I measured the
string gauges with a micrometer, and also calculated the degree of
twist given to each sample during the manufacturing stage: a highly
important parameter for assessing the acoustic yield of any gut string.
It would also be very interesting to assess the number of guts used to
make the various strings. But the "strands" could be separated with the
required delicacy and counted only by specially hydrating some small
fragments of the strings. Unfortunately this operation is not advised,
because items of such antiquity could easily dissolve completely in the
watery solution; in any case, the technique is in itself destructive.
As Edward Neill has
pointed out (5), in
some of his letters Paganini already provided interesting information
about the strings he used: "Ho bisogno di un favore: ponetevi tutta
la cura, e la diligenza. Mi mancano i cantini. Io li desidero
sottilissimi […] . Quantunque tanto sottili devono essere di 4
fila per resistere. Badate che la corda sia liscia, uguale, e ben
tirata […] . Vi supplico di sorvegliare i fabbricanti e di far
presto e bene." (I need a favour: to be done with care and
solicitude. I am without chanterelles […]. Even if they are very
thin they must be made of four strands to endure. Make sure the string
is smooth, even and well stretched […] . I beg you to keep an
eye on the makers and do this soon and well). And in a letter written
from Naples to his friend and confidant Germi, shortly before, on 29
May 1829, we read: "Il tuo Paganini desidera sapere […]
quanti mazzi di cantini e quanto di seconde, e a quante fila si
desiderano da Napoli, perché ora si avvicina il mese di Agosto,
epoca giusta per fabbricar le corde" (Your friend Paganini wants to
know […] how many bundles of chanterelles and how many of second
strings, and with how many strands, are wanted from Naples, because the
month of August is approaching: the right time for making strings) (6).
Further information
is provided by Carl Flesch (7):
"Some thirty years ago the owner of the Schott firm showed the
celebrated violinist Hugo Hermann one of Paganini's letters, wherein
the latter begged the head of the firm at the time to procure strings
for him like the samples enclosed. Hermann obtained the loan of these
strings. After measuring them on a string-gauge, he found to his
astonishment that the D-string had the strength of the A-string used
today and the A-string the thickness of our E-string, and that the
latter was not unlike a strong thread".
In an earlier paper
(8) I suggested that
these strings were in actual fact guitar strings, given that Paganini
was also a brilliant guitarist. But this conjecture needs revising in
the light of recent research I have done on the contemporary guitar. In
brief, the study shows that the guitar made use of violin strings for
the first three strings: in other words, it didn't use thin gauges at
all, as is commonly believed today.
Flesch's
information is in any case insufficient to offer any certainty on the
matter. First, it is not clear whether the notes (D, A, etc.)
associated with each sample were actually named by Paganini himself, or
whether that was what Hermann imagined (in which case Paganini might
have merely enclosed the string samples without specifying either their
notes or the instrument they were needed for). Second, we must remember
that Paganini also played the mandolin (9), so it is quite possible that the strings ordered
were for this instrument. And finally, we cannot exclude the
possibility that his request was merely a favour on behalf of some
musical acquaintance.
In any case, if we
disregard the thinnest string (for which we have no term of comparison)
and compare Hermann's specifications with the table of tensions given
by Gorge Hart towards the end of the 19th century (10), we may estimate the presumed "D" as
circa 0.84¸0.90 mm and the presumed "A" as 0.65¸0.73 mm:
diameters that are decidedly thin for any violin of the time.
About the presumed
"E", we frankly cannot say, since Hermann merely tells us that it "was
not unlike a strong thread". Was it perhaps a chanterelle for the
mandolin? There is no way of telling.
The strings
recently found can be assumed to be two "Ds", three "As" and two "Es":
it would seem likely that they are segments taken from longer lengths
and cut to size for the violin. They are straw-yellow in colour,
fragile, slightly wrinkly and intact (i.e. never used). The "E" strings
have a medium twist (ca. 45° angle), while the "A" and "D" strings
have a decidedly high twist (close to 80°). We can well imagine,
therefore, this guaranteed excellent acoustic results, in certain
respects different from that of strings today, which are often much
less twisted and hence stiffer.
