• I f - FoMRHI

22
Replacement of I and II by steel harpsichord strings (variants 4 and 5) was not a rewarding
experience, and turned the instrument into something resembling my 12 year old niece's
school violin. This left me puzzled by Evelyn's report, but I did not persist with variant 6.
Instead, I tried listening to a recording of Swedish folk tunes played on modem metal-strung
fiddles (not scordatura tuned), to try to persuade myself whether the sound could be
described as 'sweet' as in Evelyn's account, or 'breathy', which might explain the use of the
adjective 'piffaro'. Such judgments are inevitably subjective, and although I was personally
not convinced, it is possible that others might be.
Variant 3 (metal strings for III and IV only) produced a rather pleasant echo-like resonance,
particularly with the strings tuned a' - e" - a' - e". It was not difficult to persuade oneself that
metal strings work well as sympathetic strings. Also, even at the low Corista pitch standard
of a' = 380 Hz, for a violin of string stop 32 cm the fL product (frequency in Hz x string stop
in m) of the e" string is 182 m/s, which is actually higher than maximum of around 174 m/s
expected to be tolerable with the metal strings available after 1620 (Comm 1593); so the
breakage rate of metal strings would have been high if bowed, but probably acceptable if
not. However with a shorter string stop of 30 cm, bowed metal strings should be feasible.
Finally I returned to the original gut/overspun gut stringing (variant 2) but this time with the
strings tuned a - e' - a 1 - e" at Corista pitch. This yielded a result similar to variant 3, and
made me wonder whether metal stringing was actually necessary. In this case Spielmann
may have been essentially correct but was not aware that tuning is at least as critical to the
response of a Stainer violin as the strings themselves.
The preferred options for Schmelzer's violino piffaro are therefore:
(1) a standard size violin, with gut for the top two strings, and overspun gut for the
bottom two strings tuned in octaves with the top two
(2) a standard size violin, with gut for the top two strings, and metal for the bottom two
strings tuned in unison with the top two
(3) a small violin, metal-strung throughout, tuned as in (2)
In all cases the bottom two strings are treated as sympathetic not played strings. Evidence in
favour of (2) on other instruments includes variants of the lyra viol, the later type of viola
d'amore and the baryton. Evidence in favour of (3) includes Evelyn's account and the early
type of viola d'amore. The Hardanger fiddle dated 1651, shown in Grove, has 4 played
strings and 4 sympathetic strings, all metal; but it is not clear what its size is nor whether the
original bowed strings were metal or gut. I would be interested in any other evidence that
could point towards any of the various options. At present I can only conclude that the allmetal
version (3) is the one which would contrast most strongly with the normal violin band.