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IJMSTA - Vol. 4 - Issue 1 - January 2022
ISSN 2612-2146
Pages: 12
Time Guides Musical Research: which Violins for the Future?
Authors: Massimo de Bonfils
Categories: Journal
Abstract - Time drives research in the music field. Let us consider the concerto for violin and orchestra. In the Baroque era the soloist spoke with a few instruments, almost always of the same type. In the Mozart era some winds were inserted in the orchestra and the violinist therefore needed more power. From Beethoven onwards, the wind section got richer and richer and the soloist needed more and more volume and power. At the end of Romanticism, the situation became more complicated and finally, with the Sibelius and Khachaturian concerts, an entire wind band was now present in the orchestra. All these needs over the centuries have been satisfied by continuous changes and updates in the construction of violins; in fact, it is not possible to compare a baroque violin and a modern violin because they have very different neck, modern strings in composite material and different bows (nowadays those in high quality carbon fiber always ensure an excellent performance) thus producing an incomparable sound mass. Since Sibelius' time, the style of compositions continues to ask for more and more updates to instruments: will classical lutherie be able to answer? The laboratory of the Lutherie Course of the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome has created a new ergonomic model of violin that was conceived with the express purpose of producing more sound with a richer timbre. We are pleased to present it in this article.
Keywords: Lutherie, Sound, Violin
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