Howard kindly offered to post this message (below) on my behalf - but
I see that if I'd like to be involved it's a bit much to ask others to
post for me! So I've signed up to the list. As an outsider from the
bowed-string community I shan't get involved too heavily, but did very
much want to contribute to the recent discussion on all-gut stringing!
(In fact, for some reason, only half my message appeared, so here it is
in full, with apologies for the semi-duplication.)
howardpos...@ca.rr.com writes:
Send your response to me and I'll post it.
Many thanks - here's David Tayler's response below, with my comments
pasted in in bold. Thanks very much for your help!
Oliver
From David Tayler, March 26th (IIRC)
Yes, I know of just a few in Europe who are doing this. I'm not sure
I would say "quite a few", it is still rare, especially here in the US.
It's probably worth distinguishing between "all gut", which has a much
more limited application, and "equal tension", which can include wound
strings, but which also generally implies the use of much thicker gut
strings, and can be applied up to 1760 or so. In the UK, playing with
equal tension (or near-equal - there are some live debates about the
distinction between equal feel and equal tension) is quite common; in
continental Europe there are only a few ensembles who do this (De Swaen
in Amsterdam, and recently one of the big French orchestras (I forget
which) strung up in this way for a project), but it is gaining
popularity.
There are some nice pictures on the website of relative string sizes.
I prefer Mimmo's gallery of the originals, but it is good to compare
what we are using with what they had back then.
Definitely!
I would slightly differ, or amplify, on the statement about some
musicians using all gut in the 18th century--it is instrument
specific.
Mea culpa - I should have written "violinists"...
On the violin, all gut, unwound strings were the standard
into the late 19th century, and even the early 20th century.
...but I wouldn't go that far. There is said to be a rogue piece of
evidence for all-gut violin stringing from c.1850, but if it exists (I
haven't seen it) it is most definitely an exception. Every other source
I have seen from the 1780s onwards gives a wound G string as the only
possibility. Gut D strings, on the other hand, were in common use until
after the 2nd world war, even though some violinists had abandoned them
in the 20s and 30s. But the wound G has been the uncontested standard
at least since the 1780s and probably a little earlier.
On the cello, you start to see silvered fouth strings in the 18th
century in paintings, and there are a small number even earlier.
Yes, although interestingly the 3rd string seems to remain gut until
the classical period - a fact neglected by many baroque cellists today,
unfortunately!
Although the strings are perhaps the most most important, the other
things that affect the sound are the bridge--which as thicker--the
bass bar (smaller) and one of the most overlooked of all--the bow.
Original bows were lighter and had far less strands of hair than the
ones that are used now in baroque performance.
Agreed - and it's a pity that so many makers of "baroque" bows seem to
use so much more hair, generally, than we know to have been used at the
time. Most "baroque" bridges are indeed far too thin, too.
Just as an experiment, you can take a typical heavy baroque violin
bow and try it yourself or have the player try it on a cello or bass
viol. You will then immediately hear what a huge difference just
using a lighter, thinner bow makes.
Put it all together, the bow, the bridge, the strings, the bass bar,
and on and on, and you get a sound that is radically different, much
more vocal, and, most importantly, does not drown out the lute!
Especially if the lute is strung properly... ;-)
Can't say I agree with the Bonta bits about the cello sizes, they
obviously had dozens of different kinds of cellos and violones back
then, and the sizes persisted well into the Classical period.
Trying to "match" terms to instruments only works if the terms were
used consistently in the historical period in question, which, as far
as I can tell, they were not.
The result is that certain historical instruments perform a scholarly
disappearing act because the terminology has been regularized.
Do you mean Bonta's thesis about the wound string being the sine qua
non of the "violoncello"? I agree that it may well be too "neat and
tidy" to represent the full picture - but I do think there is a lot of
sense in the general idea that wound strings made smaller instruments
more viable.
Exactly when that metal string started appearing on the lowest note
of the cello is an interesting topic all by itself.
If you look at this amazing painting
[1]http://voicesofmusic.org/baroque_cello.jpg
You can see the strings clearly, as well as how thin the bow is
This is indeed a fascinating picture - can you give us more
information? Date, artist, location?
Regards
Oliver Webber
dt
--
References
1. http://voicesofmusic.org/baroque_cello.jpg
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