Influence of post-Dominant strings on the levelling between Stradivari and modern violins.

[christian bayon]

 I’m wondering if the superiority of classical instruments (Stradivari, Guarneri,Amati) was not more obvious 50 years ago. 
With the "modern strings (post Dominant) we have been able to bring open sound and clarity to modern violins, what was before the quality of many great instruments.
Only good instruments was sounding well with Eudoxa or Oliv strings.
What do you think? 
Modern strings can have levelled de difference of sound between Strads and modern violins?

[Carl Stross]

48 minutes ago, christian bayon said:

 I’m wondering if the superiority of classical instruments (Stradivari, Guarneri,Amati) was not more obvious 50 years ago. 
With the "modern strings (post Dominant) we have been able to bring open sound and clarity to modern violins, what was before the quality of many great instruments.
Only good instruments was sounding well with Eudoxa or Oliv strings.
What do you think? 
Modern strings can have levelled de difference of sound between Strads and modern violins?

I don't think modern strings can degrade the tone of a Strad THAT much.

[deans]

Both contemporary instruments and old ones sound better with gut IMO.  But modern strings give more punch and ease of play, those things are hard to beat. 

Its funny, Dominants are now the new gut, some people have never used them, only Evahs etc. I walked in to a major shop a year ago and the lady at the counter snickered at my Dominants (even though some of their instruments were strung with them). There's a tone with Dominants that is now somehow nostalgic to me.

I wonder how many contemporary instruments have never seen a gut string? Or Dominants for that matter.

[PhilipKT]

On YouTube is a performance of the Haydn C major cello Concerto Played in the style of Haydn’s time, on a cello set up according to that era.

Sounded awful.

I am entirely convinced that the Strings and accessories available today improve lesser instruments, and to a greater degree than they improve great instruments.

A few weeks ago, I made a video with two advanced students, of some Renaissance dances by Brian Joyce. The cellos were a 2005 Caron, a 1992 Kiernoziak and a large pattern 2013 Jay Haide. The Haide sounded great even against two other instruments that each cost several times as much.

[GeorgeH]

40 years ago, I used to love a plain (unwound) gut A, but they were hard to keep in tune and seemed to break spontaneously.

I have not used them since.

Have more modern gut strings improved?

[deans]

4 minutes ago, GeorgeH said:

Have more modern gut strings improved?

Plain gut has IMO, Gamut in particular makes really high quality plain gut. I have had As on for quite a while

[GeorgeH]

27 minutes ago, deans said:

Gamut in particular makes really high quality plain gut

Great, I'll have to try one!

[Michael Appleman]

As someone who grew up playing still very much in the "gut era," with a violin shop's stock of strings to choose from, I DETESTED Dominants when they first came out. I found them strident, ugly, and very unpleasant to use. My favourite set-up in the 1970's was an Olive G, Kaplan silver wound D, Kaplan plain gut A, and Hill E. BUT, gut strings would often take up to a week to stretch and play-in, then start dying after a week or two of hard playing. I started using Dominants for my "gig" fiddles. I realized that after a few days of playing in, they seemed less ugly and strident. They stayed in tune much better than the gut strings I used on my "concert" violins, and they lasted much longer. I finally switched over for the sake of economy and got used to the sound, but to me they were always cheap and reliable, never an enhancement in sound in any way. When more synthetic core string options became available, I tried just about everything, and I've got my preferences today, which are strings that seem to me to sound the most like the gut strings I used in my youth, but that stay in tune better and last much longer. To me the idea that synthetic core strings have somehow "improved" mediocre violins is fairly ridiculous.

[Andres Sender]

Michael would you be tempted to speculate that modern strings might even have lowered expectations in some ways?

[David Burgess]

2 hours ago, christian bayon said:

 I’m wondering if the superiority of classical instruments (Stradivari, Guarneri,Amati) was not more obvious 50 years ago. 
With the "modern strings (post Dominant) we have been able to bring open sound and clarity to modern violins, what was before the quality of many great instruments.
Only good instruments was sounding well with Eudoxa or Oliv strings.
What do you think? 
Modern strings can have levelled de difference of sound between Strads and modern violins?

I don't think so. I was around during the time when many people were still using gut-core strings, and others were switching to Dominants, and found the differences between the strings to be roughly the same on both old and new instruments, including those by Stradivari, Guarneri and Amati.

[GeorgeH]

While I have never particularly been a fan of Heifetz's intonation compared with modern players, someone (here?) pointed out that he was playing on gut strings that would go out of tune during long pieces, and was a master at adjusting intonation to compensate.

So I guess you have to give some credit for the remarkable intonation of contemporary soloists to the stability of modern strings 

[Michael Appleman]

48 minutes ago, Andres Sender said:

Michael would you be tempted to speculate that modern strings might even have lowered expectations in some ways?

Interesting question. I find that in the synthetic core era, players seem generally less interested in their strings, which is why HIP oriented players feel like they've discovered a lost continent when it comes to gut strings.

Back in the "everyone plays gut or gut-core era," there were of course players who didn't spend that much energy investigating their strings, but my sense is that we were all much more aware that string gauges could be inconsistent and had to be checked, that in a batch of new strings there could be "duds," that temeprature and humidity could have a major effect on our strings...I still have my Pirastro branded string micrometer that I used to use to check all the strings in an order to make sure the gauges were as labelled and consistent from end to end.

