Viola (redirected from Bratsche)

viola: see violin.

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viola

Stringed instrument, the tenor member of the violin family. In appearance it is almost identical to the violin but slightly larger; its strings are tuned a fifth lower. It is a member of many chamber music ensembles, and the modern orchestra uses 6 to 10 violas. Its tone is darker, warmer, and less powerful than the violin's, and it is rarely employed as a solo instrument. The viola d'amore is an 18th-century instrument with six or seven melody strings, under which are strung several sympathetic strings that resonate in concord with the sounded pitches.

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viola

1. a bowed stringed instrument, the alto of the violin family; held beneath the chin when played. It is pitched and tuned an octave above the cello

2. any of various instruments of the viol family, such as the viola da gamba

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viola

any temperate perennial herbaceous plant of the violaceous genus Viola, the flowers of which have showy irregular petals, white, yellow, blue, or mauve in colour

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Viola

masquerades as Cesario. [Br. Lit.: Twelfth Night]

See : Disguise

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Viola - An experimental hypercard-like interpreted hypertext system by Pei Y. Wei of Berkeley.

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Viola

(violet) a genus of plants of the family Violaceae. The plants are perennial or, less commonly, annual herbs; there are a few subshrubs. The mostly stipulate leaves are alternate or in a radical rosette. The violet, yellow, white, or multicolored flowers are solitary. The corolla is irregular; the lower petal has a spur that includes the nectaries of the two lower stamens. The plants are characterized by the formation of cleistogamous flowers. The fruit is a capsule that dehisces into three valves.

There are about 500 violet species, distributed throughout the world. Most species occur in the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere and in the Andes. The USSR has about 100 species. The sweet violet (V. odorata), found mainly in broad-leaved forests of the European USSR, the Crimea, and the Caucasus, has been cultivated since ancient times as an ornamental and, sometimes, as an essential-oil plant. V. tricolor, a weed found in the European USSR and in southern Western Siberia, served as one of the parent species (together with V. altaica and several other species of Viola) of the garden pansy (V. × wittrockiana), numerous varieties of which are common in floriculture.

M. E. KIRPICHNIKOV