The violin has been, and continues to be, the most universal of string instruments. Let’s take a moment to reflect on its splendor. Of course, there are many styles of violin playing and violin music. The violin is very suitable for gypsies, that nomadic people who express the way of wild life and knew the beginning of the night and every corner of the field, the wild sounds of the birds and all the animals, their own yearnings and nostalgies. They are said to come from India.

The violin is at home in the classical music of India, having been adopted two centuries ago because it was superior in perfection and flexibility to native Indian bowed stringed instruments. The violin feels right at home in the moors of Scotland, on the Norwegian plateau, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of America. The violin is at home in every Russian, Polish and Romanian town, where it has always been accompanied by dancing and singing.

Violins of all descriptions have been made, crude and coarse, barely recognizable and yet quite suitable for the astonishing variety of roles they play. I have seen the knotty, clumsy, hot fingers of Scottish beekeepers and sheep herders playing Scottish reels, strathspeys, dancing and wailing without a faltering beat. In fact, the pace of popular people, whether in Russia, Hungary or Scotland, is higher than that of the urban, industrial and commercial civilization of middle class America and Western Europe.

The violin is such a flexible instrument that it evolves in each country according to the genius of that country. He plays Tchaikovsky and the passionate romantic virtuoso if in Russian hands; he plays the ‘bel canto’ for an Italian; it reproduces the great musical literature of classical German and Austrian heritage in those countries and, indeed, universally. And it was the instrument for which Purcell and Dowland wrote perhaps the most wonderful music of all.

So the next time you pick up your precious instrument, take a moment to daydream and consider your wonderful place in the world.