| Name | Violin |
|---|---|
| Names | Fiddle, de: Violine or Geige, fr: Violon, it: Violino |
| Image capt | A standard modern violin shown from the front and the side |
| Background | string |
| Hornbostel sachs | 321.322-71 |
| Hornbostel sachs desc | Composite chordophone sounded by a bow |
| Developed | Early 16th century |
| Range |
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello.
The violin is sometimes informally called a fiddle, regardless of the type of music played on it. The word violin comes from the Middle Latin word vitula, meaning stringed instrument; this word is also believed to be the source of the Germanic "fiddle". The violin, while it has ancient origins, acquired most of its modern characteristics in 16th-century Italy, with some further modifications occurring in the 18th century. Violinists and collectors particularly prize the instruments made by the Gasparo da Salò, Giovanni Paolo Maggini, Stradivari, Guarneri and Amati families from the 16th to the 18th century in Brescia and Cremona and by Jacob Stainer in Austria. Great numbers of instruments have come from the hands of "lesser" makers, as well as still greater numbers of mass-produced commercial "trade violins" coming from cottage industries in places such as Saxony, Bohemia, and Mirecourt. Many of these trade instruments were formerly sold by Sears, Roebuck and Co. and other mass merchandisers.
A person who makes or repairs violins is called a luthier, or simply a violin maker. The parts of a violin are usually made from different types of wood (although electric violins may not be made of wood at all, since their sound may not be dependent on specific acoustic characteristics of the instrument's construction), and it is usually strung with gut, nylon or other synthetic, or steel strings.
Someone who plays the violin is called a violinist or a fiddler. The violinist produces sound by drawing a bow across one or more strings (which may be stopped by the fingers of the other hand to produce a full range of pitches), by plucking the strings (with either hand), or by a variety of other techniques. The violin is played by musicians in a wide variety of musical genres, including Baroque music, classical, jazz, folk music, and rock and roll. The violin has come to be played in many non-western music cultures all over the world.
The earliest stringed instruments were mostly plucked (e.g. the Greek lyre). Bowed instruments may have originated in the equestrian cultures of Central Asia, an example being the Kobyz () or kyl-kobyz is an ancient Turkic, Kazakh string instrument or Mongolian instrument Morin huur: :Turkic and Mongolian horsemen from Inner Asia were probably the world’s earliest fiddlers. Their two-stringed upright fiddles were strung with horsehair strings, played with horsehair bows, and often feature a carved horse’s head at the end of the neck. ... The violins, violas, and cellos we play today, and whose bows are still strung with horsehair, are a legacy of the nomads.
It is believed that these instruments eventually spread to China, India, the Byzantine Empire and the Middle East, where they developed into instruments such as the erhu in China, the rebab in the Middle East, the lyra in the Byzantine Empire and the esraj in India. The violin in its present form emerged in early 16th-Century Northern Italy, where the port towns of Venice and Genoa maintained extensive ties to central Asia through the trade routes of the silk road.
The modern European violin evolved from various bowed stringed instruments from the Middle East and the Byzantine Empire. Most likely the first makers of violins borrowed from three types of current instruments: the rebec, in use since the 10th century (itself derived from the Byzantine lyra and the Arabic rebab), the Renaissance fiddle, and the lira da braccio (derived By this time, the violin had already begun to spread throughout Europe.
The oldest documented violin to have four strings, like the modern violin, is supposed to have been constructed in 1555 by Andrea Amati, but the date is very doubtful. (Other violins, documented significantly earlier, only had three strings and were called violetta.) The violin immediately became very popular, both among street musicians and the nobility, illustrated by the fact that the French king Charles IX ordered Amati to construct 24 violins for him in 1560. The oldest surviving violin, dated inside, is from this set, and is known as the Charles IX, made in Cremona c. 1560. The finest Renaissance carved and decorated violin in the world is the Gasparo da Salò (1574 c.) owned by Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria and later, from 1841, by the Norwegian virtuoso Ole Bull, who used it for forty years and thousands of concerts, for his very powerful and beautiful tone, similar to those of a Guarneri. It is now in the Vestlandske Kustindustrimuseum in Bergen (Norway). "The Messiah" or "Le Messie" (also known as the "Salabue") made by Antonio Stradivari in 1716 remains pristine. It is now located in the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford.
, Giovanni Bellini, 1505]] The most famous violin makers (luthiers) between the 16th century and the 18th century include:
Significant changes occurred in the construction of the violin in the 18th century, particularly in the length and angle of the neck, as well as a heavier bass bar. The majority of old instruments have undergone these modifications, and hence are in a significantly different state than when they left the hands of their makers, doubtless with differences in sound and response. But these instruments in their present condition set the standard for perfection in violin craftsmanship and sound, and violin makers all over the world try to come as close to this ideal as possible.
To this day, instruments from the so-called Golden Age of violin making, especially those made by Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesù, are the most sought-after instruments by both collectors and performers. The current record amount paid for a Stradivari violin was $3,544,000.00 at an auction on May 16, 2006. All Stradivarius violins have unique names; the record setting one is known as The Hammer, referring to its first owner, Christian Hammer. It was made in 1707.
A violin typically consists of a spruce top (the soundboard, also known as the top plate, table, or belly), maple ribs and back, two endblocks, a neck, a bridge, a soundpost, four strings, and various fittings, optionally including a chinrest, which may attach directly over, or to the left of, the tailpiece. A distinctive feature of a violin body is its hourglass-like shape and the arching of its top and back. The hourglass shape comprises two upper bouts, two lower bouts, and two concave C-bouts at the waist, providing clearance for the bow.
The voice of a violin depends on its shape, the wood it is made from, the graduation (the thickness profile) of both the top and back, and the varnish that coats its outside surface. The varnish and especially the wood continue to improve with age, making the fixed supply of old violins much sought-after.
The very great majority of glued joints in the instrument use animal hide glue for a number of reasons: it is capable of making a thinner joint than most other glues, it is reversible (brittle enough to crack with carefully applied force, and removable with warm water) when disassembly is needed, and since fresh hide glue sticks to old hide glue, more original wood can be preserved when repairing a joint. (More modern glues must be cleaned off entirely for the new joint to be sound, which generally involves scraping off some wood along with the old glue.) Weaker, diluted glue is usually used to fasten the top to the ribs, and the nut to the fingerboard, since common repairs involve removing these parts.
The purfling running around the edge of the spruce top provides some protection against cracks originating at the edge. It also allows the top to flex more independently of the rib structure. Painted-on faux purfling on the top is usually a sign of an inferior instrument. The back and ribs are typically made of maple, most often with a matching striped figure, referred to as flame, fiddleback, or tiger stripe.
The neck is usually maple with a flamed figure compatible with that of the ribs and back. It carries the fingerboard, typically made of ebony, but often some other wood stained or painted black. Ebony is the preferred material because of its hardness, beauty, and superior resistance to wear. Fingerboards are dressed to a particular transverse curve, and have a small lengthwise "scoop," or concavity, slightly more pronounced on the lower strings, especially when meant for gut or synthetic strings.
Some old violins (and some made to appear old) have a grafted scroll, evidenced by a glue joint between the pegbox and neck. Many authentic old instruments have had their necks reset to a slightly increased angle, and lengthened by about a centimeter. The neck graft allows the original scroll to be kept with a Baroque violin when bringing its neck into conformance with modern standards.
, with a fleur-de-lis]] The bridge is a precisely cut piece of maple that forms the lower anchor point of the vibrating length of the strings and transmits the vibration of the strings to the body of the instrument. Its top curve holds the strings at the proper height from the fingerboard in an arc, allowing each to be sounded separately by the bow. The sound post, or soul post, fits precisely inside the instrument between the back and top, below the treble foot of the bridge, which it helps support. It also transmits vibrations between the top and the back of the instrument.
The tailpiece anchors the strings to the lower bout of the violin by means of the tailgut, which loops around an ebony button called the tailpin (sometimes confusingly called the endpin, like the cello's spike), which fits into a tapered hole in the bottom block. Very often the E string will have a fine tuning lever worked by a small screw turned by the fingers. Fine tuners may also be applied to the other strings, especially on a student instrument, and are sometimes built into the tailpiece.
At the scroll end, the strings wind around the tuning pegs in the pegbox. Strings usually have a colored silk wrapping at both ends, for identification and to provide friction against the pegs. The tapered pegs allow friction to be increased or decreased by the player applying appropriate pressure along the axis of the peg while turning it.
Strings were first made of sheep gut (commonly known as catgut), or simply gut, which was stretched, dried, and twisted. Modern strings may be gut, solid steel, stranded steel, or various synthetic materials, wound with various metals, and sometimes plated with silver. Most E strings are unwound, either plain or gold-plated steel.
Strings have a limited lifetime. Apart from obvious things, such as the winding of a string coming undone from wear, players generally change a string when it no longer plays true, losing the desired tone. String longevity depends on string quality and playing intensity.
