The Romanian folk violin (, ; also , , , , , ) is a bowed string musical instrument and the associated performance tradition that plays a leading role in Romanian lăutărească music. Unlike indigenous Romanian folk instruments (for example, the fluier and the cimpoi), the Romanian violin was adopted into folk culture from broader European musical practice. The earliest reliable written references to it in the Romanian principalities date to the mid-17th century, and by the beginning of the 19th century it had become established throughout the Romanian lands. The violin became primarily an instrument of professional musicians– lăutari, many of them Romani– who adapted it to local repertoire, ensemble performance, and regional playing styles.
The musical language of the Romanian folk violin emerged from the blending of Ottoman-influenced and Western European musical traditions. It is characterized by non-tempered intonation, microchromatic inflections, elaborate ornamentation, and extensive use of scordatura. The rhythmic organization of lăutari violin music includes both symmetrical dance structures and asymmetrical rhythmic models (aksak), alongside a flexible approach to metre. In lăutari practice, the violin partly inherited techniques and expressive principles from earlier instruments, including the keman and the cimpoi, and often imitated their sound.
Lăutari usually played factory-made violins, but frequently modified them and adapted them to local performance practice: they added sympathetic strings, altered the bridge, and introduced other structural changes to obtain particular timbres or tunings. Romanian folk violin tradition also preserves distinctive methods of holding both the instrument and the bow, differing significantly from academic violin schools. Different ethnographic regions developed their own forms of the instrument and local playing techniques; regional variants include the Transylvanian accompanying violin (), the ceteraPronounced as . of Țara Oașului, and folk variants of the Stroh violin.
In the traditional ensemble (taraf), the violin leads the melody, improvises upon it, and largely determines the character of the ensemble sound. Its repertoire includes dance, lyrical, epic, and ritual music, while training in the lăutari tradition is based on oral transmission of repertoire and playing techniques. The influence of Romanian lăutari violin culture extended beyond folk practice: 20th-century classical composers such as Béla Bartók and George Enescu adopted violin techniques, rhythmic models, and ensemble principles from lăutari musicians and taraf performance. In 2020 Romania nominated the taraf ensemble tradition for inscription on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
History and origins The earliest known mention of bowed-string playing in Wallachia and Moldavia appears in the chronicle of the Polish historian Maciej Stryjkowski (1582): "Of this, the Vlachs and Moldavians sing continually at every feast, playing on Serbian fiddles and chanting in their own tongue: 'Stephen, Stephen, voivode! ...He beat the Turks...'" (Polish: O tym Woloszy i Multani piewaj ustawicznie w każdej biesiedzie na serbskich skrzypicach przygrawając swoim językiem: „Stephan, Stephan, wojewoda! Stephan, Stephan, wojewoda! bijał Turków!…"). The Italian monk Niccolò Barsi, who visited the Principality of Moldavia, noted in 1640 that dances used violins, bagpipes, pipes, drums, and three-string lutes (). The word appears in a Romanian translation of made around 1650. The same period includes the first mentions of specific performers: a 1675 document refers to "Ivan the violinist from Tătărani" (). The sources preserve no information about the construction of the instruments called viori in the 17th century.
From the 18th century onward, sources become more numerous and detailed. The French historian Jean‑Louis Carra, who visited Iași in 1775, described Romani musicians playing the violin, the cobza, and a pipe with eight holes ().The term "German guitar" normally denoted a cittern, though the instrument intended here is likely the cobza. The "pipe with eight holes" is the nai. The Austrian historian , in his History of Transalpine Dacia (1781), noted that lăutari usually played one or two violins, sometimes accompanied by the nai or the cobza. In the illustrated manuscript of the Romanian translation of Erotokritos (1787), the violin is mentioned; in the same manuscript the artist depicts it as a standard violin with a bow shaped like an arch, and the violinist is the only musician dressed in European clothing. In 1820 the British consul in Moldavia and Wallachia, William Wilkinson, noted "the instruments mostly used are the common violin, the Pan-pipe, and a kind of guitar or lute peculiar to the country". One of the earliest depictions of the violin is a church fresco from 1784 in Lunca Asău (Bacău County, Moldavia), where the painter placed a violinist into a "Last Judgment" scene. In this period the clergy often viewed the violin as a reprehensible instrument associated with secular amusements; for that reason, in religious painting violinists were often shown in infernal scenes as companions of sinners.
The violin gradually displaced earlier bowed instruments. Sulzer mentions – an instrument with a convex back like a mandolin, played with a bow while held on the knee. Researchers connect it with (Byzantine lyra). The Romanian folklorist Teodor T. Burada also mentions another "keman" with six or seven main strings and the same number of sympathetic strings. By description it resembles the "chest keman" (), a borrowed variant of the European viole d'amour, held against the chest while playing. Even at the beginning of the 19th century, the keman enjoyed high status among the upper strata in Moldavia and Wallachia, and boyars took lessons from well-known musicians of the time. Another instrument displaced by the violin in the 18th–19th centuries was the hurdy-gurdy (known as , or ), in which sound is produced by a wooden wheel rubbing the strings; by the mid‑19th century it survived mainly among itinerant blind musicians in northern Moldavia and Transylvania.
