Episode Transcript
[00:00:13] Speaker A: Well, no prizes for guessing what that piece of music was. It is probably the most famous and most recognisable of any violin work ever written. It was, of course, Vivaldi's Four Seasons Summer, to be specific, and the last movement of performed by the great Janine Janssen.
So, welcome to Talking Bach, a podcast dedicated to the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, hosted by ME artistic director Madeleine Easton.
So we're here to talk about the art of violin.
So the word violin has become synonymous with classical music.
The instrument has become so incredibly popular and famous due to its ability to convey technical brilliance, emotional expressivity, and also to transcend cultures around the world. Its rise was driven not just by its inherent musical qualities, but by historical developments, master craftsmanship, and popularity as a working instrument at court that really did elevate it above other instruments in the Western canon. The violin boasts more concertos written for it than any other instrument.
And while the piano and cello also have numerous concertos, it's the violin's popularity in the concerto form that makes it completely unmatched amongst instruments, especially when considering the sheer volume of work composed for it.
But what is so special about the violin as opposed to other instruments? What are the secrets to its success?
Well, I thought I would start by talking about its enormous expressive capabilities and an instrument with its really wide range of notes. It has often been compared to the human voice. I mean, the human voice can. Each voice type of the human voice has a three or sometimes even four octave range, depending on who you are. If you're Mariah Carey, it's probably even more. But the violin itself has a huge range of notes ranging from a bottom g to an A3 or four, almost four and a half octaves above.
And with this wide range of notes, it's been compared to the human voice.
And what that does is make for an incredibly emotional impact.
It can project right to the back of a concert hall, too, because of its fantastic proportions, its physical proportions, which make it really a completely ideal instrument.
The other thing in its favor is that the violin is extremely portable, being relatively lightweight.
Now, true master craftsmen turned their hands to making violins in the 16th and 17th centuries, with makers such as Stradivarius, Guarneri and Amati producing instruments of such genius and quality that they are actually considered among the greatest works of art. I mean, I'm not just talking instruments, I'm talking any art, whether it be painting, sculpture, whatever. These instruments are considered some of the greatest works of art anybody has ever, ever produced.
So it was Andrea amati born in 1505, died in 1577, who was a luthier from Cremona. Now he is credited with making the first modern violin as we know it. However, if one wishes to delve a little bit further back in time and look at a different part of the world, the ancestors of the violin can be found in such instruments, such as the Arabian Rabab or Rebab or rebek. It's got many, many names, this instrument.
These were instruments of the Middle Ages and originally came from the Orient and are related to the Chinese erhu. Actually, these instruments, the rebabs, were played originally in Spain and France in the 15th century and are said to be the ancestors of the violin in the East. The Chinese erhu, as I just mentioned, and the Morin khur, evolved from the rhebab and are considered also relatives of the violin. So isn't that interesting that across the world, across this whole steps of Central Asia, across the Middle east and through Europe, there were instruments resembling violins that the violin as we know it evolved from.
Now, at the end of the Middle Ages, a bowed stringed instrument called a fiddle appeared in Europe.
So the word fiddle denotes an instrument of different shapes and sizes, furnished with gut strings varying proportionately in thickness, and played with a wooden bow strung with horsehair.
From this it appears that the word fiddle is comprehensive and embraces all various kinds of stringed instruments, not just a violin as we know it. And, and that is therefore a misnomer to call a violin, baldly a fiddle, because there were many different types of fiddles back in the day. The violin as an instrument developed hugely over time as composers made more and more demands of the instrument, both technically and expressively. The great instruments of the Renaissance and Baroque period, made by our friends Amarti, Stradivari, Gueneri, Guadagnini and Steiner and Grand Chino were adapting to meet the demands of the music being composed by, by way of re angling the neck or replacing it completely with a narrower, longer neck and fingerboard, thinner bridges, rounder tail pieces, and of course the invention and addition of the chin rest. These adaptations I was just talking about are often equated to a major operation on the instrument, which very, very brave luthiers do today. And they are extremely fearful of altering in any way these beautiful old instruments, because there is a risk that the instrument might not sound the same. But interestingly, all those great instruments, like the Stradivaris and everything, they were given this major operation and it was only the second rate instruments that got left Alone, because makers and instrumentalists, they wanted these violins to be kept playing and you couldn't play modern repertoire on a baroque setup. So they had to have this big operation.