These fractional sizes have nothing to do with the actual dimensions of an instrument; in other words, a 3/4-sized instrument is not three-quarters the length of a full size instrument. The body length (not including the neck) of a full-size, or 4/4, violin is about 14 inches (35 cm), smaller in some 17th century models. A 3/4 violin is about 13 inches (33 cm), and a 1/2 size is approximately 12 inches (30 cm). With the violin's closest family member, the viola, size is specified as body length in inches or centimeters rather than fractional sizes. A full-size viola averages 16 inches (40 cm).
Occasionally, an adult with a small frame may use a so-called 7/8 size violin instead of a full-size instrument. Sometimes called a lady's violin, these instruments are slightly shorter than a full size violin, but tend to be high-quality instruments capable of producing a sound that is comparable to that of fine full size violins.
Fine tuners on all four of the strings are a practical necessity for playing steel-core strings, and some players use them with synthetic strings as well. Since modern E strings are steel, a fine tuner is typically fitted for that string. Fine tuners are not used with gut strings, which are more elastic than steel or synthetic-core strings and do not respond adequately to the very small movements of fine tuners.
To tune a violin, the A string is first tuned to a standard pitch (usually 440 Hz), using either a tuning device or another instrument. (When accompanying a fixed-pitch instrument such as a piano or accordion, the violin tunes to it.) The other strings are then tuned against each other in intervals of perfect fifths by bowing them in pairs. A minutely higher tuning is sometimes employed for solo playing to give the instrument a brighter sound; conversely, Baroque music is sometimes played using lower tunings to make the violin's sound more gentle. After tuning, the instrument's bridge may be examined to ensure that it is standing straight and centered between the inner nicks of the f-holes; a crooked bridge may significantly affect the sound of an otherwise well-made violin.
The tuning G-D-A-E is used for most violin music. Other tunings are occasionally employed; the G string, for example, can be tuned up to A. The use of nonstandard tunings in classical music is known as scordatura; in some folk styles, it is called cross-tuning. One famous example of scordatura in classical music is Saint-Saëns' Danse Macabre, where the solo violin's E string is tuned down to E flat to impart an eerie dissonance to the composition. Another example is in the third movement of Contrasts, by Béla Bartók, where the E string is tuned down to E flat and the G tuned to a G sharp, or the set of pieces called the Mystery Sonatas by Biber.
In Indian classical music and Indian light music, the violin is likely to be tuned to D-A-D-A in the South Indian style. As there is no concept of absolute pitch in Indian classical music, any convenient tuning maintaining these relative pitch intervals between the strings can be used. Another prevalent tuning with these intervals is F-B-F-B, which corresponds to Sa-Pa-Sa-Pa in the Indian carnatic classical music style. In the North Indian Hindustani style, the tuning is usually Pa-Sa-Pa-Sa instead of Sa-Pa-Sa-Pa. This could correspond to B-F-B-F, for instance.
While most violins have four strings, there are violins with as many as seven strings. The extra strings on such violins typically are lower in pitch than the G-string; these strings are usually tuned to C, F, and B flat. If the instrument's playing length, or string length from nut to bridge, is equal to that of an ordinary full-scale violin; i.e., a bit less than , then it may be properly termed a violin. Some such instruments are somewhat longer and should be regarded as violas. Violins with five strings or more are often used in jazz or folk music.
At the frog end, a screw adjuster tightens or loosens the hair. Just forward of the frog, a leather thumb cushion and winding protect the stick and provide a strong grip for the player's hand. The winding may be wire (often silver or plated silver), silk, or whalebone (now imitated by alternating strips of tan and black plastic.) Some student bows (particularly the ones made of solid fiberglass) substitute a plastic sleeve for grip and winding.
The hair of the bow traditionally comes from the tail of a grey male horse (which has predominantly white hair), though some cheaper bows use synthetic fiber. Occasional rubbing with rosin makes the hair grip the strings intermittently, causing them to vibrate. The stick is traditionally made of brazilwood, although a stick made from a more select quality (and more expensive) brazilwood is called pernambuco. Both types come from the same tree species. Some student bows are made of fiberglass or various inexpensive woods. Some recent bow design innovations use carbon fiber for the stick, at all levels of craftsmanship.
The standard way of holding the violin is with the left side of the jaw resting on the chinrest of the violin, and supported by the left shoulder, often assisted by a shoulder rest or a sponge and an elastic band for younger players who struggle with shoulder rests. This practice varies in some cultures; for instance, Indian (Carnatic and Hindustani) violinists play seated on the floor and rest the scroll of the instrument on the side of their foot. The strings may be sounded by drawing the hair of the bow across them (arco) or by plucking them (pizzicato). The left hand regulates the sounding length of the string by stopping it against the fingerboard with the fingertips, producing different pitches.
The fingers are conventionally numbered 1 (index) through 4 (little finger). Especially in instructional editions of violin music, numbers over the notes may indicate which finger to use, with 0 indicating an open string. The chart to the right shows the arrangement of notes reachable in first position. Not shown on this chart is the way the spacing between note positions becomes closer as the fingers move up (in pitch) from the nut. The bars at the sides of the chart represent the usual possibilities for beginners' tape placements, at 1st, high 2nd, 3rd, and 4th fingers.
Moving the hand up the neck, so the first finger takes the place of the second finger, brings the player into second position. Letting the first finger take the first-position place of the third finger brings the player to third position, and so on. The upper limit of the violin's range is largely determined by the skill of the player, who may easily play more than two octaves on a single string, and four octaves on the instrument as a whole, although when a violinist has progressed to the point of being able to use the entire range of the instrument, references to particular positions become less common. Position names are mostly used for the lower positions and in method books; for this reason, it is uncommon to hear references to anything higher than seventh position. The lowest position on a violin is half-position, where the first finger is a half-step away from the nut. This position is less frequently used. The highest position, practically speaking, is 15th position.
Moving between positions is called shifting. The player moves from position to position by typically using a guide finger. For example, when a player shifts from first to fourth position, they will use the last finger they used in first position as the guide finger. Then, the player moves their entire hand to fourth position, but with the last finger used in first position guiding the hand. The guide finger should not press on the string during the shift; it should only glide down the string. This guide finger moves to its respective spot in fourth position, but does not press down on the string. Then, the finger that plays the note after the shift should be pressed onto the string and the bow is moved to sound the note.
The same note may sound different, depending on which string is used to play it. Sometimes a composer or arranger specifies the string to use for a particular tone quality. This is indicated in the music by the marking, for example, sul G, meaning to play on the G string. For example, playing very high up on the lower strings gives a distinctive quality to the sound. Otherwise, moving into different positions is usually done for ease of playing.
In some cases playing an open string is called for by the composer (and explicitly marked in the music) for special effect, decided upon by the musician for artistic reasons (common in earlier works such as Bach), or played in a fast passage, where they usually cannot be distinguished.
Playing an open string simultaneously with a stopped note on an adjacent string produces a bagpipe-like drone, often used by composers in imitation of folk music. Sometimes the two notes are identical (for instance, playing a fingered A on the D string against the open A string), giving a ringing sort of "fiddling" sound. Playing an open string simultaneously with an identical stopped note can also be called for when more volume is required, especially in orchestral playing.
Vibrato can be produced by a proper combination of finger, wrist and arm motions. One method, called hand vibrato, involves rocking the hand back at the wrist to achieve oscillation, while another method, arm vibrato, modulates the pitch by rocking at the elbow. A combination of these techniques allows a player to produce a large variety of tonal effects.
The "when" and "what for" of violin vibrato are artistic matters of style and taste. For example if you overdo the variation of the note's tone it may become very distracting and overwhelm the piece. In acoustic terms, the interest that vibrato adds to the sound has to do with the way that the overtone mix (or tone color, or timbre) and the directional pattern of sound projection change with changes in pitch. By "pointing" the sound at different parts of the room in a rhythmic way, vibrato adds a "shimmer" or "liveliness" to the sound of a well-made violin. Vibrato is, in a large part, left to the discretion of the violinist. Different types of vibrato will bring different moods to the piece, and the varying degrees and styles of vibrato are often characteristics that stand out in well-known violinists.
Lightly touching the string with a fingertip at a harmonic node creates harmonics. Instead of the normal tone, a higher pitched note sounds. Each node is at an integer division of the string, for example half-way or one-third along the length of the string. A responsive instrument will sound numerous possible harmonic nodes along the length of the string. Harmonics are marked in music either with a little circle above the note that determines the pitch of the harmonic, or by diamond-shaped note heads. There are two types of harmonics: natural harmonics and artificial harmonics (also known as false harmonics).
Natural harmonics are played on an open string. The pitch of the open string is called the fundamental frequency. Harmonics are also called overtones. They occur at whole-number multiples of the fundamental, which is called the first harmonic. The second harmonic is the first overtone, the third harmonic is the second overtone, and so on. The second harmonic is in the middle of the string and sounds an octave higher than the string's pitch. The third harmonic breaks the string into thirds and sounds an octave and a fifth above the fundamental, and the fourth harmonic breaks the string into quarters sounding two octaves above the first. The sound of the second harmonic is the clearest of them all, because it is a common node with all the succeeding even-numbered harmonics (4th, 6th, etc.). The third and succeeding odd-numbered harmonics are harder to play because they break the string into an odd number of vibrating parts and do not share as many nodes with other harmonics.