Below are the
diameter ranges found over all the samples:
String
Diameter
Note
E
0.70 - 0.72 mm Medium twist
A
0.87 - 0.89 mm High twist
A*
0.80 - 0.83 mm High twist
D
1.15 - 1.16 mm High twist
* this measurement was
found on only one segment of string
As we notice, there
is no fourth string. This, however, is hardly surprising, because it
was customary at the time for the fourth string to be made not by
string makers but by instrument makers (if not by the musicians
themselves), using a fairly thin second string (11) (12) (13).
What is altogether
surprising, on the other hand, is how remarkably close the calibres of
the above table are particularly to those of Andrea Ruffini, the famous
Neapolitan string-maker of the late 19th-century (despite some
uncertainty over the final diameter, owing to the fact that the strings
were smoothed exclusively by hand and the thickness of the original
material was in any case variable, no matter how well selected the gut)
(14):
E: ± 0.67 mm
A: ± 0.90 mm
D: ± 1.17 mm
And they also agree
with the data given a hundred years earlier by Count Riccati (15):
E: ± 0.70 mm
A: ± 0.90 mm
D: ± 1.10 mm
However, this
shouldn't come as a surprise if we remember that in Italy - from the
17th century, or even earlier (16) - the string were produced preferably from whole
guts of lamb (and not ram, which is the male of sheep and) - which in
Italy seems not to have been as "popular" as it was in France) of
8¸9 months of age, according to a practice that was strictly
standardised and handed down from father to son. As reported in both
Italian and other sources (17),
the making of a violin chanterelle generally required three "strands"
(i.e. guts), but sometimes even four. We find this both in the 18th and
late 19th centuries (18).
The fact of using four strands doesn't necessarily imply that the
chanterelles were particularly thick (if with three guts the diameter
is ca. 0.70 mm, with four it would be ca. 0.82 mm -), but merely that
there were times when the gut available to the string maker was a
little thinner than usual. This is also confirmed by a passage from one
of Paganini's letters (19).
And as a string-maker myself, I can affirm that, final diameters being
equal, a string made of four thin guts is much more regular and durable
and also truer than one made of three "standard" guts.
Paganini evidently
knew what he was doing when he ordered the strings: he specially asked
for canterelles of four strands (which would enhance the durability and
limit the number of false strings) and he even went to the length of
asking a trusted person to keep an eye on the Neapolitan string makers.
If we consider that
the diameters measured agree almost entirely with those of numerous
other contemporary sources, and if we also remember that manufacturing
was considerably standardised, I think we can rule out the possibility
that the individual items shrank as a consequence of further drying.
Besides, a finished gut string is already in itself what one might call
a "mummified" material.
The following graph
superimposes onto Graph 2 of my previous paper (8, p 187) the scaling
of tensions of the average diameters of the E, A and D strings under
the same working conditions (vibrating length 0,33 cms; a'=435 Hz):
(follow the graph
2, not present here).
One observes that
the working tensions of the string samples present an almost perfectly
progressive profile, exactly as one would expect and as is consistent
with the surviving historical information.
Conclusions
Regardless of
whether or not the strings in question actually belonged to the great
violinist, in all likelihood they are the only surviving exemplars that
certainly date to the early 19th century. In agreement with the studies
carried out on the subject, they once again refute the deeply-rooted
opinion that the stringing of violins was then much lighter than it is
today. In addition, the strings were subjected to a judicious degree of
twisting. Though this was less pronounced on the chanterelles (which
thus gained in resistance to tension and fraying), there was a high
degree of twist on the second and, above all, third strings, which
worked only at a fraction of their breaking load and needed as much
elasticity as possible to yield the best acoustic results.
These finds seem to
document that Paganini also used strings with diameters customary for
his day. Though we do not know for certain that they were made in
Naples, they were undoubtedly made skilfully. There is some doubt,
however, about the meaning of the request in his letter ("I want them
to be very thin"), which seems to contradict the other statement that
he wants the strings to be "of four strands to endure".
Finally, we cannot
exclude the possibility that, in the course of his career, even
Paganini (like any other musician today, for that matter) indulged in a
little experimentation with different calibres on the only material
available, which he also considered as the best: Neapolitan gut.
Back
Notes:
(1) The material was found and is still
preserved at the Archivio di "Palazzo Rosso" in Genoa.
(2) Attached to the bow in question is a
sheet of paper bearing the following note: "Arco di Nicolò
Paganini, che adoperò durante tutta la sua carriera artistica.