And I think you'll agree with me when I say the instruments still sound pretty good.
It is, however, a testament to the popularity of the violin as an instrument that the instruments were deemed worthy of such treatment in order for them to be continually played and for us to listen to.
So how about we talk a little bit about the origins of the violin? Let's go on a bit of a deep dive, get in the Tardis and go back in time.
So the Arabian Rabb and the Rebeck, which came from the Orient, are fascinating instruments.
This instrument was played widely in Spain and France and as I said before, our ancestors of the violin. So what is a rabab?
Well, it's one of the very first bowed string instruments made with a long neck attached to a rounded body with one to three strings.
The bottom of it also had a protruding spike, a bit like a modern cello does now, to support the instrument upright, like a cello.
So the rebab, which is spelled rebab or Reb eb sort of thing, is the name of several related stringed instruments that independently spread via Islamic trading routes over much of North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and parts of Europe. This instrument is typically bowed, but it is sometimes plucked. And you'll hear instruments in India and places like Afghanistan which are called the rebab, which are actually plucked.
And it is one of the earliest known bowed instruments named no later than the 8th century, if you can believe that, and is parent of many bowed and stringed instruments.
So the first thing you notice about this instrument is its voice like qualities, which is what made stringed instruments so popular in subsequent centuries.
So how about we hear a little bit of the rabab?
Here is Jordi Savile improvising on the rebab in concert.
[00:08:00] Speaker B: It.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: I think that's completely magical, that improvisation on such an ancient instrument.
Now let's talk about what was going on in the East.
So in the east, the Chinese erhu and morin kur evolved from the rabab, and so they are relatives of the violin. And in case you haven't heard, the erhu, it's quite a magical instrument. And here is what it sounds.
That was played by Ju yu on the 2016 album called the Art of the Chinese Erhu.
So you can hear immediately how much it sounds, or I think it sounds like the human voice improvising Just like the Arabian instrument did. So the ability of these early bode instruments to mimic the human voice and therefore connect to our emotions is well and truly already there. Now, going back to Europe near the end of the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, the fiddle, or the violin as it was also known, wasn't the only bowed instrument at the time.
There was this other entire family of instruments that developed called the viol family.
[00:09:50] Speaker B: The.
[00:09:50] Speaker A: So was the violin a relative of the viol?
Well, yes and no. Whilst the viol thrived in 16th and 17th centuries, the violin and the viol actually coexisted quite happily throughout the entire Renaissance and Baroque period. So you might be asking, well, what's the difference between the two?
So instruments in the viol family did not have the F shaped sound hole of the violin, but rather a C shaped sound hole or even some more decorative shape. Or the viol differs from the violin in that it has six, seven or even more strings tuned in fourths compared with the four strings of the violin which tuned in fifths.
Now, the viols also had a fretted fingerboard and a relatively thick body because of the sloping shoulder shape at the joint where the neck meets that body. So there are various sizes of viols, soprano, alto, tenor, bass and all sorts of things in between.
But the viola da gamba, which has a lower register similar to that of the cello, the was particularly famous and I'm sure people have heard of viola da gamba out there and heard its beautiful otherworldly tones.
And Bach used it to great effect in his viola da gamba sonatas and in the Sir John Passions and Matthew Passions. I've always loved the sound of viols. To me it's completely otherworldly and it transports me back in time, straight away to a medieval sound world.
Now here is what they sound like.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: In Consortium Sam.
[00:11:51] Speaker A: That was in nominee in six parts by the great Henry Purcell, performed by Hesperion 20, directed by Jordi Saval. It's incredibly moving music, don't you think? Absolutely magical.
But let us focus now on the Baroque period, for it was at this time that the violin really did start to rise to prominence. There were many factors at play here, probably most notably the technological advancements in in the instrument taking place by the great luthiers of Cremona, resulting in the violin being capable of extreme versatility of expression.
Now this versatility of expression is something I want to focus on a bit, because it is that versatility of expression which really got the violin noticed. At that period. Opera basically got invented and the growing influence of opera, whereby the instrument's ability to emulate the vocal expressiveness made it a natural fit for the dramatic and emotional nature of opera itself.