Artificial harmonics are more difficult to produce than natural harmonics, as they involve both stopping the string and playing a harmonic on the stopped note. Using the octave frame (the normal distance between the first and fourth fingers in any given position) with the fourth finger just touching the string a fourth higher than the stopped note produces the fourth harmonic, two octaves above the stopped note. Finger placement and pressure, as well as bow speed, pressure, and sounding point are all essential in getting the desired harmonic to sound. And to add to the challenge, in passages with different notes played as false harmonics, the distance between stopping finger and harmonic finger must constantly change, since the spacing between notes changes along the length of the string.
The harmonic finger can also touch at a major third above the pressed note (the fifth harmonic), or a fifth higher (a third harmonic). These harmonics are less commonly used; in the case of the major third, both the stopped note and touched note must be played slightly sharp otherwise the harmonic does not speak as readily. In the case of the fifth, the stretch is greater than is comfortable for many violinists. In the general repertoire fractions smaller than a sixth are not used. However, divisions up to an eighth are sometimes used and, given a good instrument and a skilled player, divisions as small as a twelfth are possible.
There are a few books dedicated solely to the study of violin harmonics. Two comprehensive works are Henryk Heller's seven-volume Theory of Harmonics, published by Simrock in 1928, and Michelangelo Abbado's five-volume Tecnica dei suoni armonici published by Ricordi in 1934.
Elaborate passages in artificial harmonics can be found in virtuoso violin literature, especially of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Two notable examples of this are an entire section of Vittorio Monti's Csárdás and a passage towards the middle of the third movement of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto.
The violin produces louder notes with greater bow speed or more weight on the string. The two methods are not equivalent, because they produce different timbres; pressing down on the string tends to produce a harsher, more intense sound. One can also achieve a louder sound by placing the bow closer to the bridge.
The sounding point where the bow intersects the string also influences timbre. Playing close to the bridge (sul ponticello) gives a more intense sound than usual, emphasizing the higher harmonics; and playing with the bow over the end of the fingerboard (sul tasto) makes for a delicate, ethereal sound, emphasizing the fundamental frequency. Dr. Suzuki referred to the sounding point as the Kreisler highway; one may think of different sounding points as lanes in the highway.
Various methods of attack with the bow produce different articulations. There are many bowing techniques that allow for every range of playing style and many teachers, players, and orchestras spend a lot of time developing techniques and creating a unified technique within the group. These techniques include legato-style bowing, collé, ricochet, sautillé, martelé, spiccato, and staccato.
Violins make up a large part of an orchestra, and are usually divided into two sections, known as the first and second violins. Composers often assign the melody to the first violins, while second violins play harmony, accompaniment patterns or the melody an octave lower than the first violins. A string quartet similarly has parts for first and second violins, as well as a viola part, and a bass instrument, such as the cello or, rarely, the double bass.
Violins also appear in ensembles supplying orchestral backgrounds to many jazz recordings.
The rise of electronically created music in the 1980s saw a decline in their use, as synthesized string sections took their place. However, while the violin has very little usage in rock music, it has some history in progressive rock (e.g., The Electric Light Orchestra, King Crimson, Kansas). The 1973 album Contaminazione by Italy's RDM plays violins off against synthesizers at its finale ("La grande fuga").
The instrument has a stronger place in modern fusion bands, notably The Corrs. The fiddle has also always been a part of British folk-rock music, as exemplified by the likes of Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span.
The popularity of crossover music beginning in the last years of the 20th century has brought the violin back into the popular music arena, with both electric and acoustic violins being used by popular bands. Vanessa Mae uses classical music with her electric violin. Dave Matthews Band features violinist Boyd Tinsley. The Flock featured violinist Jerry Goodman who later joined the jazz-rock fusion band, The Mahavishnu Orchestra. Yellowcard featured the instrument with a role equal to the guitar in many of their songs. Blue October are well-known for their violin-based Music with Master violinist Ryan Delahoussaye. James' Saul Davies, who is also a guitarist, was enlisted by the band as a violinist. For their first three albums and related singles, the British group No-Man made extensive use of electric and acoustic solo violin as played by band member Ben Coleman (who played violin exclusively).
Pop-Punk band Yellowcard has made a mainstay of violin in its music. Violinist Sean Mackin has been a member of the band since 1997. Los Salvadores also combine punk and ska influences with a violin.
Doom metal band My Dying Bride have used violin as a part of their line-up throughout many of their albums.
The violin appears prominently in the music of Spanish folk metal group Mägo de Oz, for example, in their 1998 hit "Molinos de viento". The violinist (Carlos Prieto aka "Mohamed") has been one of the group's most popular members with fans since 1992.
The alternative rock band Hurt's vocalist plays violin for the band, making them one of few rock bands to feature violin without hiring a session worker.
Independent artists such as Owen Pallett, The Shondes and Andrew Bird have also spurred increased interest in the instrument. Indie bands have often embraced new and unusual arrangements, allowing them more freedom to feature the violin than their mainstream brethren. It has been used in the post-rock genre by bands such as A Genuine Freakshow, Sigur Rós, Zox, Broken Social Scene, and A Silver Mt. Zion. The electric violin has even been used by bands like The Crüxshadows within the context of keyboard based music.
Indian, Pakistani, Turkish and Arabic pop music is filled with the sound of violins, both soloists and ensembles.
Indian classical music uses a very different grip from the traditional European classical genre. The violin is held perpendicular to the chest with the scroll pointing down. Also, musicians play the instrument sitting squat on the floor and hence sometimes, the violin actually touches the floor. In its Indian classical form, the violin is also tuned differently.
In many traditions of folk music, the tunes are not written but are memorized by successive generations of musicians and passed on, in what is known as the oral tradition.
When played as a folk instrument, the violin is ordinarily referred to in English as a fiddle (though the term fiddle may be used informally no matter what the genre of music). There is technically no difference between a fiddle and a violin. However, some folk fiddlers alter their instruments for various reasons. One example may be seen in American (e.g., bluegrass and old-time) fiddling: in these styles, the bridge is sometimes shaved down so that it is less curved. This makes it easier to play double stops and triple stops, allowing one to play chords with less effort. In addition, many fiddle players prefer to use a tailpiece with fine tuners on all four strings instead of only using one on the E string as many classical players do.
An electric violin with a resonating body that produces listening-level sound independently of the electric elements can be called an electro-acoustic violin. To be effective as an acoustic violin, electro-acoustic violins retain much of the resonating body of the violin, often looking very much like, sometimes even identical to, an acoustic violin or fiddle. They may be finished in bright colours and made from alternative materials to wood. The first specially built electric violins date back to 1928 and were made by Victor Pfeil, Oskar Vierling, George Eisenberg, Benjamin Miessner, George Beauchamp, Hugo Benioff and Fredray Kislingbury.
Since electric violins do not rely on string tension and resonance to amplify their sound they can have more strings. For example five stringed electric violins are available from several manufacturers, and a seven string electric violin (with three lower strings encompassing the cello's range) is available. The majority of the first electric violinists were musicians playing jazz and popular music.
Category:Carnatic music instruments Category:Continuous pitch instruments
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| Name | Yann Tiersen |
|---|---|
| Background | solo_singer |
| Birth name | Yann Pierre Tiersen |
| Born | June 23, 1970 |
| Origin | Brest, Brittany, France |
| Instrument | Piano, Violin, Accordion, Guitar, Toy piano, Voice and various others. |
| Genre | Minimalist, Avant-Garde |
| Occupation | Musician, Songwriter |
| Years active | 1995–present |
| Label | VirginANTI-Mute Records |
| Url | Official website |
Before releasing scores under his own name, Tiersen recorded background music for a number of plays and short films, such as La Vie Rêvée des Anges (1998, Erick Zonca), Alice et Martin (1998, André Téchiné), Qui Plume la Lune? (Christine Carrière, 1999).
He rose to domestic fame upon the release of his third album, Le Phare, but remained relatively unknown outside France until the release of his score for Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain in 2001, which was a mixture of both new and previously released material.
Tiersen favors the piano, accordion, and violin, but is also known for his experimentation and use of obscure and found instruments like the ondes martenot and the typewriter.
Yann Tiersen's list of collaborators continues to grow album after album (see discography below for details). While composing his fifth album, L'absente, Tiersen lent his musical talent to Françoiz Breut and Les Têtes Raides for their own albums. His 2005 album, Les Retrouvailles, featured vocals from Stuart Staples of Tindersticks, Jane Birkin, and Elizabeth Fraser, formerly of Cocteau Twins. Tiersen also played piano on Staples' solo album, Lucky Dog Recordings 03-04. In 2004 he also released a collaborative CD with American singer-songwriter Shannon Wright.
