city symphony orchestras are sometimes recruited from the provinces where musical traditions date back to training by Spanish friars in the 17th century. More recently, the biyolin has been introduced into the music of some indigenous northern groups.

Violin, §II: Extra-European and Folk Usage

4. The Americas.

The violin arrived in large numbers in North America during the 17th century, and has flourished ever since as both concert violin and folk fiddle. Fiddling is marked not just by a heavy reliance on oral tradition, but also by customary functions, venues, repertories, and, especially in certain parts of the southern states, by playing techniques and some use of scordaturas. The categories of violin and fiddle overlapped considerably at first, and still do: some violinists also play old tunes from memory at dances, and some fiddlers did and do aspire to music literacy, and may play for passive listeners or solely for their own enjoyment. Manuscript music commonplace books from the decades flanking the turn of the 19th century contain reels and hornpipes and popular song tunes alongside classical excerpts. While the romantic image of the illiterate backwoods fiddler of later decades bears more than a germ of truth, many fiddlers were educated community leaders: a steady stream of publications of dance tunes testifies to continued music literacy on the part of some of these men. And while modern contest fiddlers (now including both men and women) include musicians who play only by ear, others puzzle out tunes laboriously from print, and yet others are converted classical violinists.

While violin and fiddle still look alike, the fiddle is less narrowly defined in terms of quality and style of woodworking and varnish application, and in range of desirable timbres. Indeed, in many eras and locations, the relatively nasal and cutting timbres associated with rough-and-ready construction and cheap metal strings helped a solo fiddler be heard by vigorous dancers. The fiddle was the main instrument for the performance of British-American and French-American folk music from the late 18th century well into the 20th. Fiddlers in the colonies that were later to become the USA drew primarily on British traditions (initially Scottish and English, later also Irish) for tunes, ways to compose tunes and shape repertories, and playing styles. The young USA then spawned regional styles, with the North drawing closely on English models and retaining a greater degree of music literacy, and a burgeoning array of southern substyles more strongly linked to Scottish repertories, transmitted both through print and orally, and which absorbed considerable black American influence in performance styles. French Canada drew on French traditions and nurtured new ones (notably in Nova Scotia), while English-speaking Canada nourished styles related to that of New England. The imported tunes and home-grown tunes on imported models that formed the core of the fiddlers' repertory were usually linked with dance genres. During the early 19th century the repertory was supplemented with vocal airs, marches and other popular tunes. As decades passed, and the solo fiddler, fifer or flautist was replaced in cultivated circles by ensembles or keyboard instruments, fiddle music emerged as a discrete, generally rural array of older dances, plus a few descriptive airs and hymn tunes. British hornpipes and reels became American hoedowns, just as other duple-time social dance tunes were eventually fitted into the polka category and various triple-time dances were reworked as waltzes.

As American fiddling became less British or French and more American, other instruments more frequently joined in performance. The fife, which had been closely associated with the fiddle since the Revolutionary War era, was also played in fife and drum corps, so military and dance tunes came to be shared between fiddlers and fifers. Fiddle and banjo duos became widespread in the wake of the popularity of blackface minstrelsy (from 1843; see Minstrelsy, American) and of medicine shows, and significantly more common when late 19th-century mail-order catalogues helped disseminate a wide range of cut-price products, including families of instruments. Although minstrel-style banjo playing, which survives down to the present day in the upper South as ‘clawhammer’ or ‘frailing’ styles, included African-derived playing techniques, the central repertory for the Southeastern string band (fiddle, banjo, and a few supplementary string instruments including guitar, upright bass, mandolin etc.) has always focussed on British-American dance tunes.

The common-time reel and breakdown usually consist of two (or rarely more) eight-bar strains which contrast in tessitura. A typical performance in older, dance-oriented style consists of one strain twice, the other twice, the first twice, and so on until the dancers are sated. While a few Northern contradances preserve a formerly more common linkage of specific tunes with specific sets of dance figures, many tunes are used interchangeably. That certain tunes are irregularly phrased or otherwise inapt for dance accompaniment reflects the fact that fiddlers have always also played purely for their own and their peers’ pleasure. Today's regional styles are characterized by the degree of melodic ornamentation and variation employed (primarily linear styles predominate in areas such as Texas and Ontario), the degree of affinity with older published models (New England style leads here), and the amount of African- and Scottish-derived syncopation, both bold and subtle. The latter is particularly characteristic of the various styles of the Southastern USA, which are in turn differentiated by whether the high or low strain of a tune is played first, and other factors.

Although most other dance genres have been assimilated into the breakdown, the British hornpipe remains vital in Canada and New England, and a few marches, jigs and descriptive pieces have survived here and there. The most widespread alternative to the breakdown remains the waltz, which arrived in large numbers in the 1810s and 20s, received new impetus around the turn of the 20th century from the new pop song styles of Tin Pan Alley, and has returned as a standard ingredient in modern fiddle contests in most of North America. These contests represent a nativistic folk revival, in which a blend of rural and urban brands of nostalgia, the modern luxury of plenty of practice time for players of all socio-economic backgrounds, and the listening-oriented venue, has spawned legions of polished instrumentalists, again blurring the line between folk and art performance, and between violin and fiddle.

For further discussion of the use of the violin in particular cultures, see the entry on the country or countries in which that culture is contained.

Violin, §II: Extra-European and Folk Usage

BIBLIOGRAPHY