So the very first opera composers such as Monteverdi and later Handel, started featuring the violin in solo interjections in the operas.
Monteverdi did this, and Handel did it a lot in his early oratorios and especially in his operas. Here's a little example of the violin beginning to poke its head above the parapet a little bit in opera with a little bit of handle.
That was the fabulous Franco Faggioli and I Pomidoro performing the aria Se in Fiorito Ameno Prato from Handel's amazing opera Giulio Cesare.
So, talking about the success of the violin and how it became such a prominent instrument, I think it's worth talking about the fact that many of the great composers were also violinists, sort of further fueling the instrument's development.
Also, over time, the violin started to transcend social status, moving from a popular street or country instrument to the highest courts and concert halls in the land, making it even more popular.
Characters such as Ivan Khandoshkin are a really good example how, if you play the violin, you could traverse seemingly immovable social classes and reach the very, very, very top of society.
So Handoschkin is an interesting character for those of you who do not know about him. He was born in 1747 in Russia into a family of working peasants.
However, his exposure to music and the violin allowed his talent to flourish. And he got noticed by traveling soldiers who were coming in and out of the countryside. And they heard this violin playing and thought, oh, my gosh, who is that person? So Handoschen ended up being taken to the court of Catherine the Great in St. Petersburg and became, in the end, court composer. So that violin got him out of the mud and huts of the countryside and into the highest court in the land. So there you go. That was a little bit of history of how the violin developed as an instrument and what it could do for both performer and listener alike.
But what we are here to talk about is the art of violin.
What is it that makes this instrument so special?
Is it the way we play it or how we feel when we hear it?
Well, from a practical point of view, the violin is not an easy instrument to learn.
The first thing to notice is that the violin doesn't have keys or frets. And so you have to rely entirely on your ears for accuracy of pitch.
Now, even when you get that right, then you have to grapple with actually making the sound on a piano, you can just plonk down, finger on a key and it will be relatively in tune, depending on how long it's been since the piano was tuned. But you will get a note and a sound on a wind or brass instrument. You can blow through it, press a key down and some sort of note will come out.
On a stringed instrument, not so. You have to carefully regulate pressure, speed and sounding point in in order for any kind of sound to come out at all. It is an enormously difficult task. And then to top it all off, it is an absolutely unergonomic instrument to play. You have to supinate your left arm around, twisting it into a position where your fingers can fall over the strings and notes. Then you have to shift up and down, trying not to drop it the whole time.
And oh my gosh, I'm sure many a parent has had to suffer the first few years of hearing their kids trying to learn the violin. Perhaps not the most ideal sounds are coming out of the violin.
I'm talking about myself, of course. But if you persevere, you get there eventually and you learn how to draw the sound out of this marvellous instrument. Therefore unlocking almost limitless potential for expression the violin has at its disposal.
Your physique also has a big part to play in terms of whether the violin will be comfortable for you to play as well.
I always thought that it was an instrument designed for a man to be played by a man. As if you had wide shoulders and a short neck, then the violin would basically just slot in under your chin and you could reach up and around it with ease. Because men tend to have longer arms than women. That assumption has been well and truly disproved by many a petite, long necked, narrow shouldered woman over the years and is there for us to see in all the beautiful Renaissance and baroque artwork features featuring women playing the instrument. So there you go. Actually, as a little side note, I thought it might be fun to talk briefly about the violin in art, as well as the art of the violin.
So throughout the last five centuries, the violin has of course taken central place amongst instruments. And makers themselves have produced instruments of incomparable beauty.
And this has inspired artists throughout the ages. And actually the representation of violin in art is very, very prevalent.
Paintings actually offer us a fascinating insight into the instrument. I haven't mentioned the evolution of the violin much, but the physical development of the instrument can be traced really clearly through these paintings. That operation I was talking about earlier, that the Violins had when they were converted to the modern setup.
The Renaissance was a time where both visual arts and culture were flourishing across Europe.
Images of violins appeared in the arms of angels, in religious works, mostly female, interestingly enough, and in altarpieces and illuminated manuscripts. By the 17th century, the cremini school of violin playing was producing instruments the like of which had never been seen before.
And the structure and size of these instruments became standardised for the first time in history. And we can see that through these paintings.
