This excellently researched book tells the story of strings in a concise and informative way. It is both enlightening and practical. I learned a great deal - every string player should own a copy!
Kati Debretzeni
Leader of The English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Great Britain
Daniela Gaidano's book "Evolution of Strings in the Violin Family" is a treasure trove! The combination of historical facts and her years of experience as a sought-after string maker turns this book into a fascinating read and an indispensable part of any dedicated library on performance practice on original instruments!
Philipp von Steinaecker
Conductor
Germany
This is an indispensable book for any player of historical string instruments. It is full of fascinating informations on the history of string-making, and answers so may of the questions we have on choosing the right gut strings
Alison Bury
Violinist, Soloist and Leader
Great Britain
As a musicologist, I usually accept writings and books published on the Internet with a great amount of scepticism.
Many people is able to write an exciting book, but in a topic like the one Daniela Gaidano has chosen, it is important for the author not to rely on his imagination, intuition, or preconception, but to build his own story using only verifiable, factual data.
Fortunately, after reading the book, all my bad feelings were dispelled. Ms. Gaidano’s writing is an accurate, concise summary of everything you need to know about the history of the strings used on the violin family instruments. Although some of the information were known to me, there were many new data, which I was happy to learn.
Being a violinist, I liked most the chapter entitled as “Brief historical overview of the evolution of violin strings from the mid 1600s to the late 1900s”. I found it very refreshing and revealing, that the evolution of the four different strings are told separately and not together.
I liked also the “The string makers of the Abruzzo region” (although I would have liked to read about string productions in other regions), and I enjoyed the rich illustration.
As a last bonus, I found the tables useful, because they summarise the essence of the book in four easy-to-understand illustration.
This is finally a book that can be recommended with a good heart for anyone interested in the subject - be it a performer, a teacher or a scholar.
Zsombor Németh
Baroque violinist & Artistic leader @ Simplicissimus Ensemble
Musicologist @ Institute of Musicology, Research Centre for the Humanities (Budapest, Hungary)
Well-researched and appropriately illustrated, it is as concise as it is elucidating
Many books deal with string players and their instruments but few discuss the significance of the strings themselves. Daniela Gaidano’s precious book provides an excellent introduction into the history and development of musical strings.
Well-researched and appropriately illustrated, it is as concise as it is elucidating. Musicians and non-musicians alike will learn much from her contribution to the pertinent literature. As a layman, I found the tables on the historical stringing of the various instruments particularly enlightening.
Uri M. Kupferschmidt
Author of Strings and Celebrities: Hakkert’s “First Dutch Stringmakers” (Haifa: Pardes Publishing 2019)
Haifa, Israel
It is commonly known when an innovation was generally introduced: for example, we all know that the wound strings were introduced at the end of the 17th century. Why they were adopted is the subject of deeper considerations on organology, music taste, music life of the period, or even economic issues...
Despite all these researches, often the link to the use of strings we make today is missing: if the wound strings were already available, can I use them as 3rd strings in 19th-century music? Why not?
This book is offering material to answer to this kind of questions.
It really doesn't matter whether you will or will not decide to try a pure gut 4th after reading this. The consciousness of which strings were used and why will be whispering in your ears while practising suggesting you colours and helping you to find your unique voice.
When we are still uncertain if the sound was this or that, it is difficult to be convincing and gain attention. But when we know, we can consciously decide what we like and this will make a great difference. The difference from depending on other people's judgement and taste, or being happy about our efforts.
Being happy is a good achievement in itself, but as a starting point it also leads to being more consistent in our research for our unique voice so to be more appreciated. ...and you get the point here, don't you? Being more appreciated means more job, more gratifications, more money...
This is why I am happy to offer this book.
When I first had the idea of it I was excited because it instantly gave me a clear direction in my personal research of sound. Now finally I can offer this to you and I am really looking forward to being in touch and share our experiences.
