Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

STRING STRING 727
melody she is executing, and her tone is both
1 oriein of
delicate and powerful.' In Vienna she learnt
naturally not always
For the deeper-toned
practicable
strings
in England.
the gut is overlapped
with silver, copper, or mixed metal.
to appreciate the gaiety of Haydn's music, so
congenial to her own character. She played According to J. Rousseau {TraiU de la Viole,
his quartets before the Court at Ludwigslust, 1687) this loading of the string was introduced
in France by Sainte Colombo about a.d.
and also at Frau von Ranzow's, with peculiar
naivete and humour, and was much applauded 1676. The tenMon of the four strings of a
for her delicate and expressive rendering of a violin was stated by Tartini, in 1734, to be
solo in one of them. She is also said to have 63 lb. Mr. Hart, for the English high pitch
been an excellent guitar-player. She married [happily now discredited] estimates it at about
Johann Conrad Schlick, a distinguished violoncellist
90 1b.
in the ducal ohapel at Gotha. The two Wire strings were originally of latten or brass,
travelled together, playing duets for violin and with which psalteries and dulcimers were strung.
violoncello. Schlick died at Gotha in 1825, two As late as the first half of the 18th century,
years after the death of his wife. c. f. p. clavichords were generally strung with brass
STRING (Fr. Cm-de. ; Ital. Cm-da ; Germ. wu-e only ;
pianofortes retained a batch of
Saite). A slender length of gut, sUk, or wire, brass strings until about 1830. Steel wire, as
stretched over raised supports called bridges, the special iron music- wire was called, was, however,
between which it Is free to vibrate. When
very early introduced, for Virdung {iiusica
weighted to resist the drawing power or tension, getutseht und misgezogen, a.d. 1511) expressly
the rapidity of its transverse vibrations depends states that the trebles of clavichords were
upon the tension, the length, and the specific then strung with steel. Early in the 19th
gi'avity of the material ; and in exact ratio with century Nuremberg steel was in great request,
this rapidity the ear is sensible of the difference but about 1820 the Berlin wire gained the
of musical pitch. From the 6th century B.C. preference. The iron of both came from the
the mouochord or single string, stretched over a Harz Mountains. About 1834 Webster of
sound-board and measured by movable bridges, Birmingham brought out cast steel for music
has been the canon of musical intervals, the wire, and gave piano strings a breaking weight
relative scale pitch. The string by itself would of about one-third more than the German.
give but a faint tone in the suiTounding air, But in 1850 Miller of Vienna was able to
and a sound-board is necessary to reinforce the
tone, and make it sufficiently audible.
contend for the first place, and in the following
year actually gained it at the Great Exhibition,
Of the materials employed for strings, silk for oast steel wire-drawing. After that, Pohlmann
has been much used in the East, but in European
of Nuremberg came forward and was
instruments gut and wire have had the constant considered by some experts to have surpassed
preference. Gut (x°P^^ m Greek, whence the Miller.^ Webster's firm has not been idle
during a competition to the results of which
familiar chord ' ') was the musical string of
the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans ; wire was the present power of the pianoforte to stand
practically unknown to them, since wire-drawing
in tune owes so much. A trial made under
was invented only about a.d. 1350, syn-
direction of the writer gives for average breaking
chronising with the probable invention of keyed weight of 24 inches, of No. 17^ wire, Pohlmann's
instruments with strings, such as the clavichord, 297 lb., MiUer's 275 lb., Webster and Horsfall
harpsichord, or virginal. From that epoch gut 257 lb., all nearly doubling the tension required
and wire have held divided mle, as they do in for use. It is not, therefore, with surprise that
our own day in the violin and the piano. The we accept the eminent authority of Dr. William
general name for gut strings is catgut, ^ but Pole, who regarded cast steel music-wire as the
it is really' made from the intestines of sheep strongest elastic material that exists. The
and goats, chiefly the former ;
the best and earliest covered piano strings, about a hundred
strongest being of lamb's gut when the lamb is years ago, spun in long interstices of brass over
of a certain age and development, whence it steel, have in time become close spun in single,
comes that September is the month for fiddlestring
making ;
double, and even treble overlayings of copper, or
particularly for first (or E) mixed metal composed of spelter and copper,
fiddle-strings, which are the smallest though gaining in the largest strings a diameter of
they have to bear the greatest strain of the 0"21 of an inch, and considerable power of
four. According to Mr. Hart (The Violin, strain. The greatest tension of a string recorded
by Messrs. Broadwood in the technical
London, 1875) the best catgut sti-ings are the
Italian (Roman par exceUence) ;
next rank the part of theii- Exhibition book of 1862 is 315 lb.
German, then the French ;
last of all, the — for the highest single string of a Concert
English. The author attributes the superior Grand. They give the whole tension at that
quality of the Italian to climate, an important time for Philharmonic pitch (viz. A 454, C 540
part of the process of manufacture being, in double vibrations per second) of tvro of their
2
Italy, carried on in the open air, which is
XJupubllshed correspondence of Theobald BShm. tho flautist,
shows that POblmann was indebted to Mm for improving his manufacture.
The the tei-m catgut has not yet been traced, o.