Violins and bows also appeared often in the paintings as decorative accessories, which gives the keen eye a great insight into to what they looked like at the time.
In the 18th century, the violin appears often in portraiture. And then Moving into the 20th century, the violin makes appearances in the works of the most avant garde artists of the day. Picasso, for example, he regularly painted violins or suggested images of violins in his painting in all sorts of interesting cubist and new ways.
And then, of course, the curvaceous body of the violin has inspired many an artist to represent the female form. And just goes to show that throughout the ages, the violin continues to have a powerful presence all through the visual arts.
In our last podcast, our principal violinists, Simone Slattery and Raphael Font, talked about their individual journeys through life with the instrument, how they came to it and what it has come to mean to them. And I have my own story with the violin as well, of course, But I think the art of violin is just as much about the composers as it is about the performers.
From violinists improvising in country settings, moving into the salons, the churches, and then the palaces of the world. It's the violinists themselves who were the composers. They were also the conductors as well, directing their music from the violin long before the word conductor was adopted. The Baroque period is probably the best example of this, actually, with composers such as Lully, Leclerc, Vivaldi, Bieber, Tartini, Locatelli, and then later Paganini, and of course, Bach being the most famous examples of instrumentalists who composed violinists composing violin music.
And I mentioned Bach as he was as skilled at the violin as he was on the organ at this early age. And in fact, his first professional engagement was actually as a concertmaster, not as a Kapellmeister.
Now, special mention here has to go to Vivaldi, who championed the violin probably more than any other composer of the Baroque period.
This can be explained by the fact that he himself was an outstanding violin player.
He would have had to be to have written the virtuosic pieces that he did. And he was employed at the Ospedale della Pieta in Venice, where he was required to compose a constant stream of new music, much of it for the violin, which held a central role in his students lives.
The combination of shrewd business acumen by Vivaldi and his own enormously popular compositional style style, the Italian style, proved a massive success. And his concertos, particularly his Four Seasons, have more than stood the test of time and a beloved around the world. Which is why I had to mention Vivaldi amongst probably anybody else of the Baroque period. Not all composers who wrote for and championed the violin were violinists, however. Although Mozart could play extremely well, he wasn't primarily a violinist.
Of course, neither was Beethoven or Haydn. But those composers wrote works of such brilliance and power that no one who plays the violin could possibly ignore their works. And on whose shoulders every other composer of the violin stands on. These composers were responsible for continuing the rise of the violin to solo stattes and prominence as the solo instrument of choice.
Now, my next very special mention must go to none other than Niccolo Paganini.
He rose to fame through his incredible violin playing, the likes of which the world had never seen, but also just as much for his beautiful compositions.
Now, I think Paganini's eye for melody is right up there with the very, very, very best melodists of our experience, such as Schubert. His ability to produce imaginative, beautiful and technically dazzling variations on themes was unmatched.
Perhaps. Actually only I can think of one other composer who came close, and that would be Henrik Wignowski. For those of you who know his works.
Now, Paganini changed what we thought of as violin music and what we thought of as violin playing. He revolutionized what was possible on the violin, both musically and technically. I mention musically, but so much of the time in his music, he wanted the violin to sound anything but a violinist. Like for example, in his Caprice no. 9 from his 24 Caprices for solo Violin, he actually requires the violin to sound like birds and then hunting horns and then galloping horses. And here's a little bit of what I mean, performed by the legendary Itzhak Perlman.
[00:23:48] Speaker B: Sam.
[00:24:28] Speaker A: Isn'T that wonderful? I'm sure you could hear the hunting horns in that track. So those 24 caprices for solo violin changed the face of violin playing forever and inspired every other violinist and composer who came after.
Now another violinist composer who I want to mention later in the 19th century is Fritz Kreisler. Now here we had a violinist who was not only a genius at the instrument. But his powers as a composer and arranger were really quite staggering. I love playing his music as it's so idiomatic from the violin, so charming and so much fun to play. And I just think it's amazing how he never told anyone he actually wrote most of these pieces. He tried to pass them off as lost compositions by these other relatively unknown Baroque composers, but eventually it came to light that no, they were by him, which I think is extraordinary.