...and some more words about my work:
Daniela Gaidano is very thorough and enthusiastic researcher in the world of early stringed instruments. Her endeavours have included visiting elderly string makers in remote areas to preserve memories of the old ways of string making, archival research, and long practical experience with Aquila strings, recognised throughout the world as leading pioneers in the struggle to recover the lost sounds of the old instruments
Chris Goodwin
Secretary, The Lute Society
Great Britain
The passionate interest of Daniela Gaidano for the world of authentic stringing, and her study and investigations in that field, have impressed me since the time I met her. It is important for today's musicians using period instruments, to be well informed about the different historic possibilities and best solutions for the instrument they use - I do not hesitate to recommend Daniela's knowledge and help to anyone who wants serious basis to refer to.
Sigiswald Kuijken
Artistic Director of La Petite Bande
Honorary Professor at The Hague and Brussels Royal Conservatories
The Netherlands
Time To Shop!
The time of the first appearence of the wound string is widely known, but the fact it was avilable doesn't mean it was already possible to use it on every position: it took litterally ages before we could use it on the D string.
Keeping this in mind can make a difference in finding the colors of our music.
If you already downloaded the tables and you have questions about them, this 48 pages book will answer them.
Japanese Edition
In July 2018, at my lecture in Tokyo, I met Kenji Yagi, amateur string maker, passionate about ancient crafts (one of the leading experts of parchment making and history). He later asked me to mentor him because he planned to host a string making workshop on the next year. We started working together, exchanging documents and sources. When I learned that he is a translator from English to Japanese, I couldn’t resist asking him to translate my book. Where else could I find a translator who was also expert in such a specific topic?
His professional experience in publishing thus enriches this Japanese edition, which has a table of contents and a two pages overview of the manufacturing process My Japanese friends all agreed it is pleasant and clear to the point reading.
I am overwhelmed by gratitude for him and the four reviewers who generously contributed through their expertise to the high quality of this product.
D. G.
Author of this book Ms. Daniela Gaidano is one of a very few gut string experts in the world who has been involved in gut string making in Aquila, Italy, as well as a viola player. This book was written in 2012 when she was still working in Aquila. The original title is “Tables on the Evolution of Strings in the Violin Family”. The Japanese version of this book was born approximately one year later after her visit to Japan for Tokyo gut string seminar in 2018.
One of the features of this book is that this is a very concise collection of a wealth of knowledge and experience of the author with detailed literature research, observation in museums, and insights from the interviews with some former gut string makers. Also, I guess that it comes rather as a surprise for many of the readers that the traditional handmade gut strings had gone through major innovations as close as the world wars in the 20th century.
As a translator, I learned a lot in the course of translation. But at the same time, there were some difficulties to overcome. For example, interpretation of the text due to the fact that the original English was translated from Italian, cultural differences between Japan and Europe, and the biggest problem may have been my lack of knowledge in the musical field. I consulted frankly with the author and she sought assistance from four contributors who were specialized in music. They were kind enough to offer their help in proofreading the Japanese translation purely out of their favour.
Toshihiko Amano, who is a professional Violinist, is well versed both in English and Japanese, and perused the entire text with his trained eyes, and offered many precious opinions. Takumi Takakura, a violin maker, is a person who invited the author to Tokyo for a seminar and this Japanese translation would not have been born without him. Mr. Takakura checked the entire Japanese text mainly for smoothing out the expressions for the natural reading experience. Mr. Tajima, who is a double bass player, mainly proofread sections on Cello and Double bass as well as footnotes. He suggested natural expressions as a professional player and also corrected the German names in particular. Yayoi Masuda, a violinist, read through sections related to violin. She helped me understand difficult English expressions based on her knowledge of the Italian language. I deeply appreciate all the contributors.
This Japanese version of the book is not just a simple conversion of language from English. We have made various adjustments so that the content would be naturally accepted and comprehended by the Japanese readers. Especially, the “Gut string making” section was freshly written by the author for the Japanese version. I asked the author many questions and sought explanations on various points that I was unsure of, but Daniela was gracious enough to quickly reply on each email message, with answers far more than I had expected. My heartfelt thanks go to the author of this book Ms. Daniela Gaidano. Thank you.
In this society where the information on gut strings is severely limited, I hope that this Japanese book will come in handy and arouse your curiosity about gut strings
September 2019
Kenji Yagi
Should you be interested in purchasing this book in Japanese, please get in touch with Takumi Takakura at liuteriatakumi@gmail.com
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