Mary Holly Graves, age 13, of Mesa, Ariz., for her question:
WHEN WAS THE VIOLIN FIRST USED?
A violin is a bowed stringed instrument that is the highest pitched member of the family that includes the viola, cello and double bass. The violin emerged in Italy in the early 1500s and seems to have evolved from two medieval bowed instruments the fiddle also called vielle or fiedel, and the rebec and from the Renaissance lira da braccio, a violin like instrument with oft the fingerboara drone strings.
Also related to the violin, but not a close ancestor, is the viol, a fretted, six string instrument that appeared in Europe somewhat before the violin and existed side by side with it for about 200 years.
The earliest important violin makezs were the northern Italians Gasparo da Salo and Giovanni Maggini from Brescia and Andrea Amati from Cremona.
The craft of violin making reached unprecedented artistic heights in the 17th century and in the early 18th century in the workshops of the Italians Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri, both from Cremona, and the Austrian Jacob Stainer.
Compared with the modern instrument, the early violin pads a shorter, thicker neck that was less angled back from the violin's front; a shorter fingerboard; a flatter ridge; and strings made solely of gut.
Early bows were somewhat different in design from modern ones. The resulting sound was softer, smaller and less brilliant tnan that of the modern violin.
These construction details were all modified in the 18th and 19th centuries to give the violin a louder, more robust, more brilliant tone. A number of 20th century musicians have restored their 18th century instruments to the original specifications, believing them to be more sorted for early music.
Today's violin strings may be made of gut, gut wound with aluminum or silver, steel or perlon.
Used at first to accompany dancing or to double voice parts in vocal music, the violin for a long time was considered an instrument of low social status.
In the early 1670s, however, the violin gained prestige through its use in operas such as "Urfeo"(1607), by the Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi, and through the French king Louis XIIi's band of musicians, the "24 violins du roil' ("the king's 24 violins," formed in 1626) This growth in stature continued through the baroque period in the works of many notable composer performers.
The violin became the principal force in the instrumental genres than current the solo concerto, concerto groseo, sonata, trio sonata and suite as well as in opera.
By the mid 18th century, the violin was one of the most popular solo instruments in European music. Violins also formed the leasing section of the orchestra, the most important instrumental ensemble to emerge in both the baroque anti classical ears.
In the modern orchestra still the most important instrumental ensemble in Western music the violin family continues to account for more than half the players.