Today people are still simplifying so much when they argue synthetic vs. gut, but back in the day the differences between, say, Pirastro Black Label, Gold Label, Eudoxa and Olive, all gut core strings, seemed even more dramatic than those between different synthetic strings today.

[Michael Appleman]

4 minutes ago, GeorgeH said:

While I have never particularly been a fan of Heifetz's intonation compared with modern players, someone (here?) pointed out that he was playing on gut strings that would go out of tune during long pieces, and was a master at adjusting intonation to compensate.

So I guess you have to give some credit for the remarkable intonation of contemporary soloists to the stability of modern strings 

It was normal for teachers like Leopold Auer to forbid their students to re-tune during a lesson. They had to know how to play in tune even if their gut-strung violins went out of tune!

i'd also add that we were taught in the "old St. Peterburg school" to de-temper our tuning in order to play more expressively...major thirds were large and leading tones were sharp. It was a way to stand out from the orchestra and can sound grating to "modern" ears that have been coddled by extremely tempered "blending" intonation, small major thirds, neutral leading tones, small fifths...it's definitely "smoother" (and a lot easier to edit and pitch-correct) but to some of us who grew up in another era, it sounds a bit bland...

[VicM]

25 minutes ago, GeorgeH said:

While I have never particularly been a fan of Heifetz's intonation compared with modern players, someone (here?) pointed out that he was playing on gut strings that would go out of tune during long pieces, and was a master at adjusting intonation to compensate.

So I guess you have to give some credit for the remarkable intonation of contemporary soloists to the stability of modern strings 

Which modern players play more in tune than Heifetz in your opinion ?

[GeorgeH]

1 minute ago, VicM said:

Which modern players play more in tune than Heifetz in your opinion ?

In my opinion, all of the contemporary touring and recording soloists, such as Hillary Hahn, have better (cleaner and more precise) intonation than Heifetz had. 

29 minutes ago, Michael Appleman said:

It was normal for teachers like Leopold Auer to forbid their students to re-tune during a lesson. They had to know how to play in tune even if their gut-strung violins went out of tune!

Interesting!

[David Burgess]

21 minutes ago, VicM said:

Which modern players play more in tune than Heifetz in your opinion ?

While Heifetz was certainly a monster of intonation, I'd put Hilary Hahn forth as a contender.

[Michael Appleman]

I really don't think it's fair to compare intonation from an era when editing was done with razor blades and adhesive tape to today's recording technology when splicing a wayward 16th note is a matter of clicking on a mouse. Recordings are not live concerts. 

[christian bayon]

I’m not sure that any of us is able to make a violin sounding like this one and with this response, set up with Eudoxa  or Olive, but maybe I’m wrong.

[Michael Appleman]

Playing a violin as well as Ferras might be harder than making a violin that sounds like his Strad.

[christian bayon]

 right!

[Michael Appleman]

I'm not saying it is harder, just let's not forget that he was a fantastic violinist, and i suspect he'd sound as impressive playing something else. This Strad has been used in concert by some other violinists since Ferras passed away, and I'm not sure we've been as blown away by it in other hands...

[David Burgess]

18 minutes ago, Michael Appleman said:

I realy don't think it's fair to compare intonation from an era when editing was done with razor blades and adhesive tape to today's recording technology when splicing a wayward 16th note is a matter of clicking on a mouse. Recordings are not live concerts. 

Except when they are recordings of live concerts. In a live recording scenario, using typical mic'ing, it's almost impossible to edit a soloist's intonation, separate from that of the other instruments.

A studio recording situation, in which the solo violin is completely isolated and mic's completely separately from the other instruments, can offer much better tuning correction options.

16 minutes ago, christian bayon said:

I’m not sure that any of us is able to make a violin sounding like this one and with this response, set up with Eudoxa  or Olive, but maybe I’m wrong.

Setting up a violin (either old or modern) to work and sound its best with Eudoxas or Olives was quite a skill set.

[Michael Appleman]

6 minutes ago, David Burgess said:

Except when they are recordings of live concerts. In a live recording scenario, it's almost impossible to edit a soloist's intonation, separate from that of the other instruments.

It's been a while since "live recordings" were really made from one take, including videos. That said, Hilary Hahn does play with superb intonation, and that includes in live concerts. At that level, to my mind intonation is not "better or worse," it becomes, like sound, an expression of the soloists' personality and expressiveness. One can prefer Hilary Hahn's intonation to Heifetz', that's a matter of taste. To suggest one was "more in tune" than the other seems a little pretentious.

[David Burgess]

7 minutes ago, Michael Appleman said:

That said, Hilary Hahn does play with superb intonation, and that includes in live concerts. At that level, to my mind intonation is not "better or worse," it becomes, like sound, an expression of the soloists' personality and expressiveness. One can prefer Hilary Hahn's intonation to Heifetz', that's a matter of taste. To suggest one was "more in tune" than the other seems a little pretentious.

Agreed.

[GeorgeH]

54 minutes ago, Michael Appleman said:

One can prefer Hilary Hahn's intonation to Heifetz', that's a matter of taste. To suggest one was "more in tune" than the other seems a little pretentious.

That is how I hear it. I don’t mean to be pretentious. Heifetz remains a giant.

But this is a thread about strings...

Heifetz played on plain gut D and A strings in concert halls and studios that lacked modern humidity and temperature controls.

The fact that he could compensate as well as he did is a testament to his skills.

One might imagine that his intonation would have been even better if he had had the benefits of modern synthetic strings and climate controls.