SONG OF THE GUT STRING MAKERS

In 1877, Markneukirchen in Germany was at the heart of the world’s string making industry. The townsfolk were so proud, they even composed a drinking song all about it. Kai Köpp explains what the lyrics (translated into English for the first time) reveal about this convoluted process

The ‘wet workshops’ of Ernst Künzel in Markneukirchen, where the sheep guts would be soaked in potash and then ‘slimed’

COURTESY MARKNEUKIRCHEN INSRUMENT MUSEUM

The first verse of the Song of the Gut String Makers, in German and English, to the tune of Ich bin der kleine Postillon

In 1877, to mark the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Markneukirchen string maker’s guild, the guild masters and their families organised a huge festival to celebrate their craft. Over the past century, the German string making industry had grown to dominate the world – and since the Vogtland region of eastern Germany was the undisputed heartland of the trade, and wire strings still too crude to be an option for serious artists, they had every reason to celebrate. As part of the festivities, the town’s postal clerk August Wilhelm Jäger was commissioned to write a song in praise of the town’s gut string makers. The son of a string maker himself, Jäger chose to write new lyrics to a popular song of the time, Ich bin der kleine Postillon, and filled 17 verses with the finer points of the maker’s craft. The Song of the Gut String Makers had its world premiere on 18 April 1877, and now stands as a testament to the unsung heroes of the 19th-century musical world, as well as the obvious pride they showed in their – at-times somewhat distasteful – work.

Not only do these lyrics give a fine example of a 19th-century German Tafellied (drinking song), but they also provide an insight into the long, tortuous procedure of turning raw animal intestines into high-quality instrument strings. Delving more deeply into Jäger’s words allows us to put some meat on the bone (so to speak), and discover more about this almost-forgotten part of stringedinstrument history. The paragraphs on the next four pages correspond to the various verses of the song.

Removing the soaked intestines from the potash solution

An early model of a ‘sliming machine’

AN ENTIRE INTESTINE COULD REACH MORE THAN 20 METRES FROM A SINGLE SHEEP

[2] ‘First-rate guts’ would be dried in the open air and shipped to Markneukirchen from slaughterhouses all across Germany, and even from as far as England and Russia. Sheep intestines were the undisputed professional choice – in 1900 it was estimated that five million intestines were processed in a year – although earlier sources mention those of other animals as well. References have been found to the use of intestines of deer, cats and even wolves – one writer from 1779 recommends trying wolf guts ‘without fearing that wolf and mutton strings will not go well with one another, since the animals hated each other in life’ – but these references come from non-specialist sources, and only grazing animals such as sheep would have produced enough intestines for industrial use. Nowadays, only the small intestine is available for making sheep gut strings, because the wider diameters all go into the sausage industry. However, in this period the string makers would process the entire intestine – which could reach more than 20 metres from a single sheep. Today, beef gut is generally used; the reason they were uncommon in the 19th century is because a viable method to process them was only developed after the Second World War.

When Jäger refers to ‘burned’ intestines, he means those that have already spent too much time in the open sun, which will have dried them out too fast. He also mentions ‘holey’ intestines, as the raw material was delicate and easily torn. This could happen at the abattoir, as the intestines needed to be given an initial clean immediately after slaughter, so as not to trigger any unwanted decomposition.

[3] The first part of the process was to soften the dried intestines by soaking them for days in a bath of weak alkaline solution. This could be potash (potassium carbonate) or diluted caustic soda (sodium hydroxide). The concentration of the solution had to be increased each day, and checked with a hydrometer to make sure the balance was right. This so-called ‘wet work’ was facilitated by the softness of the water naturally occurring in Markneukirchen, another reason why the city had a head start over other German regions in string making. The use of hard water, containing for example calcium and magnesium salts, could result in deposits forming on the intestines over the course of the process.

