Music History and Music Theory questions? Ask Mike!

Music for me is a love affair. The love of my life? An instrument that emanated from the near East, was perfected in Renaissance Italy and has proliferated across Europe and the rest of the world since then, such that it is part of the warp and weft of most styles of musical expression from the humble to the grand.

The violin is my sweetheat

Call it fiddle or violin, who cares? Both are names for the same basic instrument. As the humble fiddle, you could come upon it being played in a crazy frenzy in the back room of one Thomas Hardy’s Dorset hostelries in England a century ago. Carefully crafted as the violin, you’ll find it sitting right at the centre of the Western classical tradition.

This year a beautiful violin made in Cremona in 1736 by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù will be carried out onto the stage of the Albert Hall, London in the hands of English violin virtuoso and wild child Nigel Kennedy, who will be wowing the crowd with his interpretation of Elgar’s Violin Concerto as part of The Proms series of concerts.

The sturdy fiddle opens the dance

The sturdy fiddle whips up jigs and reels for dancing in the Shetland Isles and across Scotland. In Norway, with extra drone strings added, it gives you wonderful measured harmonies, Hardanger-style. It knocks ‘em stone dead in bars and concert halls across Ireland and it is there, striking up the tune as you swing your partner into a dance in Nashville USA.

You can hear it today played gypsy-style in the mountains of Bohemia or performing light classics in an elegant cafe setting outside the coffee houses in St Mark’s Square, Venice. The strains of the violin nestle right at the centre of both the haunting sweetness and the wild ecstasy of the Jewish Klezmer tradition.

Violin and fiddle: eclectic genre-crossing instrument

For me, one of the greatest joys of my own instrument is the ability to burrow way right into the heart of such a wonderfully mixed array of musical styles and genres. It was equally at home in the hall of mirrors in Versailles, France, performing the light, mannered effusions of French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully to the court of the Louis XIV, or soaring off into sad laments before a blazing log fire in an Irish country farmhouse kitchen on a chill Autumn evening in days gone by.

The sheer variety of musical journeys the violin and the fiddle can take you on makes it an exciting instrument to be involved with. You never know what musical gem you will meet round the next corner!

The bars of Dublin, Glastonbury Festival and The Pump Room, Bath

In the late ’60s the call of the fiddle took me to the bars of Dublin, with The Moonshiners, where I immersed myself in the Irish Tradition of songs and tunes

Back in England in the early ’70s, Prog Rock was an exciting emerging form. I jumped in a transit van and rattled round the UK with rock band Stackridge, taking part in the very first Glastonbury Festival in 1971 along with Marc Bolan and recording the album “Man In A Bowler Hat” with the fifth Beatle, George Martin. This enabled a fascinating exploration of the fusion of the traditional classical music style with newly emerging electronic rock forms.

The ’80s took me to University to consolidate my musical education and the violin rather than the fiddle took the fore. As leader of The Pump Room Trio, Bath, I played daily in the world famous Bath Pump Room, absorbing the light-classical tradition. I also took a trip into the mainstream classical world as leader of the Bath Georgian Festival Orchestra.

Swing Jazz, Irish jigs and reels, classical string quartet

Take a look at Hop Till You Drop Wedding Music Agency. Whether it’s a swing jazz ensemble playing French cafe-style, an Irish ceilidh band or a classical string quartet, the violin and the fiddle still lead me up on stage on a regular basis, performing a range of music that takes me beyond the conventional musical genres. It creates a musical performance mix which continues to both fascinate and beguile me.