VIOLIN STRINGS
“To scrape the inside of a cat with the outside of a horse” is far
from an accurate or exhaustive description of violin playing, nor can
I understand why violin strings are called cat-gut at all, since they
are made from the intestines of the sheep, goat, or lamb, and have
absolutely nothing to do with pussy.
I can only suppose that the frightful and melancholy tones habitually
elicited by inexperienced players may have reminded people of the
nocturnal cat sufficiently to credit that maligned animal with
providing part of the mechanical apparatus for their production.
Of late years a great deal has been said about the extreme importance
of the strings, of adapting the player to the fiddle’s constitution,
etc. I freely admit that some players with very strong hands, like
Lindley and Dragonetti, can manage thicker strings with effect
better than people with weaker muscles. I also admit generally that
it would be a mistake to string a sensitive old Nicolo Amati with
thick strings, which a robust Joseph or Bergonzi might be able to
bear; that a raw new fiddle to be rubbed down in the orchestra will
also take to thick strings; and that it is pretty obvious, as every
player knows, that one cannot stop fifths in good tune if the strings
are not relatively well proportioned.
It is also a truism that it is best to buy the best strings, and
that false strings are abominable. But I do not go much beyond
this, and I would say about strings what I say about bows, that bad
workmen always complain of their tools, and that, as Paganini was
able--although as a mere trick--to discourse excellent music with
a tobacco-pipe or a reed, so his admirers were often surprised to
notice that he would go into the concert room with his strings very
much out of condition.
Practically I do not suppose that one violinist in fifty uses a
string-gauge; he soon learns to judge sufficiently by the eye what
his fingers want, what his tone requires, and what his violin exacts.
Still, in these days of analysis and detail, there being nothing left
untalked about, writers have fastened quite within the last thirty
years on the strings; but I have often noticed that players who fuss
most over these details, which are doubtless of importance, are those
who are least able to avail themselves of the perfect conditions
which they seek. Perfect gut, rosin by rule, and an exquisitely
poised bow, no more make a fiddler than scientific sanitation makes
a healthy subject. I cannot too persistently urge that the violinist
bends conditions to the magic of his will and his skill.
His business is to qualify _himself_, and then get the best fiddle,
bow, and strings that he can. This ought he to do, and not to leave
the others undone.
There is no reason to suppose that any advance in the manufacture
of gut-strings has been made since the seventeenth century. Even a
work by Le Roy, dated 1570, gives the best recipe yet known for the
detection of false strings.
“It is needful,” he says, “to prove them between the hands in the
manner set forth in the figure” (which we reproduce); and he goes on
to explain what everybody now knows--that if two lines only appear,
the string is true; if more, false. But he fails to add that such a
rough test only holds good for the thinner and simpler woven cords.
In Doni’s book (1647) we find such subtleties as these: “There
are many particulars relating to the construction of instruments
which are unknown to modern artificers, as, namely, that the best
strings are made when the north (and the worst when the south) wind
blows”--a suggestive hint relating to the acknowledged importance of
atmospheric, perhaps magnetic, and at any rate climatic, conditions.
How do we make our strings?
Putting aside mature sheep and goats, we kill our young Italian lamb
in September. We open him at once, and take the intestine whilst
still warm; stretch it on an inclined plane; scrape it and clean it
thoroughly without delay. We then steep it for about fifteen hours
in cold water, with a little carbonate of soda, and then substitute
tepid water for a few hours more.
Now we are ready to remove the fibrous or muscular membrane from
between the peritoneal and mucous membrane. This is done by women,
who scrape it with a cane. The precious selected membranes are
then soaked in jars containing an ammoniacal solution; they are
then rubbed through the fingers three times a day, treated with
permanganate of potash, cleaned, sorted, cut, and split; and,
finally, the threads are spun--three or four thin threads for first
violin strings, three or four thicknesses for the second, six or
seven for “D” string. Double-bass strings take up to eighty-five
threads. Further twistings, soakings, and polishings take place, into
which we need not enter, and the strings are finally dressed with
olive oil and then coiled.
I have gone into these details to show with what care and complex
elaboration string manufacture is carried on.
The false string is due to inequalities, lumps, and varieties of
texture in the gut; and if only the defective part can be distributed
either near the head or the tailpiece, outside the vibratory length,
your false string becomes true. This is why the experiment of
reversing the string, putting tail portion headwise or _vice versâ_,
will sometimes remedy the defect.