[4] ‘Pulling them up’ refers not to the act of pulling the intestines out of the bath, but to disentangling them from each other, one by one. This was also the point at which intestines too weak to be made into strings were thrown away. This was a particularly messy part of the job, which required workers with a lot of experience to manage it properly. After that, all the intestines were hung up ready for the next step.

[5] ‘Sliming’ the strings involved removing the skin and outer layer of muscle tissue from the intestine, leaving just the inner connective tissue (submucosa). This comprises most of the finished string. Sliming essentially required scraping the intestines along their whole length, on a board made of wood or brass. It was a time-intensive process, taking up to 15 minutes per intestine, and the task was mostly carried out by women, known as the Schleimmädle (‘slime girls’), according to an 1860 journal. Obviously a mechanised way of carrying out this laborious (and somewhat repellent) process would have been preferable, and in 1874, three years before the song was written, a Markneukirchen company patented a machine to do the job instead. It was the first machine ever to replace a manual operation in string production, and soon saw international success. It continued to be made by the firm Seckendorf & Co. for many decades. It only took over part of the work, though, as human hands were still preferable for good-quality sliming.

One of the string making factories in Markneukirchen. The large window shows the location of the drying room

Fitting the thread bundles to loops made of hemp rope before winding

Splitting the intestines into ‘right’ and ‘left’ halves was a job requiring a high degree of expertise

All the finished strings were rubbed with a pumice stone before being packed for shipping

SLIMING THE STRINGS WAS A TIME-INTENSIVE PROCESS, MOSTLY CARRIED OUT BY WOMEN KNOWN AS THE ‘SLIME GIRLS’

[6] Splitting the remaining gut into halves was one of the most important parts of the process. It was regarded as a man’s job and kept as a secret by the guild masters. The fine, flexible tubes are not straight but curved, as the intestines grow in the animal’s belly. So the outer curve is longer than the inner one, and using uncut intestines would produce unequal tension within the string. Also, the inner curve is rougher than the outer because it was attached to the animal’s stomach tissue. So the smooth and slightly longer outer curve is of higher quality than the inner curve and was carefully split in half. To facilitate this, the string maker Christian Schatz designed differently sized curved guides made from bone (Spaltbeinchen), into which a sharp knife could fit. The different sizes correspond to the diameters of the intestines, and guide them so that the smooth outside of the tube automatically slips to the right, with the inner curve on the left. This was essential for controlling the quality of the resulting string, because the ‘right’ halves would make fine strings for the higher registers while the ‘left’ parts would be reserved for thicker strings.

Differently sized bone guides, to aid the splitting process

SPALTBEINCHEN COURTESY SAITEN- UND CATGUTHERSTELLUNG. OTHER PHOTOS COURTESY MARKNEUKIRCHEN INSTRUMENT MUSEUM

Winding the threads with a twisting device

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY MARKNEUKIRCHEN INSTRUMENT MUSEUM

While drying on wooden frames, the strings need an occasional extra winding

[7&8] Next, the split threads had to be sorted and combined depending on their overall quality. This involved running the wet thread through the fingers to assess its properties and required a lot of experience. The string making master had to decide which threads would fit together, paying attention to the diameter and elasticity of each, to evaluate their likely playing characteristics.

Threads destined for E strings, for instance, would have always come from the right side of the gut of younger sheep – an important point considering that E strings would be made from only three to five fine threads wound together. The A string would need two more threads, while the D consisted of twice the material for an E plus two threads. For the G string, a regular A string would be used as a core, which would then be wound again with silver, copper, or silver-plated copper wire. This made it thinner and more responsive than the equivalent in pure gut. By contrast, up to 120 separate threads could be used for the thickest double bass string, whereas the highest harp string could be made from a single thread.

[9] The next step was to wind the threads together to make a string. The combined threads of each one would be mounted on a kind of spinning wheel, via a series of loops made from hemp. The number of spins each string required depended on its final diameter, as well as the tone quality. A journal in 1823 stated: ‘If they are not spun enough, they soon fray and their tone is not pure… but if they are spun too much, and unevenly, the result is an uneven, dull tone. So this work requires special attention… The wheel needs to be turned 40 times for a G string, 60 times for a D, and 80 times for A and E.’

