About the instruments

To sum it up....

Adam Bahrami: The histories of the violin and the rabeca are deeply intertwined, full of complexity and nuance. For some, the violin is essentially a rabeca that took on a new name after Italian innovations in instrument-making in the late 17th century — innovations that led to the instrument we now know worldwide. In that view, “rabeca” was once the general term in the Portuguese-speaking world for bowed string instruments, both popular and elite.

At the same time, that idea doesn’t fully capture the incredible diversity and beauty of the rabeca in Brazil, where the instrument became central to many different traditions — fandango, cavalo marinho, folia de reis, marujada, forró — each community shaping it according to its own needs of faith, celebration, and daily life. As a popular instrument woven into everyday life, the rabeca evolved in playing styles, techniques, building materials, and sound — a richness worth celebrating.
 

Ricardo Herz: All of this is very fluid and a bit confusing. Instruments that some people call a violin may be called a rabeca in another context, and vice versa. The “violino bragantino,” used in the marujada of Bragança (PA), has often been called a rabeca — and we discovered that this happened because researchers started naming it that way. My own violin is very often called a rabeca when I play popular music. For some people, the difference is very clear; for others, not at all.

My barroom theory: the word “violin” entered the Portuguese language a bit like brand names such as iPhone or Gillette did. At a certain moment, a type of rabeca built by the Cremona school — makers like Guarneri and Stradivari — together with the rise of Italian Baroque music, took Europe by storm. Nobles began wanting those specific instruments, which in their homeland were called “violins.” The name stuck: it wasn’t just a rabeca anymore, it was an Italian violin. And that confusion has stayed with us ever since.
 

Vanille Goovaerts: The rabeca is Brazilian because it is central to so many regional popular traditions across the country. As for the violin, it has increasingly been finding space beyond the concert hall — connecting with Brazilian rhythms, showing up in choro circles, forró dances, and instrumental music. It accompanies, improvises, creates new sounds, often drawing inspiration from the rabeca’s timbre.

We created a repertoire as an invitation to travel through this world of Brazilian popular violin as a living language. I hope it inspires musicians and listeners all over the world.

Long live Brazilian popular music!