For the fourth or silver string the gut or silk (which is used)
is wrapped with pure silver, or copper, or alternate silver and
copper wire. The beautiful French patent silver fourth, as smooth as
polished steel, is incomparably best for solo playing; it is also
thinner, in my opinion too much thinner, than the mixed silver and
copper fourths, which are very serviceable for rougher orchestral
work.
The vice of silver strings is to rise (and of gut strings to fall)
with heat; but if your screws are in perfect order, and you are
expert enough, you will remedy either by a rapid subtle twist during
a bar’s rest, or a quick nipping the head of the peg between the
first and third joint of your left-hand forefinger. I have seen
Sarasate tune two pegs thus in the course of a very brief “tutti.”
Mr Hart may be accepted as a final authority on the relative merits
and the different schools of violin strings at present in the market,
and his dicta substantially agree with my own experience. Of course
he gives the palm to the Italian strings, which is largely due to
the good climatic conditions, which enable their manufacture to be
carried on in the open air and sunlight of that favoured clime.
In Rome strings are yellowish, hard, and brilliant, and a little
rough in finish.
The Neapolitans are smooth, soft in texture, and whiter in appearance.
The Paduans polished, durable, and frequently “false.” Strings “made
in Germany” (Saxony), as a set off against the swarms of trade German
fiddles, rank next to Italian.
The French rank third. Their larger strings are better than their
seconds, which are often brittle; their patent first _accribelles_,
made of silk, are hard and brilliant, but not comparable, in my
opinion, to a fine Roman gut “E” string.
The English make a good, serviceable, dull green looking string,
durable, uneven, and not unfrequently false. To my mind, English
strings are only fit for rank-and-file orchestral fiddling, but not
good enough for the loader. Mr Heron Allen, who has given great
attention to such details, says that the best strings in the market
are imported from Signor Andrew Ruffini of Naples, but I have always
had a weakness for Roman strings.
Too great caution, however, cannot be used in buying strings. Never
buy from any but the best firms; they can’t afford to keep “job lots,
going vera chep”--these may be bought up by provincial houses and
retailed to an undiscerning public.
Notice that small “job lot” people do not know how to keep their
strings--or, I should rather say, they keep them too long and too dry.
It does not follow that even the best strings will turn out successes
if they have been kept too long or too dry.
I once ordered £1 worth of Roman “E” strings for myself, and another
£1 worth for a friend. They all arrived as dry and brittle as mummy
wood; they all snapped as I put them on. In about a week I got a
furious letter from my unfortunate friend who had trusted me--all his
strings had snapped.
I have but one counsel to give. Take the best firm’s advice and pay
the best firm’s price--if you can afford it. Always keep a couple
of tested, _i.e._ stretched “E” lengths in your case. If you are a
soloist this will save you some annoyance and delay should your “E”
string go in the middle of a performance.
So far, then, and no further, need I discuss violin strings; but
there are two other violin adjuncts not important enough to call for
a separate chapter. I allude to the mute and the chin-rest. The mute
is occasionally fixed on the bridge to give the sound that singular
faint far-off twang like the whisper of a ghostly violin. The mute
has the singular property of making the violin abnormally sensitive
for the time. The mute is made of wood, metal, or vulcanite;
personally, I much prefer the metal mute--it does the business more
thoroughly. It is not a good practice to use the mute habitually
while practising to subdue the sound. The violin really resents the
use of the mute at all, but will put up with it for a short time
(just as a good horse will not resent a spur or a bearing-rein in
moderation). For a minute or two after the removal of the mute the
violin does not quite recover its tone; some of the particles in its
wood have been exposed to a different or eccentric vibration by the
dominating mute, and the full tonal vibration is not immediately
recoverable. It is as though you had put a man in boots with leaden
soles for a time, and then suddenly freed him; he would not at once
regain his full suppleness of movement.
Quite within the last thirty years the cult of chin-rests has become
almost universal. When I was a boy people held the violin honestly
under their chins, and a few used a silk pocket handkerchief. I much
prefer it to this day; but something between the chin and the violin
is no doubt good for the protection of old instruments already too
much rubbed by centuries of beards and bristles.
I have nothing to say against the various velvet, vulcanite, and
ebony fixed substitutes for the homely pocket-handkerchief, except
that in my eyes they are extremely ugly, and to my chin extremely
uncomfortable; but I may be very much out of date, and in such minor
matters “_chacun à son goût_,” or, as Pepys would say, “there’s an
end on’t.”