Rottosi l'arco a Newcastel [sic] (Inghilterra) in otto frantumi. Lo
fece rimettere insieme dal celebre liutista [sic] Vuillaume di Parigi,
ne cercò di valersi di quest arco esclusivamente. In attestato
di verità Achille Paganini figlio di Nicolò" (Bow of
Nicolò Paganini, which he used throughout his artistic career.
The bow broke into eight bits in Newcastle (England). He had it put
together by the famous lutenist [sic] Vuillaume of Paris, and tried to
make exclusive use of this bow. In attestation of the truth, Achille
Paganini, Nicolò's son).
(3) The following is written on the
cardboard back of the box: "Vuillaume, rue…..Paris."
(4) The strings are all rolled up and bound
tightly together by three small ribbons of red silk.
(5) Edward Neill: Nicolo' Paganini:
Registro di lettere, 1829, Graphos, Genova 1991, p.80. Letter from
Breslau, 31 July 1829, addressed to "Signre Profre Onorio de Vito,
Napoli".
(6) Edward Neill: Paganini: epistolario,
Comune di Genova, Genova 1982, p. 49.
(7) Carl Flesh: The art of violin
playing, 2 vols., Fischer, New York 1924-30 (original edition, Die
Kunst des Violinspiels, 2 vols., Ries, Berlin 1924-8).
(8) Mimmo Peruffo: "Italian violin strings
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: typologies, manufacturing
techniques and principles of stringing", Recercare IX 1997, p.
176.
(9) Edward Neill: Nicolo' Paganini il
cavaliere filarmonico, De Ferrari Editore, 1990 Genova, p.27.
(10) George Hart: The violin: its
famous makers and their imitators, Dulau and Co., London 1875,
section 3 p. 54.
(11) Edward Neill: , p. 67: Milano 28 Giugno 1823 "…colà
mi restituirò a Milano per li tuoi violini, e ti farò
fasciare delle quarte di filo d'argento." (…I will go back
to Milan for your violins, and I will have some fourth strings wound
with silver wire).
(12) Edward Heron- Allen: Violin-making
as it was and is […], Ward, Lock & Co. London 1884,
chapter XII, "The strings", p. 213: "I always obtain my covered strings
[i.e. the fourth] for violin or viola from Mr. G. Hart, who covers them
with alternate spirals of gun-metal and plated copper."
(13) Francesco Galeazzi: Elementi
teorico-pratici di musica con un saggio sopra l'arte di suonare il
violino […], Pilucchi Cracas, Roma 1791, p. 74: "Non
sarà, cred'io, discaro al mio lettore, che io qui gli descriva
una picciola semplicissima macchinetta, e l'uso glie ne additi per
filarsi, e ricoprirsi d'argento da sé i cordoni" (It will
not, I believe, be unwelcome to my reader if I describe, and explain
the use of, a small and very simple machine for threading and covering
the fourth string with silver wire).
(14) William Huggins: "On the function of
the sound-post and the proportional thickness of the strings on the
violin", Royal Society proceedings, XXXV 1883, pp. 241-8: 247.
(15) See Patrizio Barbieri: "Giordano
Riccati on the diameters of strings and pipes", The Galpin Society
journal, XXXVIII 1985, pp. 20-34.
(16) Statute of the Roman string makers'
guild. Roma, Biblioteca Angelica, Camerale II, Arti e Mestieri,
Statuti, coll. 312, busta 12, anno 1642.
(17) Francois De Lalande: Voyage en
Italie […] fait dans les annèes 1765-1766, 2nd
edition, vol. IX, Desaint, Paris 1786, pp.514-9.
(18) Edward Heron- Allen: Violin-making
as it was and is […], Ward, Lock & Co. London 1884,
chapter XII, "The strings", p. 212: "for the first, or E string, 3-4
fine threads…".
(19) (see note 8) Edward Neill: Nicolo' Paganini:
Registro di lettere, 1829, Graphos, Genova 1991, p.80. Letter from
Breslau, 31 July 1829, addressed to " Signre Profre Onorio de Vito,
Napoli": "Quantunque tanto sottili [i cantini] devono essere di 4
fila per resistere" (No matter how thin, they [the chanterelles]
must be of 4 strands to endure).