His live performances vary greatly. Sometimes he is accompanied by an orchestra and many guest collaborators, like Dominique A. Other times, he offers the more frequent minimalistic sessions, usually accompanied only by a drummer/bassist and a guitarist, with Tiersen switching seamlessly between piano, accordion, and violin for his lighter songs, and electric guitar for his louder pieces (where his Avant-Garde Music meet some rock sonorities).Lately, however, he has almost banished piano, accordion and violin and focused more on his electric guitar instead, as visible in his 2009-2010 Live Tours.
Yann Tiersen was married to Belgian actress Natacha Régnier, but they have since been divorced. They have a daughter, Lise born in 2002.
Category:French film score composers Category:People from Brest Category:1970 births Category:Living people Category:French musicians
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (May 7, 1840 – November 6, 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic era. His wide ranging output includes symphonies, operas, ballets, instrumental and chamber music and songs. He wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the classical repertoire, including the ballets Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, the 1812 Overture, his First Piano Concerto, his last three numbered symphonies, and the opera Eugene Onegin.
Born into a middle-class family, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant, despite his obvious musical . He pursued a musical career against the wishes of his family, entering the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1862 and graduating in 1865. This formal, Western-oriented training set him apart from the contemporary nationalistic movement embodied by the influential group of young Russian composers known as The Five, with whom Tchaikovsky's professional relationship was mixed.
Although he enjoyed many popular successes, Tchaikovsky was never emotionally secure, and his life was punctuated by personal crises and periods of depression. Contributory factors were his suppressed homosexuality and fear of exposure, his disastrous marriage, and the sudden collapse of the one enduring relationship of his adult life, his 13-year association with the wealthy widow Nadezhda von Meck. Amid private turmoil Tchaikovsky's public reputation grew; he was honored by the Tsar, awarded a lifetime pension and lauded in the concert halls of the world. His sudden death at the age of 53 is generally ascribed to cholera, but some attribute it to suicide.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Votkinsk, a small town in present-day Udmurtia, formerly province of Vyatka in the Russian Empire, to a family with a long line of military service. His father, Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky, was an engineer of Ukrainian descent who served as a lieutenant colonel in the Department of Mines and manager of the famed Kamsko-Votkinsk Ironworks. His grandfather, Petro Fedorovich Chaika, emigrated from Nikolaevka (near Poltava), Ukraine. The composer's mother, Alexandra Andreyevna née d'Assier, 18 years her husband's junior, was of French ancestry on her father's side, and was the second of Ilya's three wives. Tchaikovsky had four brothers (Nikolai, Ippolit, and twins Anatoly and Modest), and a sister, Alexandra. He also had a half-sister Zinaida from his father's first marriage. Tchaikovsky was particularly close to Alexandra and the twins. Anatoly later established a prominent legal career, while Modest became a dramatist, librettist, and translator. Alexandra married Lev Davydov and had seven children, one of whom, "Bob", "[became] a central figure in the composer's final years". The Davydovs provided the only real family life Tchaikovsky knew as an adult,
In 1843, due to the growth in family responsibilities, Tchaikovsky's parents hired a French governess, Fanny Dürbach, a 22-year-old experienced teacher who, Modest later wrote, "knew both French and German equally well, and whose morals were strictly Protestant". Dürbach's love and affection for her charge is said to have provided a counter to Tchaikovsky's mother, who is described by Holden as a cold, unhappy, distant parent not given to displays of physical affection. However, Tchaikovsky scholar Alexander Poznansky wrote that the mother doted on her son.
Tchaikovsky began piano lessons at the age of five. A precocious pupil, he could read music as adeptly as his teacher within three years. His parents were initially supportive of his musical talents, hiring a tutor, buying an orchestrion (a form of barrel organ that could imitate elaborate orchestral effects), and encouraging his study of the piano. However, his parents' passion for his musical talent soon cooled, and, in 1850, the family decided to send Tchaikovsky to the Imperial School of Jurisprudence in Saint Petersburg. The school mainly served the lesser nobility, and would prepare him for a career as a civil servant. As the minimum age for acceptance was 12, Tchaikovsky was required to spend two years boarding at the Imperial School of Jurisprudence's preparatory school, from his family. Once those two years had passed, Tchaikovsky transferred to the Imperial School of Jurisprudence to begin a seven-year course of studies.
Music was not considered a high priority at the School of Jurisprudence, but Tchaikovsky maintained a connection to music extracurricularly, by regularly attending the theater and the opera with other students. At this time, he was fond of works by Rossini, Bellini, Verdi and Mozart. He was known to sit at the school's harmonium after choir practice and improvise on whatever themes had just been sung. "We were amused," Vladimir Gerard later remembered, "but not imbued with any expectations of his future glory." Piano manufacturer Franz Becker made occasional visits to the school as a token music teacher. This was the only formal music instruction Tchaikovsky received there. In 1855, Ilya Tchaikovsky funded private lessons with Rudolph Kündinger, a well-known piano teacher from Nuremberg. Ilya also questioned Kündinger about a musical career for his son. Kündinger replied that while he was impressed with Tchaikovsky's ability to improvise at the keyboard, nothing suggested a potential composer or even a fine performer. Tchaikovsky was told to finish his course and then try for a post in the Ministry of Justice.
In 1861, Tchaikovsky attended classes in music theory organized by the Russian Musical Society (RMS) and taught by Nikolai Zaremba. A year later he followed Zaremba to the new Saint Petersburg Conservatory. Tchaikovsky decided not to give up his Ministry post "until I am quite certain that I am destined to be a musician rather than a civil servant." From 1862 to 1865 he studied harmony and counterpoint with Zaremba, while Anton Rubinstein, director and founder of the Conservatory, taught him instrumentation and composition. In 1863, Tchaikovsky abandoned his civil service career and began studying music full-time, graduating from the Conservatory in December 1865. Though Rubinstein was impressed by Tchaikovsky's musical talent, he and Zaremba later clashed with the young composer over his First Symphony, written after his graduation, when he submitted it to them for their perusal. The symphony was given its first complete performance in Moscow in February 1868, where it was well received.
Rubinstein's Western musical orientation brought him into opposition with the nationalistic group of musicians known as The Five. As Tchaikovsky was Rubinstein's best-known pupil, he became a target for the group, especially for César Cui. Cui's criticisms began with a blistering review of a cantata Tchaikovsky had written as his graduation exercise from the Conservatory. Calling the piece "feeble", Cui wrote that if Tchaikovsky had any gift for music, "then at least somewhere or other [the cantata] would have broken through the fetters of the Conservatoire". The effect of this review on Tchaikovsky was devastating: "My vision grew dark, my head spun, and I ran out of the café like a madman.... All day I wandered aimlessly through the city, repeating, 'I'm sterile, insignificant, nothing will come out of me, I'm ungifted'".
When in 1867, Rubinstein resigned as conductor from Saint Petersburg's Russian Musical Society orchestra, he was replaced by composer Mily Balakirev, leader of The Five. Tchaikovsky, now Professor of Music Theory at the Moscow Conservatory, had already promised his Dances of the Hay Maidens (which he later included in his opera The Voyevoda, as Characteristic Dances) to the society. In submitting the manuscript (and perhaps mindful of Cui's review of the graduation cantata), Tchaikovsky included a note to Balakirev that ended with a request for a word of encouragement should the Dances not be performed. Possibly sensing a new disciple in Tchaikovsky, Balakirev wrote "with complete frankness" in his reply that he felt that Tchaikovsky was "a fully fledged artist". These letters set the tone for Tchaikovsky's relationship with Balakirev over the next two years. In 1869, the two entered into a working relationship, the result being Tchaikovsky's first recognised masterpiece, the fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet, a work which The Five wholeheartedly embraced.
Though, personally, Tchaikovsky remained on friendly terms with most of The Five, professionally, he was usually ambivalent about their music. Despite the collaboration with Balakirev on the Romeo and Juliet fantasy-overture, Tchaikovsky made considerable efforts to ensure his musical independence from the group as well as from the conservative faction at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory.
In Moscow, teaching with Nikolai Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky gained his first taste of famed appreciation. Introduced into the Artistic Circle, a club founded by Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky enjoyed a sense of social celebrity status among friends and fellow artists. Nevertheless, while the move to Moscow was bittersweet, filled with friendship, jealousy, and inner struggles, it was successful from a professional point of view. Tchaikovsky's musical works were frequently performed, with few delays between their composition and first performances, and the publication (after 1867) of songs and piano music for the home market helped bolster the composer's popularity.
