The question was: “Could you write for me a description
on the differences between baroque and modern strings for string instruments
and how the average idiot (me) might perceive how they sound?”
This is something that nerds do doctoral theses on, but
because I don’t have time to do one I’ll try to keep the answer to a manageable
length.
Baroque strings for bowed and plucked instruments are a
product that existed towards the end of an era of musical string production
using animal intestines for its basic core material, that was continuous for at
least 2,000 years. In one of the Egyptian tombs was discovered a harp, strung
with gut strings, that was still playable. That discovery also answers the question
about how long gut strings last, if stored in a cool dry environment - a very,
very long time.
Though the beginnings of gut string production are
definitely lost in the foggy mists of time, we can look back a few centuries
and see that the quality of the gut was good. The level of virtuosity that was
required in order to play the higher level of compositions for viol and lute,
especially, of the early baroque era, certainly necessitated a string of very
high quality so in this brief treatise we will make that assumption.
However, not everything was perfect, largely due to the
lower strings speaking more slowly than the upper strings, and the human
condition of trying to improve something when possible in everything, also
prevailed with strings. With any instrument, when the pitch is lowered, if the
tension and scale remains the same, the string must become larger in order to
maintain sufficient playing tension. When the string becomes larger in diameter
without increasing the density in some way, the response slows. Lower strings
of all fixed speaking length suffered from this phenomenon, and it is
completely due to some basic concept of physics (Newtonian?) that I do not
understand. Harps don’t suffer from this so much because at some point a long
time ago harp makers figured this out and created the characteristic shape of
the harp, which takes into account the length/pitch issues between strings.
Something that was discovered at some point in time that
we will never know for sure, is that if the density of the lower strings of a
fixed length instrument, such as the violin, could somehow be increased, the
response of that string would be faster and more sonorous. There are a few ways
to accomplish this and couple that have
been tried are; impregnating the gut with a material that adds density,
cinnabar for example, which would definitely contribute to the description of
“crazy musician”. Or by applying a winding of wire of some sort to the surface
of the string. Silver and copper would be obvious choices, given their
workability. However, just watch someone pull silver wire from a piece of
silver if you have an opportunity, and you will be filled with awe at the
process.
What we know for sure is that there is an advertisement
in an English publication, dated 1664, that promotes gut core strings that have
a wire winding on top of the gut, and that was probably the beginning of the
modern technological era with regards to strings.
What we see to start happening after this date is the predominance
of the cello over the viola da gamba, almost certainly because of the more
powerful, and fewer, wound lower strings. We also see the advancement of the
guitar vs. the lute family plucked instruments for the same reason.
This is largely because of those instruments’ greater
ability to project when the lower strings were strung with wire wound strings,
and the desire to project very well at a reasonable vibrating length of the
string. At this time, too, was a transition to larger and larger performance
spaces, in which instruments with better projection would have been very
desirable.
Instruments were also being modified during these times
in order that they would have better projection by changing neck angles.
One issue that has been an issue all along is that the
top strings of violins are very highly tensioned and tend to test the quality
of a gut string. The standard method of determining the correct gauge of a
violin e’’ string historically has been to tighten it until it breaks, then back
off by 1/2 step.
Wire strings, which have been used on harpsichords for a
long while, have also been tried on violins as early as the mid-18th century,
in the search for a more reliable top string.
After the acceptance of wound lower strings in the late
17th century, things probably remained relatively predictable, while developing
better polishing techniques, until World War I. Gut strings, in addition to
being excellent conveyors of sound, are also excellent thread material for
other applications, including gut sutures. There was such an incredible demand
for suture gut during WWI (let’s try not to dwell on the overwhelming sadness
of this reality right now) that the gut making regions of Italy, which were the
centers of gut string making in Europe, were sequestered for suture gut
production and there was no gut available for music strings.
Logically speaking, if something isn’t available and
people absolutely need something, they will figure out something else that will
work for whatever they can’t get.
Hindemith, in his book “The Composer’s World”, postulates
that the advent of radio and its tinny sound, contributed to an acceptance of a
more wiry sound.
The transition to wire top strings for violin and viola
occurred during this time so it could logically be suggested that those two
circumstances ushered in a new era of stringing.
Further, we have now firmly arrived in the technological
era and string makers are experimenting with all kinds of ultra-modern strings
for violin family, using different core and winding materials.
Heifetz was known to use a wire e’’ string with a gut a’
string, so we can observe from the stringing of a 20th century musical icon
that gut still was an important material for musical strings between the two
world wars.
However, for the upper instruments gut has been
superseded to some degree as a core material by much denser, and/or more
reliable, materials that allow for a smaller diameter string that speaks just
as quickly. Just as important, the design of the bow was also changing, also
contributing to a stronger and brighter sound.
I came to this party very late, but by virtue of being a
bassist, which is a group of musicians who are known to be late for everything
except for arriving at the gig, I discovered from interviewing the older
bassists I worked with that all had started out playing on gut, which was still
common among bassists into the 1960’s. Listen to recordings of Jimmy Blanton,
Paul Chambers, Oscar Pettiford, Israel Crosby, and hear double bass gut
stringing at its finest. They all knew exactly which gauges of string their
basses wanted for any occasion.
In closing, technology has driven most things since the
mid-18th century, and stringing of bowed and plucked instruments is no
different from anything else, so updates have always been periodically
necessary, but not quite at the pace of current times with Apple/MSFT.
At the beginning of my historically informed music career
in the late 1980’s I used Aquila Corde’s ‘loaded’ gut lower strings on my bass,
instead of wound strings. These strings were based on early densified strings
but instead of using cinnabar for the densifying material, copper solvents were
used. Even though there is little historical evidence for these, when one got a
really good string of this formula, it was nirvana. Sadly the ratio of good strings to bad was
pretty low so Aquila discontinued them in about 1996. On the plus side, I
didn’t become a mad hatter.
Now I am using a more modern stringing for my lower
strings that is densified by winding a layer or two of silver wire on top of a
core string of gut. This setup works well but because silver reacts to
temperature much faster than gut, the lower strings of the double bass go out
of tune quicker than the plain gut upper two strings.
In the end all this does is to point out that for
everything gained through technology, something is also probably lost. High
tension modern stringing produces a brighter and louder sound, but subtlety is
diminished. The tonal result for violins can be something like a Texas Chainsaw
Massacre.
If one reads the recent article in the “New Yorker” about
the viola da gamba, and its relative value in today’s musical lexicon, it will
only help to solidify, or dissolve, whatever opinion one might have.
And if lastly, while listening to a very modern
recording, one feels that gut stringing is somehow an anachronism, it is
advised to also listen to the strings in a different modern recording, where
the opinion will almost certainly be changed. Gut stringing is still alive and
while not really well, is not dead.
Best,