A Socio-Cultural History of the Violin in Australia

In this book, Laura Case provides a clever and compelling history of the violin in Australia from colonisation to 1915. She draws on an impressive range of sources and methods to tell this history and her personal connection to it. This book is not merely about the violin; it interrogates issues of gender, race and place in the instrument’s musical and cultural legacy. This book is a significant contribution to Australian as well as global history. Professor Paul Watt, Elder Conservatorium of Music, The University of Adelaide This important book opens up an area in the social history of music in Australia which has barely been touched before. Laura Case’s use of evidence from historical newspapers and journals gives her writing an appealing immediacy and the book’s breadth in dealing with fiddlers playing traditional and popular musics as well as middle- and upper-class violinists playing the ‘classical’ repertoire is refreshing. Stories of convict, female and Indigenous violinists come vividly to life, creating a rich and complex picture of music making in colonial Australia. I am confident that this book will become the standard text on the history of the violin in Australia, and an essential reference for the rapidly developing field of the history of indigenous music making in Australia since colonisation. Dr. Alan Maddox, Senior Lecturer in Musicology at The University of Sydney This important new book offers the first cultural and social history of the violin as a musical object in Australia, and one that has carried strong social meanings and values over time. Ranging from the early colonial period to the early twentieth century, Laura Case gives a lively account of the violin, the people who played it, and the social and economic forces acting upon them. She brings to life a cast of historical characters and draws readers’ attention to how the violin functions in cross-cultural settings and has been taken up by Aboriginal players and non-Indigenous musicians alike, has been played across class and social groups, and has carried different gendered associations over the centuries. Associate Professor Amanda Harris, University of Sydney