Article
Quest for Power
by Peter Zaret
"The lordly violin and its less illustrious relatives in the string family are in trouble. As today's concert halls grow more cavernous, it becomes increasingly difficult for a solo violinist to project his sound above a thundering orchestra and out to the most distant seats. And even if he does, many stereo hi-fi addicts contend that the sound is only a pale echo of the 'electronically enhanced' concertos that they can conjure up in their living rooms." From the article: The Little Wooden Songbox, Time Magazine, December 30, 1966 (reprinted on our site with permission from Time Magazine.
It was a problem then and it is a problem today. A good violin must have power. Over and over I ask these hypothetical questions: Why do you think an orchestra has 35 violins and 3 flutes? The answer is the flute produces the power of 10 violins. Have you ever seen a violin drown out a piano? Have you ever seen in a violin concerto, the soloist drowning out the orchestra? A violin can never be too loud. It is the only instrument in the orchestra (other than the viola) where the tone comes out of a hole three inches from the left ear and aimed directly at the ear. It sounds much louder to the player than to the audience. A flute blows the tone out away from the players ear, as does the clarinet, trumpet etc. The history of most musical instruments is the constant search for more power. The harpsichord gave way to the clavichord, which gave way to the pianoforte which gave way to the 9 foot grand of today.
The classical guitar faded away from the musical scene for about 150 years because it produced so little tone. It wasn't until the 20th century that it made a comeback because of electronic amplification. Likewise the harpsichord. Electronic amplification brought it back to the concert hall.
The viol family of instruments gave way to the violin family of instruments mainly due to the fact that the violin family is louder and carried better. The double bass is a holdover from the viol family. It is actually a hybrid. Part violin part viol. What differentiates it from the violin family is the proportionally wider ribs. The sloping shoulders, the flat back and the simpler corners are holdovers from the viol family. A bass violin would be too powerful and overbalance the rest of the string section of an orchestra. The softer viol is the answer.
The violin family was upgraded around the year 1800 to accommodate the new concert halls. All the bass bars were enlarged, the neck lengthened, the fingerboard lengthened, and the tailpiece lengthened. Halls became much larger with the advent of the French Revolution, the empowerment of the middle class and the development of virtuosity as personified by Pagannini. One must realize that until this time, secular music for the most part was performed for the king, queen, duke, nobles, etc. in his or her court and according to his or her tastes. This brings to mind the movie Amadeus. For a musician to survive he had to either be in the employ of the Court or the Church. In Mozart's case it was the Court. Mozart died in 1791. The French Revolution occurred around this time. It was no coincidence that at the end of the movie Mozart started writing music (The Magic Flute) to be heard in a concert hall where you actually sold tickets! Bach on the other hand worked mainly for the Church. (Up until this time, the middle class for the most part could only hear music in church. Of course this was church music. Listening to a concerto, sonata, or string quartet was out of the question.)
Why do we have an electric violin today? The answer is to compete with the electric guitar, the clarinet, trumpet etc. used in popular musical groups. The violin must be made louder. We must have warm and rich quality also but warm and rich quality without power will certainly not carry to the back of a hall.
If you have been playing on a violin with a sweet and warm quality under the ear, a violin with a strong tone will make you jump when you first try it. However within one hour or so you can get used to it and going back to a violin with a soft tone will leave you frustrated. It will leave the audience frustrated also.