More controversial than Tchaikovsky's reported sexual proclivities is how comfortable the composer might have been with his sexual nature. After reading all Tchaikovsky's letters (including unpublished ones), Poznansky concludes that the composer "eventually came to see his sexual peculiarities as an insurmountable and even natural part of his personality ... without experiencing any serious psychological damage." Relevant portions of his brother Modest's autobiography, where he tells of his brother's sexual orientation, have also been published. Modest, like Pyotr, was homosexual. However, biographer Anthony Holden claims British musicologist and scholar Henry Zajaczkowski's research "along psychoanalytical lines" points instead to "a severe unconscious inhibition by the composer of his sexual feelings":
One consequence of it may be sexual overindulgence as a kind of false solution: the individual thereby persuades himself that he does accept his sexual impulses. Complementing this and, also, as a psychological defense mechanism, would be precisely the idolization by Tchaikovsky of many of the young men of his circle [the self-styled "Fourth Suite"], to which Poznansky himself draws attention. If the composer's response to possible sexual objects was either to use and discard them or to idolize them, it shows that he was unable to form an integrated, secure relationship with another man. That, surely, was [Tchaikovsky's] tragedy.
Musicologist and historian Roland John Wiley suggests a third alternative, based on Tchaikovsky's letters. He suggests that while Tchaikovsky experienced "no unbearable guilt" over his homosexuality, he remained aware of the negative consequences of that knowledge becoming public, especially of the ramifications for his family.
In 1868, at the age of 28, Tchaikovsky met the Belgian soprano Désirée Artôt, then on a tour of Russia. They became infatuated, and were engaged to be married. He dedicated his Romance in F minor for piano, Op. 5, to her. However, on September 15, 1869, without any communication with Tchaikovsky, Artôt married a member of her company, the Spanish baritone Mariano Padilla y Ramos. The general view has been that Tchaikovsky got over the affair fairly quickly. It has, however, been postulated that he coded her name into the Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor and the tone-poem Fatum. They met on a handful of later occasions, and in October 1888 he wrote Six French Songs, Op. 65, for her, in response to her request for a single song. Tchaikovsky later claimed she was the only woman he ever loved.
In April 1877 Tchaikovsky's favorite pupil, Vladimir Shilovsky, married suddenly. Shilovsky's wedding may in turn have spurred Tchaikovsky to consider such a step himself. There followed Tchaikovsky's ill-starred marriage to one of his former composition students, Antonina Miliukova. The brief time with his wife drove him to an emotional crisis, which was followed by a stay in Clarens, Switzerland, for rest and recovery. They remained legally married but never lived together again nor had any children, though she later gave birth to three children by another man.
Tchaikovsky's marital debacle may have forced him to face the full truth concerning his sexuality. He apparently never again considered matrimony as a camouflage or escape, nor considered himself capable of loving women in the same manner as men.
A few days later, in another letter to Anatoly, he added that there was "nothing more futile than wanting to be anything other than what I am by nature."
Like the First Piano Concerto, the Violin Concerto was rejected initially by its intended dedicatee, virtuoso and pedagogue Leopold Auer, and was premiered by Adolph Brodsky. While the work eventually achieved public success, the audience hissed at its premiere in Vienna, and it was denigrated by music critic Eduard Hanslick:
The Russian composer Tchaikovsky is surely no ordinary talent, but rather, an inflated one, obsessed with posturing as a man of genius, and lacking all discrimination and taste ... the same can be said for his new, long, and ambitious Violin Concerto. For a while it proceeds soberly, musically, and not mindlessly, but soon vulgarity gains the upper hand and dominates until the end of the first movement. The violin is no longer played: it is tugged about, torn, beaten black and blue ... The Adagio is well on the way to reconciling us and winning us over when, all too soon, it breaks off to make way for a finale that transports us to the brutal and wretched jollity of a Russian church festival. We see a host of gross and savage faces, hear crude curses, and smell the booze. In the course of a discussion of obscener illustrations, Friedrich Vischer once maintained that there were pictures whose stink one could see. Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto confronts us for the first time with the hideous idea that there may be musical compositions whose stink one can hear.
Auer belatedly accepted the concerto, and eventually played it to great public success. In future years he taught the work to his pupils, including Jascha Heifetz and Nathan Milstein. Auer later said about Hanslick's comment that "the last movement was redolent of vodka [...] did credit neither to his good judgment nor to his reputation as a critic."
The intensity of personal emotion now flowing through Tchaikovsky's works was entirely new to Russian music. The critic Osoovski wrote of Tchaikovsky and Dostoyevsky: "With a hidden passion they both stop at moments of horror, total spiritual collapse, and finding acute sweetness in the cold trepidation of the heart before the abyss, they both force the reader to experience those feelings, too."
Tchaikovsky's fame among concert audiences began to expand outside Russia, and continued to grow within it. Hans von Bülow had become a fervent champion of the composer's work after hearing some of it in a Moscow concert during Lent of 1874. Nevertheless, by 1880, all of the operas Tchaikovsky had completed up that point had been staged, and his orchestral works had been given performances that had been sympathetically received.
Nadezhda von Meck was the wealthy widow of a Russian railway tycoon and an influential patron of the arts. Having already heard some of Tchaikovsky's work, she was encouraged by Iosif Kotek to commission some chamber pieces from him. Her support became an important element in Tchaikovsky's life; she eventually paid him an annual subsidy of 6,000 rubles, which made it possible for him to resign from the Moscow Conservatory in October 1878 at the age of 38, and concentrate on composition. With von Meck's patronage came a relationship that, at her insistence, was mainly epistolary – she stipulated they were never to meet face to face. They exchanged well over 1,000 letters between 1877 and 1890. In these letters Tchaikovsky was more open about much of his life and his creative processes than he had been to any other person.
As well as being a dedicated supporter of Tchaikovsky's musical works, Nadezhda von Meck became a vital enabler in his day-to-day existence by her financial support and friendship. As he explained to her,
There is something so special about our relationship that it often stops me in my tracks with amazement. I have told you more than once, I believe, that you have come to seem to me the hand of Fate itself, watching over me and protecting me. The very fact that I do not know you personally, while feeling so close to you, accords you in my eyes the special status of an unseen but benevolent presence, like a benign Providence.
In 1884 Tchaikovsky and von Meck became related by marriage when one of her sons, Nikolay, married Tchaikovsky's niece Anna Davydova. However, in 1890 she suddenly ended her relationship with the composer. She was suffering from health problems that made writing difficult; there were family pressures, and also financial difficulties arising from the mismanagement of her estate by her son Vladimir. The break with Tchaikovsky was announced in a letter delivered by a trusted servant, rather than by the usual postal service. It contained a request that he not forget her, and was accompanied by a year's subsidy in advance. She claimed bankruptcy, which, if not literally true, was evidently a real threat at the time.
Tchaikovsky may have been aware for nearly a year of his patroness's financial difficulties. While he may have no longer needed her money as much as in the past, the loss of her friendship and encouragement was devastating; he remained bewildered and resentful about her abrupt disappearance for the remaining three years of his life.
Tchaikovsky returned to Moscow Conservatory in the autumn of 1879, having been away from Russia for a year after the disintegration of his marriage. However, he quickly resigned, settling in Kamenka yet traveling incessantly. This may have been due in part to troubles with Antonina, who alternately agreed to, then refused, divorce, at one point exacerbating matters by moving into an apartment directly above her husband's. These factors may explain why, except for the piano trio which he wrote upon the death of Nikolai Rubinstein, his best work from this period is found in genres which did not depend heavily on personal expression.
While Tchaikovsky's reputation grew rapidly outside Russia, it was, as Alexandre Benois wrote in his memoirs, "considered obligatory [in progressive musical circles in Russia] to treat Tchaikovsky as a renegade, a master overly dependent on the West." An unprecedented acclaim for Dostoyevsky's message spread throughout Russia, and disdain for Tchaikovsky's music dissipated. He even drew a cult following among the young intelligentsia of St. Petersburg, including Benois, Léon Bakst and Sergei Diaghilev.
, Moscow in 1903]]
In 1880 the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, commissioned by Tsar Alexander I to commemorate the defeat of Napoleon in 1812, was nearing completion in Moscow; the 25th anniversary of the coronation of Alexander II in 1881 was imminent; and the 1882 Moscow Arts and Industry Exhibition was in the planning stage. Nikolai Rubinstein suggested a grand commemorative piece for use in related festivities. Tchaikovsky began the project in October 1880, finishing it within six weeks. He wrote to Nadezhda von Meck that the resulting work, the 1812 Overture, would be "very loud and noisy, but I wrote it with no warm feeling of love, and therefore there will probably be no artistic merits in it." He also warned conductor Eduard Nápravník that "I shan't be at all surprised and offended if you find that it is in a style unsuitable for symphony concerts."
On March 23, 1881, Nikolai Rubinstein died in Paris. Tchaikovsky was holidaying in Rome, and he went immediately to attend the funeral in Paris for his greatly respected mentor, but arrived too late (although he was part of a group of people who saw Rubinstein's coffin off on a train back to Russia). In December, he started work on his Piano Trio in A minor, "dedicated to the memory of a great artist." The trio was first performed privately at the Moscow Conservatory, where Rubinstein had been director, on the first anniversary of his death by three of its staff—pianist Sergei Taneyev, violinist Jan Hřímalý and cellist Wilhelm Fitzenhagen. The piece became extremely popular during the composer's lifetime and, in an ironic twist of fate, became Tchaikovsky's own elegy when played at memorial concerts in Moscow and St. Petersburg in November 1893.
