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With a colorful history that spans 450 years, the violin has proven to be one of the world's most important and versatile instruments. Addressed to performing musicians, serious concertgoers, and collectors of recordings, The Violin offers insightful, up-to-date essays on a wide range of topics. Essays discuss beloved masterpieces from the violin's solo repertoire, with individual chapters on the Italian Baroque, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and the violin concerto in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as the evolution of performance styles and interpretation as documented in recordings. The volume also illustrates the broad cultural and geographic reach of the instrument, offering readers a taste of the traditional music of Argentina, Mexico, Norway, and India, in which the violin's participation is an essential and characteristic element. Other chapters are devoted to American fiddling andto the violin and violinists as metaphors in literature and the visual arts. CONTRIBUTORS: Chris Goertzen, Eitan Ornoy, Robert Riggs, Peter Walls, Peter Wollny. Musicologist and violinist Robert Riggs (Ph.D., Harvard University) chairs the Department of Music at the University of Mississippi and is the author of articles on Mozart as well as the monograph Leon Kirchner: Composer, Performer, and Teacher (URP 2010).
List of contents
Associations with Death and the Devil - Robert Riggs
Violinists and Violins in Literature - Robert Riggs
The Violin in Italy during the Baroque Period - Peter Walls
Bach and the Violin - Peter Wollny
Mozart, Beethoven, and the Violin - Robert Riggs
The Violin Concerto and Virtuosity in the Nineteenth Century - Robert Riggs
The Violin Concerto in the Twentieth Century - Robert Riggs
The Masters' Voice: Recordings as Documentation of Performance Practice - Eitan Ornoy
The Peripatetic Violin - Chris Goertzen
The Devil's Box No More: Fiddling in America - Chris Goertzen
Notes on Contributors
Index
About the author
Robert Riggs
Summary
Provides new perspectives on the violin's beloved concert repertoire, its diverse roles in indigenous musical traditions on four continents, and its metaphorical presence in visual arts and literature.