By the early 19th century, the violin had definitively established itself throughout the Romanian lands. It spread widely due to its technical possibilities: it could convey the intricate ornamentation of fast dances and extended improvisations in doinas while imitating the human voice. During the 19th century, a virtuoso performance style developed within lăutari culture, with the violin occupying the leading role.
Regional names and terminology
The main and generally accepted name of the instrument in both folk and scholarly usage is , more rarely . In the Romanian translation of Erotokritos (1787) a diminutive form, , is used. According to Burada, the term originally referred to the viola, so a diminutive was later applied to the smaller instrument– the violin.
Alongside the standard name, numerous regional folk terms remain in use. In Moldavia the instrument is also called , whereas in Transylvania, as well as in Maramureș and Țara Oașului, the archaic name (also ) is common, deriving from . In Bihor the name (), borrowed from Hungarian, is used, while in western Oltenia and southern Transylvania (also ) occurs. In some villages of Dobruja the Bulgarian-derived name is found. A separate term is (also ). Historically it referred to a type of lute or cobza, but over time it also came to denote the violin. In that meaning it is used in southern Transylvania and southern Moldavia (), and in the Banat, Hunedoara, and parts of Muntenia ().
Names for performers are normally derived from local instrument terms: ; or ; ; or ; and the most common or . In the past, (from , "dance tune") and Slavonic-derived (player) were also used.
Traditional names for violin parts also vary regionally. The bow is called , more rarely or . In the 20th century in Muntenia older string names still survived: the lowest (G) was ("wire"), the second (D) , or (cf. bourdon, an older term for a drone), the third (A) ("middle"), and the highest (E) ("thin"). In modern practice, folk musicians more often use German-derived letter names: ghe, de, a and e.
Lăutari tradition and the violin's role in folk music In lăutărească music, the violin occupies a central place. Unlike indigenous instruments such as the fluier or cimpoi, which were made by rural communities from locally available materials for communal and personal use, the violin was a purchased and relatively expensive instrument. For this reason, it did not become widespread in everyday rural life and instead became primarily an instrument of professional musicians– lăutari– among whom a significant proportion were Romani. For them, playing at celebrations and rituals was a profession, and musical skills and repertoire were usually transmitted within the family. Lăutari adapted the borrowed instrument to local aesthetics, imitating vocal intonations and the sound of older wind instruments. As a result, a distinct performance style developed: folk violinists use characteristic bowings, elaborate melismatic ornamentation, and various scordaturas, producing a recognizably "folk" sound. Despite its foreign origin, the violin was fully assimilated into the folk environment. Romanian ethnomusicologist argues that this borrowing enriched folk expression without displacing its originality.
Construction and structural features In construction, the Romanian folk violin generally corresponds to the standard violin, but performance practice led to a number of modifications. Lăutari usually play factory-made instruments, though local violin makers remain active in many regions as well. After acquiring an instrument, musicians often modify it themselves in order to adapt it to local performance requirements. For example, Constantin Brăiloiu observed in 1938 that a lăutar from Vrancea had scraped away some wood from the top plate in an attempt to make the sound less "wooden".
In some regions the standard four-string violin was sometimes supplemented with a fifth sympathetic string. This was a thin metal string placed between the G and D strings. Two tuning variants are attested: in Târgoviște it was often tuned to g1 to strengthen resonance of the open bass string, while in parts of Târgoviște and in the Făgăraș region it was tuned to C. An extra peg was installed for fastening. The fifth string was purely sympathetic: the performer never touched it with either the bow or the fingers of the left hand. It vibrated solely through resonance, enriching the instrument's timbre and reinforcing related overtones.
In Vrancea an even more complex modification occurs, with five, six, or seven sympathetic strings called by local lăutari. As resonators, ordinary E strings are used, fixed under the main strings in a special scheme so as not to interfere with bowing. Their tuning varies with performer preference and experience. Musicians describe the effect in their own terms as making the instrument to "respond to the voice" and giving it a "sweeter" timbre. The construction ultimately derives from the Eastern keman (), which possessed between four to seven sympathetic strings of the same type. Sources also indicate that violins equipped with sympathetic strings formerly existed in Oltenia.
Older lăutari, especially in the Târgoviște area, used a distinctive method of storing rosin (). They melted it and glued it directly onto the instrument, on the back of the neck. This allowed musicians during crowded weddings to apply rosin quickly to the bow (or occasionally to the fingers) during short pauses between dances without searching for it in pockets or instrument cases.
Cetera in Oaș