, now the Tchaikovsky Museum]]
In 1885, after Tchaikovsky resettled in Russia, the Tsar asked personally for a new production of Eugene Onegin to be staged in Saint Petersburg. The opera had previously been seen only in Moscow, produced by a student ensemble from the Conservatory. Though critical reception to the Saint Petersburg production of Onegin was negative, the opera drew full houses every night; 15 years later the composer's brother Modest identified this as the moment Tchaikovsky became known and appreciated by the masses, and he achieved the greatest degree of popularity ever accorded to a Russian composer. News of the opera's success spread, and the work was produced by opera houses throughout Russia and abroad.
A feature of the Saint Petersburg production of Onegin was that Alexander III requested that the opera be staged not at the Mariyinsky Theater but at the Bolshoi Kamennïy Theater. This served notice that Tchaikovsky's music was replacing Italian opera as the official imperial art. In addition, thanks to Ivan Vsevolozhsky, Director of the Imperial Theaters and a patron of the composer, Tchaikovsky was awarded a lifetime pension of 3,000 rubles per year from the Tsar. This essentially made him the premier court composer, in practice if not in actual title.
While he still felt a disdain for public life, Tchaikovsky now participated in it for two reasons—his increasing celebrity and what he felt was his duty to promote Russian music. To this end, he helped support his former pupil Taneyev, who was now director of Moscow Conservatory, by attending student examinations and negotiating the sometimes sensitive relations among various members of the staff. He had wanted to conquer conducting for at least a decade, as he saw that success outside Russia depended to some extent on his conducting his own works. Within a year of the Cherevichki performances, Tchaikovsky was in considerable demand throughout Europe and Russia, which helped him overcome a life-long stage fright and boosted his self-assurance. Conducting brought him to America in 1891, where he led the New York Music Society's orchestra in his Festival Coronation March at the inaugural concert of New York's Carnegie Hall.
In 1888 Tchaikovsky led the premiere of his Fifth Symphony in Saint Petersburg, repeating the work a week later with the first performance of his tone poem Hamlet. While both works were received with extreme enthusiasm by audiences, critics proved hostile, with César Cui calling the symphony "routine" and "meretricious." Undeterred, Tchaikovsky continued to conduct the symphony in Russia and Europe.
A side benefit of Tchaikovsky's friendship with Glazunov, Lyadov and Rimsky-Korsakov was an increased confidence in his own abilities as a composer, along with a willingness to let his musical works stand alongside those of his contemporaries. Tchaikovsky wrote to Nadezhda von Meck in January 1889, after being once again well-represented in Belyayev's concerts, that he had "always tried to place myself outside all parties and to show in every way possible that I love and respect every honorable and gifted public figure in music, whatever his tendency", and that he considered himself "flattered to appear on the concert platform" beside composers in the Belyayev circle. This was an acknowledgment of wholehearted readiness for his music to be heard with that of these composers, delivered in a tone of implicit confidence that there were no comparisons from which to fear.
In 1892, Tchaikovsky was voted a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in France; he was only the second Russian, after the sculptor Mark Antokolsky, to be so honored. The following year, the University of Cambridge in Britain awarded Tchaikovsky an honorary Doctor of Music degree.
Tchaikovsky died in Saint Petersburg on November 6, 1893, nine days after the premiere of his Sixth Symphony, the Pathétique. Though only 53 years old, he lived a long life compared to many Russian 19th century composers. He was interred in Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, near the graves of fellow-composers Alexander Borodin, Mikhail Glinka, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Mily Balakirev and Modest Mussorgsky. Because of the Pathétique's formal innovation and the overwhelming emotional content of its outer movements, the work was received by the public with silent incomprehension at its first performance. The second performance, led by Nápravník, took place 20 days later at a memorial concert and was much more favorably received. The Pathétique has since become one of Tchaikovsky's best known works.
Tchaikovsky's death has traditionally been attributed to cholera, most probably contracted through drinking contaminated water several days earlier. However, some, including English musicologist and Tchaikovsky authority David Brown and biographer Anthony Holden, have theorized that his death was a suicide. According to one variation of the theory, a sentence of suicide was imposed in a "court of honor" by Tchaikovsky's fellow alumni of the St. Petersburg Imperial School of Jurisprudence, as a censure of the composer's homosexuality. This unproven theory was first broached publicly by Russian musicologist Alexandra Orlova in 1979, when she emigrated to the West. Wiley writes in the New Grove'' (2001), "The polemics over [Tchaikovsky's] death have reached an impasse ... Rumor attached to the famous die hard ... As for illness, problems of evidence offer little hope of satisfactory resolution: the state of diagnosis; the confusion of witnesses; disregard of long-term effects of smoking and alcohol. We do not know how Tchaikovsky died. We may never find out ....." He adds, however, that "there is more attractive and resourceful music in some of these pieces than one might be inclined to expect."
One of the recognizable characteristics of Tchaikovsky’s works is his use of harmony or rhythm to create a sudden, powerful release of emotion. Like the other Romantic composers of the era, Tchaikovsky colored his works with rich harmonies, utilizing German Augmented Sixth chords, minor triads with added major sixths, and augmented triads. These colorful harmonies progressed to moments of extreme emotion. Though the peaks were preceded by building tension, Tchaikovsky was often criticized for his lack of development throughout his material. Yet what critics failed to accept was the fact that Tchaikovsky was not attempting to smoothly develop his works, but rather disregard seamless flow and embrace the intense emotion created by momentous bursts of fervid harmonies.
He may also have been influenced by the almost "eighteenth-century" patronage prevalent in Russia at the time, which was still strongly influenced by its aristocracy. In this style of patronage, the patron and the artist often met on equal terms. Dedications of works to patrons were not gestures of humble gratitude but expressions of artistic partnership. The dedication of the Fourth Symphony to Nadezhda von Meck is known to be a seal on their friendship. Tchaikovsky's relationship with Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich bore creative fruit in the Six Songs, Op. 63, for which the grand duke wrote the words. Tchaikovsky found no aesthetic conflict in playing to the tastes of his audiences, though it was never established that he satisfied any other tastes but his own. The patriotic themes and stylization of 18th-century melodies in his works lined up with the values of the Russian aristocracy.
According to Brown in the New Grove (1980), Tchaikovsky's melodies ranged "from Western style to folksong stylizations and occasionally folksongs themselves." His use of repetitions within these melodies generally reflect the sequential style of Western practices, which he sometimes extended at immense length, building "into an emotional experience of almost unbearable intensity."
Holden maintains that Tchaikovsky was the first legitimate professional Russian composer, stating that only traditions of folksong and music for the Russian Orthodox Church existed before Tchaikovsky's birth. Holden continues, "Twenty years after Tchaikovsky's death, in 1913, Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring erupted onto the musical scene, signalling Russia's arrival into 20th century music. Between these two very different worlds Tchaikovsky's music became the sole bridge."
Russian musicologist Solomon Volkov maintains that Tchaikovsky was perhaps the first Russian composer to think seriously about his country's place in European musical culture. As the composer wrote to Nadezhda von Meck from Paris,
How pleasant it is to be convinced firsthand of the success of our literature in France. Every book étalage displays translations of Tolstoy, Turgenev, and Dostoyevsky ... The newspapers are constantly printing rapturous articles about one or another of these writers. Perhaps such a time will come for Russian music as well!
Tchaikovsky became the first Russian composer to personally acquaint foreign audiences with his own works, as well as those of other Russian composers. He also formed close business and personal ties with many of the leading musicians of Europe and the United States. For Russians, Volkov asserts, this was all something new and unusual.
Finally, the impact of Tchaikovsky's own works, especially in ballet, should not be underestimated; his mastery of danseuse (melodies which match physical movements perfectly), along with vivid orchestration, effective themes and continuity of thought were unprecedented in the genre, setting new standards for the role of music in classical ballet. Noel Goodwin characterized Swan Lake as "one of [ballet's] enduring masterworks" while Wiley called the latter work "powerful, diverse and rhythmically complex."
Category:1840 births Category:1893 deaths Category:Ballet composers Category:Composers of Christian music Category:LGBT musicians Category:Opera composers Category:Honorary Members of the Royal Philharmonic Society Category:Imperial School of Jurisprudence alumni Category:Moscow Conservatory faculty Category:LGBT Christians Category:LGBT composers Category:LGBT people from Russia Category:People from Votkinsk Category:Recipients of the Order of St. Vladimir Category:Romantic composers Category:Russian ballet Category:Russian composers Category:Russian music critics Category:Russian Orthodox Christians Category:Russian people of French descent Category:Russian people of Ukrainian descent Category:Saint Petersburg Conservatory alumni Category:Russian music educators
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| Name | Sarah Chang |
|---|---|
| Caption | Chang before performing a 2005 concert |
| Birth date | December 10, 1980 |
| Birth place | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Birth name | Young Joo Chang |
| Occupation | Violinist |
| Years active | 1984–present |
Sarah Chang (, also 張永主) (born Young Joo Chang; December 10, 1980) is a Korean American violin virtuoso. Her debut came in 1989 with the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Shortly thereafter, Chang was recognized as a child prodigy. She enrolled at Juilliard School to study music, graduating in 1999 and continuing university studies. During the 1990s and 2000s, Chang had major roles in performing at famous orchestras like New York Philharmonic and NHK Symphony Orchestra. Her famed image and tight control over her artistry has meant that Chang's popularity extends to an international scale; she has performed in countries such as England, France, Germany, Netherlands, China, South Korea, and Japan.
