viola

violin

violin, family of stringed musical instruments having wooden bodies whose backs and fronts are slightly convex, the fronts pierced by two ƒ-shaped resonance holes. The instruments of the violin family have been the dominant bowed instruments because of their versatility, brilliance, and balance of tone, and their wide dynamic range. A variety of sounds may be produced, e.g., by different types of bowing or by plucking the string (see pizzicato). The violin has always been the most important member of the family, from the beginning being the principal orchestral instrument and holding an equivalent position in chamber music and as a solo instrument. The technique of the violin was developed much earlier than that of the viola or cello. The double bass is not a violin but a viol.

Violin

The smallest of this group of instruments is also called violin, and its four strings, tuned in fifths, run from the tailpiece at the base of the body over a bridge in the lower center, along the fingerboard, and into the pegbox. The violin is played by drawing a horsehair bow, held in the right hand, across the strings; the body is supported by the shoulder and held firm by the chin. The fingers of the left hand are used to stop the strings against the fingerboard, thus changing the pitch by shortening the vibrating length of the strings. Within certain limitations more than one note can be played at once, and the instrument is capable of producing harmonic effects and, with a mute clamped to the bridge, hushed, ethereal tones. It is the most agile of the family, and it has the greatest variety of tone color.

The instrument first appeared about 1510 as the viola da bracchio (arm viol) and soon spread through Europe. During the 16th cent. three sizes were known, a soprano (corresponding to the modern viola), a tenor (a fifth lower), and a bass (a tone lower than the present cello). The present-day violin appeared only near the end of the 16th cent. The earliest-known makers of the new instrument worked in Lombardy in the mid-16th cent. They were followed by Andrea Amati, founder of the Cremona school of violinmaking made famous by the Guarneri family and by Antonio Stradivari. In Stradivari's work the peak of violinmaking seems to have been reached barely a century after the emergence of the instrument itself.

Viola

The viola is about one seventh larger than the violin and tuned a fifth lower. It is the only original member of the violin family to exist continuously in the same size. Its tone is deeper and less brilliant than that of the violin. In the 17th and early 18th cent. it was used mainly as an accompanying instrument in the orchestra, but the classical period made it much more independent. It is used mainly in the orchestra and chamber music, but recently has become increasingly popular as a solo instrument.

Cello or Violoncello

The cello, originally called the violoncello, is about twice as large as the violin and has four strings tuned an octave lower than those of the viola. As the bass viola da bracchio it was originally tuned a tone lower than it now is, but the present tuning had become standard by 1700. Because of its size, it is played between the knees like members of the viol family. The bass viol was favored for solo playing in the 17th and early 18th cent., and the cello became an important solo instrument only after the disappearance of the viols and the subsequent refinement of cello technique by Jean Louis Duport (1749–1819). The cello was, from its beginning, an important member of the orchestra and is also indispensable in chamber music. It now has an extensive solo literature of its own.

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The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

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

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

Viola

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

See: Disguise

Allusions—Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

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

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

Viola

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

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