Chapter X: 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.”