She has collaborated with most major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, and NHK Symphony Orchestra. For the 2004 Olympics, she served running with the Olympic Torch in New York. Yale University dedicated a chair in Sprague Hall for Chang's name in 2005. Chang's parents moved to the United States from South Korea in 1979 for her father's advanced music degree at Temple University. Her mother took composition classes at the University of Pennsylvania. Chang has said that although she "never actually lived in Korea... I do still feel very strongly it's where my roots are." She has a brother, who is seven years younger, Michael. In a 1998 interview to PBS, Chang explained that he is an avid tennis player and is thus often mistaken for being Michael Chang, an athlete with the same given name who the family have no relations to. Her father has settled back to Korea, while her brother graduated from Princeton University in 2010.
In 1987, when Chang was 6 years old, she eventually auditioned for and was accepted to the Juilliard School by performing the Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor. Chang spent her weekends attending music classes at Juilliard and shopping in New York City with her parents. In 1989, she began working with Dorothy DeLay at her studio, where her father had received his musical lessons. A former student and assistant to DeLay, Hyo Kang, also provided training to Chang.
In addition to her native English, she is fluent in both Korean and German.
Following her 1999 high school graduation in New Jersey, she returned to Juilliard for university and studied with DeLay.
Due to her musical accomplishments, Chang is among a very small number of professional figures recognized as a child prodigy.
In 1991, when Chang was 10 years old, she recorded her first album, Debut; it was released by EMI Classics on August 18, 1992 and quickly reached the Billboard chart of classical best-sellers. Chang quickly rose to fame and became known on an international scale, performing up to 150 concerts a year. At the age of 17, she asked for a three-month break; this opportunity did not come until she turned 20 years old. In 2006, Newsweek ranked her as one of the Top Eight Achieving Females in the United States. In the interview accompanying the feature, she commented: "I think having a career at such an early age kept me focused. We schedule at least two to three years in advance in the classical industry. I felt so grounded and so grateful to already know what it was that I wanted to do with my life."
Category:American classical violinists Category:Child classical musicians Category:American musicians of Asian descent Category:American musicians of Korean descent Category:Juilliard School of Music alumni Category:People from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Category:1980 births Category:Giftedness Category:Living people
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In 1805, Lucca was annexed by Napoleonic France, and the region was ceded to Napoleon's sister, Elisa Baciocchi. Paganini became a violinist for the Baciocchi court, while giving private lessons for her husband, Felice. In 1807, Baciocchi became the Grand Duchess of Tuscany and her court was transferred to Florence. Paganini was part of the entourage, but, towards the end of 1809, he left Baciocchi to resume his freelance career.
His fame spread across Europe with a concert tour that started in Vienna in August, 1828, stopping in every major European city in Germany, Poland, and Bohemia until February, 1831 in Strasbourg. This was followed by tours in Paris and the United Kingdom. His technical ability and his willingness to display it received much critical acclaim. In addition to his own compositions, theme and variations being the most popular, Paganini also performed modified versions of works (primarily concertos) written by his early contemporaries, such as Rodolphe Kreutzer and Giovanni Battista Viotti. Ignoring the many private parties he played at, the following list gives an indication of his popularity and his schedule: in 1832. Note that all solo pieces were of his composition, which was typical of all his concerts.]]
It was on these grounds, and his widely rumored association with the devil, that his body was denied a Catholic burial in Genoa. It took four years, and an appeal to the Pope, before the body was allowed to be transported to Genoa, but was still not buried. His remains were finally put to rest in 1876 in a cemetery in Parma. In 1893, the Czech violinist, František Ondříček, persuaded Paganini's grandson, Attila, to allow a viewing of the violinist's body. After the bizarre episode, Paganini's body was finally reinterred in a new cemetery in Parma in 1896.
Throughout his career, Paganini also became close friends with composers Gioachino Rossini and Hector Berlioz. Rossini and Paganini met in Bologna in the summer of 1818. In January 1821, on his return from Naples, Paganini met Rossini again in Rome, just in time to become the composer's substitute conductor for his opera Mathilde de Sharbran, upon the sudden death of the original conductor. The violinist's efforts earned gratitude from the composer.
Meanwhile, Paganini was introduced to Berlioz in Paris in 1833. Though Paganini also commissioned from him Harold en Italie for viola and orchestra, he never performed it, and instead it was premiered a year later by violist Christian Urhan. Despite his alleged lack of interest in Harold, Paganini often referred to Berlioz as the resurrection of Beethoven and, towards the end of his life, he gave large sums to the composer.
Other instruments associated with Paganini include the Antonio Amati 1600, the Nicolò Amati 1657, the Paganini-Desaint 1680 Stradivari, the Guarneri-filius Andrea 1706, the Le Brun 1712 Stradivari, the Vuillaume c.1720 Bergonzi, the Hubay 1726 Stradivari, and the Comte Cozio di Salabue 1727 violins; the Countess of Flanders 1582 da Salò-di Bertolotti, and the Mendelssohn 1731 Stradivari violas; the Piatti 1700 Goffriller, the Stanlein 1707 Stradivari, and the Ladenburg 1736 Stradivari cellos; and the Grobert of Mirecourt 1820 (guitar).
Generally speaking, Paganini's compositions were technically imaginative, and the timbre of the instrument was greatly expanded as a result of these works. Sounds of different musical instruments and animals were often imitated. One such composition was titled Il Fandango Spanolo (The Spanish Dance), which featured a series of humorous imitations of farm animals. Even more outrageous was a solo piece Duetto Amoroso, in which the sighs and groans of lovers were intimately depicted on the violin. Fortunately there survives a manuscript of the Duetto which has been recorded, while the existence of the Fandango is known only through concert posters.
However, his works were criticized for lacking characteristics of true polyphonism, as pointed out by Eugène Ysaÿe. Yehudi Menuhin, on the other hand, suggested that this might have been the result of his reliance on the guitar (in lieu of the piano) as an aid in composition.
Paganini was also the inspiration of many prominent composers. Both "La Campanella" and the A minor caprice (Nr. 24) have been an object of interest for a number of composers. Franz Liszt, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Boris Blacher, Andrew Lloyd Webber, George Rochberg and Witold Lutosławski, among others, wrote well-known variations on these themes.
Much of Paganini's playing (and his violin composition) was influenced by two violinists, Pietro Locatelli (1693–1746) and August Duranowski (1770–1834). During Paganini's study in Parma, he came across the 24 Caprices of Locatelli (entitled L'arte di nuova modulazione – Capricci enigmatici or The art of the new style – the enigmatic caprices). Published in the 1730s, they were shunned by the musical authorities for their technical innovations, and were forgotten by the musical community at large. Around the same time, Durand, a former student of Giovanni Battista Viotti (1755–1824), became a celebrated violinist. He was renowned for his use of harmonics and the left hand pizzicato in his performance. Paganini was impressed by Durand's innovations and showmanship, which later also became the hallmarks of the young violin virtuoso. Paganini was instrumental in the revival and popularization of these violinistic techniques, which are now incorporated into regular compositions.
Another aspect of Paganini's violin techniques concerned his flexibility. He had exceptionally long fingers and was capable of playing three octaves across four strings in a hand span, a feat that is still considered impossible by today's standards. His seemingly unnatural ability may have been a result of Marfan syndrome.
Other works inspired by Paganini include:
In 1972 the State of Italy purchased a large collection of Niccolò Paganini manuscripts from the W. Heyer Library of Cologne. They are housed at the Biblioteca Casanatense in Rome.
In 1982 the city of Genoa commissioned a thematic catalogue of music by Paganini, edited by Maria Rosa Moretti and Anna Sorrento, hence the abbreviation "MS" assigned to his catalogued works.
A minor planet 2859 Paganini discovered in 1978 by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Chernykh is named after him.
In the Soviet 1982 miniseries Niccolo Paganini the musician is portrayed by the Armenian stage master Vladimir Msryan. The series focuses on Paganini's persecution by the Roman Catholic Church. Another Soviet cinematic legend, Armen Dzhigarkhanyan plays Paganini's fictionalized arch-rival, an insidious Jesuit official. The information in the series was generally accurate, however it also played to some of the myths and legends rampant during the musician's lifetime. In particular, a memorable scene shows Paganini's adversaries sabotaging his violin before a high-profile performance, causing all strings but one to break during the concert. An undeterred Paganini continues to perform on three, two, and finally on a single string.
In Don Nigro's satirical comedy Paganini (1995), the great violinist seeks vainly for his salvation, claiming that he unknowingly sold his soul to the Devil. "Variation upon variation," he cries at one point, "but which variation leads to salvation and which to damnation? Music is a question for which there is no answer."