It's amazing how differently composers have written for this instrument over the years and how they've used it to say what they needed to say through music.
It is amazing how frequently the great composers of Western and other civilizations have utilised the violin more than any other instrument.
And it is incredible how violinists and composers worked together to create works of utter genius for which I, for one, are so grateful for. And I listen to all the time.
I just want to give an example of a violinist working with a composer and what it can actually produce.
So the German violinist Ferdinand David is a great example of, of this, of a violinist working with a composer. And his close association and friendship with Felix Mendelssohn resulted in Mendelssohn's beloved second Violin Concerto in E Minor. And also Ferdinand David's relationship and friendship with Robert Schumann and his wife Clara also resulted in him being the dedicatee of Schumann's Beautiful Violin Sonata no. 1, which he also gave the premiere of.
Joseph Joachim is another great example of this.
His friend Johannes Brahms wrote his Violin Concerto for Joachim, who was his close, close, close friend. Now, Brahms sought Joachim's technical advice during the composition of the work, and Joachim not only premiered the concerto in Leipzig, but also played a crucial role in revisions in the final version of the solo part. So there you go. Sometimes the performer is almost as integral to the compositional process as the composer itself.
That is part of the art of violin, not just playing it, but composing it and doing it together.
We are so lucky as violinists to have had so many truly monumental works written for us. We have the big four concertos, as they are known, the Beethoven, the Brahms, the Tchaikovsky and the Sibelius, all written in the key of D, just because it's by far the most comfortable key to perform in.
We have composers through the ages, each find new and interesting ways to use the instrument to express their vision and thoughts. From Monteverdi right the way through the Renaissance, the Baroque, classical, romantic and 20th century, with composers such as Bartok, Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Stravinsky all choosing the Violin to write hugely substantial and important works and it has come out on top. The violin has come out on top as the instrument of choice throughout history.
So some of you must be thinking, why haven't I mentioned Bach yet?
Well, I of course decided to leave the best to last, didn't I?
Bach, of all composers mentioned, was actually the one, in my opinion, who changed the course of history for the violin forever.
What he did with his solo sonatas and partitas was so groundbreaking and so ingenious, so clever, but at the same time so profoundly spiritual and emotional.
He proved that the violin could do anything. He utterly ripped up the rule book and wrote perfect four part polyphony for one solo violin, the likes of which had never been seen before or actually has been seen since. The thing about Bach's achievement when it came to the violin is that every single composer after Bach, whether they liked it or not, was influenced by him.
Without Bach, no music that came after could have been the same. He literally paved the way for the violin as a solo instrument more than any other composer had, and showed us the deepest parts of our souls. At the same time, it is nothing short of staggering.
His violin concertos are pretty good too. Of course there's the Concerto for two Violins in D minor, which is almost as famous as Vivaldi's Four Seasons. His Oboe and Violin concerto, plus his A minor and E major concertos, each is a sublime example of energy, virtuosity and spiritual profundity. So what is the art of the violin? Well, perhaps it's the art of playing the violin and the art of composing for the violin. Perhaps it's painting a violin. It's many things, but throughout history, composers have needed performers and performers have needed composers, we have needed instrument makers, we have all needed each other.
Sometimes the composers and the performers were one and the same person. But it is actually that symbiotic relationship between composer, performer and maker which culminates in what we feel the art of Violin really is.
So thank you for joining me for this exploration of everything to do with the violin and the art surrounding it.
So all of this is in aid of introducing our next concert series called the Art of Violin where we explore five concertos written by five of the greatest baroque composers on whose shoulders all future composers of the violin repertoire stood. We will perform concertos by Vivaldi, Leclerc, Handel, Telemann and Bachelor. The Art of Violin opens on Friday, September 27th at 7:30pm in the Utzon Room at the Sydney Opera House.
Then we head to Wollongong on Saturday, September 28, performing at the Wollongong Conservatorium at 5pm Your final chance to hear these five dazzling violin concertos is on Sunday, September 29 at 2:30pm at St. Finbar's Church in Glenbrook in the Blue Mountains.
Now for all details just jump on our website www.bachacademyaustralia.com and there you will find all the booking details. Thank you once again for joining me on Talking Bach for this exploration of the art of violin.
[00:31:22] Speaker B: Sam Sa.
