Dictionary of Music - Birding America

466 violin clefwith Rodolphe Kreutzer (1766–1831; his études arestill used today, and Beethoven dedicated his celebratedKreutzer Sonata to him), Ludwig Spohr(1784–1859), Ferdinand David (1810–1873; studentof Spohr, teacher of Joachim), Henri Vieuxtemps(1820–1881), Joseph Joachim (1831–1907), EugèneYsaÿe (1858–1931), Leopold Auer (1845–1930),Carl Flesch (1873–1944; he also wrote an importantbook on violin playing), and Jacques Thibaud(1880–1953). The twentieth century has seen itsshare of great virtuosos and teachers, of whom oneof the most outstanding was Fritz Kreisler. The nextgenerations included Jascha Heifetz, Mischa Elman,Efrem Zimbalist, David Oistrakh, Isaac Stern, andYehudi Menuhin, among others, and the teachersIvan Galamian and Dorothy Delay. The violin alsohas attracted a few jazz musicians, notably StéphaneGrappelli of France.Nearly every composer of note has written solocompositions for violin. (Some of the better-knownviolin concertos are listed in the chart accompanyingCONCERTO, and a few famous violin sonatas arementioned under SONATA, def. 1.) Others who havewritten fine violin sonatas are Schumann, Grieg,Reger, Debussy, Bartók, Bloch, Prokofiev, andMartinů.violin clefCLEF).Another term for treble clef (see underviolin family A name sometimes used for thechief bowed stringed instruments of the orchestra—the violin, viola, cello, and double bass. The resemblanceof the first three instruments to one another isseen in the illustration accompanying VIOLIN. Someauthorities leave out the double bass on the groundthat it is more closely related to the viols than to theviolins. Others also include sizes of violin no longerin current use, such as the tenor violin, halfway insize between the viola and cello.violino (vē ô lē′nô).violon (vē ô lôN′).violoncelle (vē ô lôN′′ sel′).CELLO.The Italian word for VIOLIN.The French word for VIOLIN.The French word forvioloncello (vē′′ə lən chel′lō). The full name forthe CELLO, which survives in the abbreviation forcello used in scores, vcl.violone (vē ô lō′ne) Italian: “large viola.” Aname used in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuriesfor various instruments at various times,mainly a double-bass viol or a bass viol (especiallythe bass member of a consort of viols; see VIOL), acello, or a double bass.Viotti (vē ôt′ē), Giovanni Battista (jô vän′nē bätēs′tä), 1755–1824. An Italian violinist and composerwho is considered one of the founders of modernviolin playing. Trained in the Italian tradition ofviolin technique, he became a brilliant performer.After concert tours throughout Europe, Viotti spentten years in Paris, where he exerted a great deal ofinfluence on the violinists of the day. The last thirtyyears of his life he divided among London, Hamburg,and Paris, where he performed, conducted,taught, and ended by greatly raising the standards ofperformance. His compositions include twenty-nineviolin concertos, of which the Concerto no. 22 in Aminor is the best known, as well as violin sonatas,chamber music for strings, and a number of pianoworks.virelai (vēr ə lā′) French. An important form offourteenth-century French poetry that was often setto music. It consisted of several stanzas (usuallythree) and a refrain of several lines, the refrain comingat the beginning as well as after each stanza.(See also REFRAIN, def. 1.) Notable virelais werecomposed by the great master Machaut, and,although the form was losing popularity by the fifteenthcentury a few were still written by Dufay andOckeghem. A form of one-stanza virelai was calleda bergerette. Almost identical to the virelai in formare the Spanish cantiga (thirteenth century), fromwhich the virelai may have derived, as well as theItalian ballata (fourteenth century) and the Spanishvillancico (fifteenth and sixteenth centuries).virginal (vûr′jən ə l). Also, virginals. A kind ofsmall harpsichord that was used from the fifteenth toseventeenth centuries, and in England gave rise to an