Paganini is portrayed as having killed three of his lovers and sinking repeatedly into poverty, prison, and drink. Each time he is "rescued" by the Devil who appears in different guises, returning Paganini's violin so he can continue playing. In the end, Paganini's salvation—administered by a god-like Clockmaker—turns out to be imprisonment in a large bottle where he plays his music for the amusement of the public through all eternity.
"Do not pity him, my dear," the Clockmaker tells Antonia, one of Paganini's murdered wives. "He is alone with the answer for which there is no question. The saved and the damned are the same."
Paganini is a major character in Madame Blavatsky's The Ensouled Violin, a short story included in the collection Nightmare Tales. The story recounts rumors that (a) the strings of Paganini's violin were made from human intestines and (b) Paganini murdered both his wife and mistress and imprisoned their souls in his violin.
In the film The Hunt for Red October, the character "Jonesey", SONAR operator on the USS Dallas, is a fan of Paganini and somehow plays a piece of the composers music over the submarine's SONAR system. This results in other submarines, including one "way out at Pearl" picking up the music over their SONAR equipment, causing a minor fracas. In the film Paganini is confused with Pavarotti, much to Jonesey's consternation.
The animated superhero series The Tick featured a supervillain known as "Octo Paganini" (who had six arms and could play three violins simultaneously) in the episode The Tick Vs. Europe.
In Andrew Clements' young adult novel, Things Hoped For, Paganini serves as inspiration for the main character, Gwendolyn, an aspiring young violinist.
In the Sherlock Holmes mystery "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box", Sherlock Holmes discusses Paganini with Watson while drinking wine.
In the Showtime television series Queer As Folk, the main character Brian Kinney often condescendingly refers to his lover's, Justin Taylor, one time boyfriend Ethan Gold, who is an aspiring violinist as Paganini Jr.
In the 1986 film Crossroads, the hero wins a guitar duel by playing a piece inspired by Paganini's Caprice #5 with perfect skill on an electric guitar. It has been speculated that his opponent (called "Jack Butler" in the film and portrayed by Steve Vai) is meant to recall Paganini himself, since he is gaunt, has unkempt hair and rolls his eyes while playing in the same fashion as Paganini. The film's plot centers on a blues man who sold his soul to Satan, which Paganini was said to have done to acquire his extraordinary talent.
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Category:1782 births Category:1840 deaths Category:Composers for the classical guitar Category:Composers for violin Category:Italian classical violinists Category:Italian composers Category:People from Genoa (city) Category:Romantic composers
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| Name | Itzhak Perlman |
|---|---|
| Background | non_vocal_instrumentalist |
| Born | August 31, 1945Tel Aviv, British Mandate of Palestine (now in Israel) |
| Instrument | Violin |
| Religion | Jewish |
| Genre | Classical, jazz, Klezmer |
| Occupation | Conductor, pedagogue, violinist |
| Years active | 1963–present |
| Associated acts | St. Louis Symphony, New York Philharmonic, etc. |
| Notable instruments | ViolinGeneral Kyd Stradivarius 1714Soil Stradivarius 1714Sauret Guarnerius del Gesu 1743 ex-Kreisler Bergonzi 1740 |
Itzhak Perlman (; born August 31, 1945) is an Israeli-American violin virtuoso, conductor, and master-instructor. He is widely considered to be one of the preeminent violin virtuosi of the 20th century.
Perlman contracted polio at the age of four. He made a good recovery, learning to walk with the use of crutches. Today, he generally uses crutches or an electric scooter for mobility and plays the violin while seated.
Although he has never been billed or marketed as a singer, he sang the role of "Un carceriere" ("a jailer") on a 1981 EMI recording of Puccini's Tosca which featured Renata Scotto, Plácido Domingo, and Renato Bruson, with James Levine conducting. He had earlier sung the role in an excerpt from the opera on a 1980 Pension Fund Benefit Concert telecast as part of the Live from Lincoln Center series, with Luciano Pavarotti as Cavaradossi, and Zubin Mehta conducting the New York Philharmonic. Perlman is a basso.
In 1987, he joined the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra for their concerts in Warsaw and Budapest, as well as other Eastern bloc countries. He toured with the IPO in the spring of 1990 for their first-ever performance in the Soviet Union, with concerts in Moscow and Leningrad, and toured with the IPO again in 1994, performing in China and India.
While primarily a solo artist, Perlman has performed with a number of other notable musicians, including Yo-Yo Ma, Jessye Norman, Isaac Stern, and Yuri Temirkanov at the 150th anniversary celebration of Tchaikovsky in Leningrad in December 1990. He has also performed (and recorded) with good friend and fellow Israeli violinist Pinchas Zukerman on numerous occasions over the years.
As well as playing and recording the classical music for which he is best known, Perlman has also played jazz, including an album made with jazz pianist Oscar Peterson, and klezmer. Perlman has been a soloist for a number of movie scores, notably the score of the 1993 film Schindler's List by John Williams, which subsequently won an Academy Award for best score. More recently, he was the violin soloist for the 2005 film Memoirs of a Geisha, along with cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Perlman played selections from the musical scores of the movies nominated for "Best Original Score" at the 73rd Academy Awards with Yo-Yo Ma, and at the 78th Academy Awards.
He performed John Williams' "Air and Simple Gifts" at the 2009 inauguration ceremony for Barack Obama, along with Yo-Yo Ma (cello), Gabriela Montero (piano) and Anthony McGill (clarinet). The quartet played along with a recording they had made of themselves two days earlier, since stringed instruments cannot reliably stay in tune in subfreezing temperatures.
April 1980: Newsweek magazine featured Perlman with a cover story.
1986: Honored with the "Medal of Liberty" by President Reagan.
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| Name | Hilary Hahn |
|---|---|
| Background | non_vocal_instrumentalist |
| Born | November 27, 1979Lexington, Virginia, USA |
| Instrument | Violin |
| Genre | Classical |
| Occupation | Violinist |
Hahn was born in Lexington, Virginia. Beginning her studies when she was three years old at Baltimore's Peabody Institute, she was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia at age ten, and in 1991, made her major orchestral debut with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Hahn signed her first musical recording contract at age sixteen in 1996 with Sony Music. She graduated from the Curtis Institute in May 1999 with a Bachelor of Music degree.
Hahn plays on an 1864 copy of Paganini's 'Cannone' made by Vuillaume. Her main interest is in solo performance; she also performs chamber music.
In 1991, Hahn made her major orchestral debut with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Soon thereafter, Hahn debuted with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic. In 1995 Hahn made her international debut in Germany with a performance of the Beethoven Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D Major with Lorin Maazel and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. The concert was broadcast on radio and television in Europe. A year later, Hahn debuted at Carnegie Hall in New York as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra.
By sixteen, Hahn had completed the Curtis Institute's university requirements, but elected to remain for several years to pursue elective courses, until her graduation in May 1999 with a Bachelor of Music degree. During this time she coached violin with Jaime Laredo, and studied chamber music with Felix Galimir and Gary Graffman. In an interview with PBS in December 2001, Hahn stated that of all musical disciplines, she is most interested in performance.
Hahn has played with orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. She debuted with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in March 2007, and played in Vatican City as part of the celebrations for Pope Benedict XVI together with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Gustavo Dudamel, also in 2007.
She began performing and touring in a crossover duo with singer-songwriter Josh Ritter in 2007 and with singer-songwriter Tom Brosseau in 2005. According to Hahn, "Other musicians cross genres all the time. For me it's not crossover—I just enter their world. It frees you up to think in a different way from what you've been trained to do."
Hahn sometimes feels that classical-music admirers "make it hard for people who are just coming in. I think that if people show up in jeans and chains, it's great that all parts of culture are interested in music. People forget sometimes that it's about the music, not how you act and dress."
During concerts she does hope for absolute quiet from the audience during the music. "Not out of snobbishness or holy respect for the music, but just so everyone (including the performers) can hear it. Great music can be quite comfortable and relaxing, and you can sleep—as long as you don't snore." Because her appearance coincided with the Tonight Show controversy, the album sold 1,000 copies, reaching #1 on a Billboard classical chart, officially peaking at #6 on the Billboard Classical Albums chart.
Hahn's latest album, featuring works by Tchaikovsky and the Pullitzer Prize-winning piece by Hahn's former teacher Jennifer Higdon was released on September 21, 2010.
In a segment on NPR entitled "Musicians in Their Own Words", Hahn speaks about the surreal experience of playing the Bach Chaconne (from the Partita for Violin No. 2) alone on the concert stage. In the same segment, she discusses her experiences emulating a lark while playing The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Since September 2008 Hahn also has had a Twitter account, where she posts messages from the point of view of her violin case.
Category:American classical violinists Category:Child classical musicians Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Curtis Institute of Music alumni Category:American musicians of German descent Category:People from Baltimore, Maryland Category:1979 births Category:Living people Category:Peabody Institute alumni
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