ON THIS DAY | 🎻🎻🎻 Happy International World Violin Day! 🎻🎻🎻

This day is celebrated each year on December 13, in honor of the instrument we know and love!

Celebrate this year’s International World Violin Day by playing, listening, or learning violin music; viewing celebrated films such as The Red Violin, The Devil’s Violinist, and Soloist; or attending or watching concerts.

Organizations from around the world are acknowledging the occasion: “Today we celebrate the stringed instrument we all know and love — Happy National Violin Day!” the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) posted on Facebook.

“Today is the perfect day to recognize the vast history, skill and transcendent sound of the violin,” they continued. “From tree, to Luthier, the hands of our Orchestra and the concert halls around the world, we celebrate the violin today and beyond!”

Our friends at Larsen Strings are also celebrating the day!

According to American musicologist and violinist, David D. Boyden, the earliest type of violin emerged no later than 1530 and most of its evolution can be traced through the iconography of the time. 

Rather than originating from a single instrument form, the early violin was born from a combination of the best and most sonorous components of mainly the rebec, the Renaissance fiddle, and the lira da braccio, also a 16th-century Renaissance instrument.

Renaissance rebecs

Some of the most-prized violins to this day were crafted by the houses of Amati, Guarneri, and Stradivarius.

It is believed that the first modern violin was made by Andrea Amati of Cremona, Italy. This first four-stringed instrument by Amati was dated 1555 and is the oldest surviving violin of his collection from around 1560. 

In 1560, Andrea was also commissioned to create an entire ensemble of stringed instruments, including 24 violins, for King Charles IX of France.

The evolution of the violin bow (image courtesy: David Garrett/Twitter)

Well-known violin bow makers of the time include Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume and François Xavier Tourte. The latter is said to have established the modern violin bow during the early 19th century in collaboration with violin virtuoso G.B. Viotti.

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