IT WAS THE JOB OF THE MASTER’S WIFE TO CUT THE STRINGS OFF THE FRAME AND GIVE THEM A QUALITY-CONTROL CHECK

[10] By the time the spinning was finished, the individual threads would be no longer visible. To dry them, the strings were kept in the hemp loops and attached to a wooden frame so they were still under tension. The drying process would take between three and thirty days depending on the string diameter, and even this was convoluted: it had to begin in humid conditions at a low temperature, which would gradually be raised after most of the water had evaporated. The strings also had to be twisted periodically, to ensure the adhesive connection between each thread was maintained; the process would take longer for the thicker strings, where the gut core was more susceptible to unsticking, hence the moisture content between it and the outer wire had to be kept at a certain level. The complexity of the drying process meant it was particularly difficult to create suitable conditions. ‘The heat, the wind and sunshine fair’ hardly do justice to the technique’s complexity.

August Wilhelm Jäger’s original handwritten lyrics to The Song of the Gut String Makers

[11] At this stage, the strings would be a shade of brown, caused by impurities that remained in the intestine despite all the cleaning and drying. The Markneukirchen tradition was to whiten them before they went on sale. For this, they were taken to a separate building known as the Schwefelgewölbe (‘sulphur vault’), where they were exposed to sulphur dioxide fumes for up to nine days. Many of them would also have to be re-twisted, since they may have come undone during the long drying process. Sulphur dioxide is highly toxic to humans, requiring the ‘vault’ to be some distance away from the rest of the production facilities.

The last stage in the actual making of the strings was the rubbing and polishing. The song mentions a pumice stone, but equisetum, horsehair or powdered glass could be used as well. Players could take an active interest in this part: violinist Louis Spohr, for instance, in his Violinschule of 1833 stated: ‘The external characteristics of a good string are: white colour, transparency and a smooth surface. This last must not have been produced by grinding with a pumice stone, as with the German strings, since those strings are always wrong in tone, and scream.’ In fact, only the lowestquality strings were heavily grinded in Spohr’s day. According to an 1828 treatise by Gustav Adolf Wettengel, the best-quality strings were never sanded off to correct the cylindrical diameter, but had a slightly rough surface like the Italian strings. Finally, each string was given a light rubbing with oil.

[12] It was the job of the master’s wife (at least in the experience of the songwriter) to cut the strings off the frame and give them a quality-control check. Each one had to have a uniform colour and structure along its entire length; all the threads had to stick together properly and not contain any remaining impurities.

[13&14] To roll the strings up and tie them together, before they were wrapped in paper, the Markneukirchen makers had a machine operated with a foot pedal. It would curl the strings around a wooden cone, and knot a piece of green or red silk ribbon around them. According to the song, the machines’ superiority in this task was challenged by one girl in the town of Rossbach, who could do their job even more speedily (but of whom we know nothing more).

[15–17] The worldwide demand for high-quality gut strings had risen considerably in the few decades before the song was written. The Industrial Revolution had led to an expansion of musical activity encompassing new conservatoires, music publishing houses and orchestral associations. The people of Markneukirchen and the Vogtland region, already a heartland of stringed-instrument making, had responded to this demand by industrialising their string making processes, with the result that by 1876, the year before the song was written, a full 449 citizens were involved with the business of making gut strings. Changes in the market were just on the horizon: in December 1876, violinist Marie Tayau gave the premiere of Benjamin Godard’s Concerto romantique op.35 in Paris using steel A and E strings, marking the start of the transition to metal. But in 1877 the gut string makers were riding high, and their business seemed destined to dominate the world for a long time to come.

SONG AND ARTICLE TRANSLATED BY CHRISTIAN LLOYD

The author wishes to thank Innosuisse, the Swiss Innovation Agency, for funding the research behind this article. More information on the project can be found at bit.ly/2O7w6wm