An invaluable guide to the available historical source material on playing the violin and viola.

"The Early Music revival has had far-reaching consequences on how music of the past is performed, both by specialists and non-specialists. This timely book is a practical step-by-step course of lessons for violinists and violists in both these categories, covering the interpretation, technique, culture and historical background of the Baroque violin repertoire. Written by a violinist and teacher specialising in Baroque music over many years, it guides readers from the basics (how to hold the violin) to Bach, via music from a wide variety of styles. Avoiding obscure musicological jargon, it is eminently readable and accessible. Packed with information, detailed observations on the music under discussion and relevant quotations from historical and contemporary sources, it covers everything the Baroque violin student should know and may be considered as equivalent to two to three years of individual lessons. The book contains over 100 Exercises devised for and tested on students over the years. The author's holistic approach is evident through the Exercises aimed at bringing out the individual voice of each student, and his insistence that what happens within, the identification and manipulation of Affects, is a vital part of successful performance. Imitating the voice, both spoken and sung, is a constant theme, beginning with the simple device of playing words. There are 50 Lessons, including five Ornamentation Modules and ones on specific topics: Temperament, Rhetoric, the Affects etc. All the music, transcribed for both violin and viola, is downloadable from the website, where there is also a series of videos"--

In the early seventeenth century, enthusiasm for the violin swept across Europe--this was an instrument capable of bewitching virtuosity, with the power to express emotions in a way only before achieved with the human voice. With this new guide to the Baroque violin, and its close cousin, the Baroque viola, distinguished performer and pedagogue Walter Reiter puts this power into the hands of today's players. Through fifty lessons based on the Reiter's own highly-renowned course at The Royal Conservatory of the Hague, The Baroque Violin & Viola, Volume II provides a comprehensive exploration of the period's rich and varied repertoire. The lessons in Volume II cover the early seventeenth-century Italian sonata, music of the French Baroque, the Galant style, and the sonatas of composers like Schmelzer, Biber, and Bach. Practical exercises are integrated into each lesson, and accompanied by rich video demonstrations on the book's companion website. Brought to life by Reiter's deep insight into key repertoire based on a lifetime of playing and teaching, The Baroque Violin & Viola, Volume II: A Fifty-Lesson Course will enhance performances of professional and amateur musicians alike.

The life, times, and travels of a remarkable instrument and the people who have made, sold, played, and cherished it. A 16-ounce package of polished wood, strings, and air, the violin is perhaps the most affordable, portable, and adaptable instrument ever created. As congenial to reels, ragas, Delta blues, and indie rock as it is to solo Bach and late Beethoven, it has been played standing or sitting, alone or in groups, in bars, churches, concert halls, lumber camps, even concentration camps, by pros and amateurs, adults and children, men and women, at virtually any latitude on any continent. Despite dogged attempts by musicologists worldwide to find its source, the violin’s origins remain maddeningly elusive. The instrument surfaced from nowhere in particular, in a world that Columbus had only recently left behind and Shakespeare had yet to put on paper. By the end of the violin’s first century, people were just discovering its possibilities. But it was already the instrument of choice for some of the greatest music ever composed by the end of its second. By the dawn of its fifth, it was established on five continents as an icon of globalization, modernization, and social mobility, an A-list trophy, and a potential capital gain. In The Violin, David Schoenbaum has combined the stories of its makers, dealers, and players into a global history of the past five centuries. From the earliest days, when violin makers acquired their craft from box makers, to Stradivari and the Golden Age of Cremona; Vuillaume and the Hills, who turned it into a global collectible; and incomparable performers from Paganini and Joachim to Heifetz and Oistrakh, Schoenbaum lays out the business, politics, and art of the world’s most versatile instrument.

A 1999 overview of historical performance, surveying issues and suggesting future developments.

For use in group string classes