The violin A social history of the world's most versatile instrument

David Schoenbaum

Book - 2012

The life, times, and travels of a remarkable instrument and the people who have made, sold, played, and cherished it.

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Subjects
Published
New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company 2012.
Language
English
Main Author
David Schoenbaum (-)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
pages ; cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9780393084405
  • Making it. A star is born ; The golden age ; Over the hills and far away ; The road not taken ; Back to the future ; Last but not least
  • Selling it . Paying the price ; The French connection ; The Ritz of violin shops ; From modern to postmodern ; "Fiddle, n. A swindle. orig. U.S." ; Violin cases
  • Playing it. Learning how ; Players in general ; Players in particular ; Founding fathers ; How to get to Carnegie Hall ; Race, class, and gender ; Business and politics
  • Imagining it. Still pictures worth a thousand words ; Poetry ; Prose ; Moving pictures worth a thousand words
  • Coda.
Review by Choice Review

Schoenbaum has written an intriguing, readable volume on the order of Arthur Loesser's Men, Women and Pianos: A Social History (1954). That Loesser's book is still the most complete look at the development of the piano and its players testifies to the difficulty of researching and writing something so all encompassing. Schoenbaum has accomplished this for the violin, covering not only the development of the instrument over time, but also the musicians who brought it to life. Additionally, he takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the violin's celebration in art, literature, theater, and cinema. Of special interest is the discussion of bow craftsmanship in the section on the making of the violin: the role of bow in the production of violin sound is often overlooked, but since bowing is an art in itself a bow can cost as much or more than the violin. Primarily a history of the violin's influence on Western culture, the book does acknowledge the immense global popularity of the instrument and its various incarnations in other cultures. Thoroughly researched and current, this book is both brilliant scholarship and fine entertainment. Definitely a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the violin. Summing Up: Essential. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; graduate students; general readers and professionals. M. Neil Augustana College (IL)

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review

Schoenbaum's immense collection of factoids may perhaps annoy as well as entrance, and for the same reason: it's a trivia trove. Its four big books are chock-full of stories about persons who built violins ( Making It ), traded in them ( Selling It ), played them ( Playing It ), and represented them in pictorial art, literature, and movies ( Imagining It ). Each book proceeds chronologically from the sixteenth century, in which the violin came from nowhere to near-completely supplant other bowed string instruments within two human generations, to the present and such hot phenomena as the all-female Bond quartet, who posed in the altogether behind a couple of their music makers (not including the cello). Schoenbaum lightly touches on the economic and social developments that enabled the making, selling, playing, and imagining but concentrates on biographical tidbits about the likes of to note only the most glittering names Stradivari, Paganini, Kreisler, Heifetz, and Oistrakh and, at the end, descriptions of pictures, novels, and movies. For violin music, technology, and technique, look elsewhere while enjoying the gossipy pleasure Schoenbaum affords.--Olson, Ray Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

A fragile music-box conquers the world in this entertaining if overstuffed history. Historian Schoenbaum (Hitler's Social Revolution) focuses on the violin's socioeconomics: its manufacture in every setting from Stradivari's workshop to modern Chinese factories; its investment value to high-end connoisseurs; its accretion of prestige and recompense as violinists advanced in status from humble feudal artisans to conservatory-trained professionals and concert hall geniuses; its adoption as a vector of assimilation, knitting the continents together in a musical ecumene and giving minority violinists entree into the cultural mainstream. There's not much music in the book; the author never tries to explain exactly why the violin's sound captivated the world's ears, and instead emphasizes the evolving practicalities and logistics that underpinned its spread. He does layer on colorful anecdotes about the people making, trading, and playing violins, regaling readers with the fakery of shady collectors and dealers who labeled latter-day violins as Cremonese masterpieces, the histrionics and womanizing of virtuosos, and the motivational cruelties of teachers. Schoenbaum narrates the picaresque in a lively, lucid prose, but the themes sometimes get lost in a surfeit of notes. Still, there's so much engaging lore that the violin's legions of fans will find it an absorbing browse. Photos. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Schoenbaum (history, Univ. of Iowa; Hitler's Social Revolution: Class and Status in Nazi Germany, 1933-1939) tells a series of engaging interconnected "histories" of the violin. Most books on violin history concentrate on playing or violin-making, but Schoenbaum covers all the bases, as indicated in the four major sections: "Making," "Selling," "Playing," "Imagining." While more traditional histories, such as David D. Boyden's The History of Violin Playing from Its Origins to 1761 or Boris Schwarz's Great Masters of the Violin, have more data about particular players or specific historical developments, Schoenbaum's strategy casts a wider net and includes information not usually included in accounts of playing or making: the economics of the orchestra (as opposed to only a roll call of great soloists); the sometimes shady undercurrent in the high-end violin trade; and a consideration of race, gender, and class among virtuoso violin players. Perhaps the most innovative section is "Imagining," which considers the ways in which the violin has stimulated the imagination of artists, writers, and moviemakers. Verdict As a history of a 500-year-old phenomenon in all its social ramifications, this book is unequaled; recommended for all libraries.-Bruce R. Schueneman, Texas A&M Univ. Lib., Kingsville (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Schoenbaum (The United States and the State of Israel, 1993, etc.) writes fondly and expansively about the instrument he plays for pleasure. Another subtitle for this massive exposition might well be: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about the Violin--and More. In four sections, the author covers the creation and evolution of the instrument, its marketing and manufacture (from the 16th century), the biographies and skills of many notable players and, finally, how the violin has appeared in art, literature and films. The scope of Schoenbaum's research is astonishing. He's seemingly listened to every recording, read every biography and history of every major (and many minor) player and symphony orchestra and chamber group, read every novel with a significant violin presence and seen every TV show and film featuring a violin. He focuses principally on classical players; although he mentions Charlie Daniels, he does not write much about country music, jazz or other popular musical genres--though he does not neglect them entirely, either. He performs an important service to general readers by discussing makers other than Antonio Stradivari, and he enlivens his prose with occasional puns, colorful similes ("other quartets renewed themselves like deciduous trees"), sharp details (Dorothy DeLay had an "elegantly manicured right hand" and unexpected descriptions (he compares the salaries of members of the Cleveland Indians and the Cleveland Symphony). The literary summaries are somewhat excessive, and the many names and details may overwhelm some nonmusical readers. A long and richly textured love letter to an instrument, a tradition and an art.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.