From Gut to Gold, the Making of a Violin’s E String Is a Dynamic Pursuit

By Cliff Hall | From the May/June 2025 issue of Strings

Breaking an E string used to be a violin soloist’s worst nightmare. In 1888, a young Fritz Kreisler—just shy of 13—experienced this misfortune twice while performing the Mendelssohn Concerto in the United States. Rather than stopping, Kreisler adapted on the spot, using the A string for the slow movement and, when the Finale arrived, swiftly borrowing the concertmaster’s violin to finish the performance.

The issue with the E string—then known as the chanterelle, or “little singer”—
was that it was the most delicate of the gut strings. Unlike today’s durable steel E strings, gut strings were fragile and prone to snapping under the pressure of bowing. One of the greatest advances in violin string-making came in 18th century Italy, when Neapolitan maker Angelo Angelucci perfected the three-ply sheep-gut E string. Gerald Gaul explains in The Missing Strad: The Story of the World’s Greatest Violin Forgery that these strings were so coveted that they were “more difficult to secure . . . than a Stradivari violin.”

Inferior alternatives often lacked tonal purity and broke easily. Many musicians, unable to afford a high-quality chanterelle, often turned to the viola. As Gaul observes, “the most common reason to play the viola was poverty.” While metal E strings existed as early as the 18th century, they were initially rejected for their “unnaturally mechanical sound,” writes Gaul. “During World War I, when the war with Germany collapsed the gut violin string industry, violinists got used to the sound of metal E strings and did not entirely return to the gut E strings when peace returned in 1918.”

Plating Materials

Today, several materials are used to construct E strings, each contributing unique characteristics in terms of tone, durability, and playability. The most common material for plain E strings is carbon steel, often plated with corrosion-resistant metals such as tin. As Fan Tao, director of research & development at D’Addario & Company, Inc., writes in an email, “The plating material is very thin to minimize its effect on sound, but the trade-off is durability.”

The material used influences the tonal characteristics of an E-string. “The choice of the plating is one factor that affects the sound. While the tin-plated and plain chrome steel offer a brilliant sound, the gold-plated E strings combine their brilliance with warmth. The platinum-plated E strings offer an immense abundance of sound colors and a wide sound projection,” writes Adrian Müller, technical director at Pirastro GmbH, founded in 1798. “The surface of the platinum plating provides a pleasant feeling of stability under the fingers of the left hand, which greatly benefits changes in position and vibrato.”

While many players perceive distinct tonal differences between plating materials, the extent to which these qualities stem from the material itself or from psychological associations remains an open question. “Gold-plated E strings have the reputation of sounding warmer, but absent well-controlled studies, we don’t know whether this effect is real or confirmation bias based on the warm luster associated with the gold color,” writes Tao. “The gold plating is extremely thin and soft and can be easily worn off.”

Another concern with plated-steel E strings is that they can sometimes experience whistling—an unpleasant high-pitched noise caused by the string vibrating and twisting simultaneously. This issue is more common with plain carbon steel E strings.

“Whistling is also heavily influenced by bowing conditions,” says Tao. “To start a bowed note cleanly, the bow acceleration and pressure (technically force) needs to be within certain optimal limits. Whistling most often occurs during a string crossing because the bow is already moving when it contacts the E string, and this results in a high acceleration factor. The high acceleration factor favors the start of the torsional mode and is often higher than the optimal acceleration for a clean start of the desired note. 

“To counter this, the player needs to increase the bow pressure and decrease their bow speed when crossing over to the open E string. The natural instinct to increase bow pressure to suppress the whistling is correct, but many players inadvertently speed up their bow when doing so, which is exactly the opposite of what is needed. Therefore, the most reliable way to increase the bow pressure while slowing down the bow speed is to move the sounding point closer to the bridge during the string crossing, as Carl Flesch advocates in his classic book The Art of Violin Playing.”

Wound Strings

While plating is a key factor in determining the sound of the E string, some violinists opt for wound strings—those with a thin layer of aluminum or other materials wound around a steel core. Wound strings tend to produce a more subdued, less piercing sound compared to their plain counterparts and also offer better resistance to whistling.

“Wound E strings sound less bright due to the added damping of windings. In theory, their smaller carbon steel cores are under greater stress and have less safety margin for breaking, but there does not appear to be large differences in the durability and longevity of wound versus plain steel E strings in actual use,” writes Tao. “There are a few players whose sweat chemistry is highly corrosive to aluminum, and they cannot use aluminum wound strings of any type.”

Müller also notes the longevity of an E string varies considerably depending on the material used in the string itself, the manner in which it is played, the aggressiveness of the acids in the player’s hand perspiration, and climatic conditions. “Some musicians experience a shorter lifespan of aluminum wound strings, since the acid in hand perspiration can dissolve aluminum. In this case, daily cleaning of the string should increase its lifespan to an acceptable level,” writes Müller. If the aluminum still deteriorates too quickly, then Müller recommends using strings with a chrome steel winding instead or chrome steel E strings.

Gut Strings

Despite these innovations, some players wonder if it is possible to preserve the rich, warm sound of the chanterelle without sacrificing the durability of its modern counterpart. Pirastro’s gut E strings, still made from sheep intestine, retain the warmth and complexity of traditional strings but come with practical challenges, including sensitivity to humidity and a shorter lifespan. While the firm’s Oliv and Passione sets include steel E strings, only the Chorda set—designed for historically informed performance practice—offers a gut E string.

Judith van Driel of the Dudok Quartet Amsterdam, which recently recorded Tchaikovsky’s complete string quartets on gut strings in a two-volume set, uses strings made by Oregon-based Damian Dlugolecki, whose strings—particularly his gauge-12 gut E strings—are valued for their tonal warmth and responsiveness.

“The duration depends very much on each individual string, of course. It’s natural material. But in general, I find them the strongest of all the E strings I’ve tried,” van Driel writes in an email. “Of course, it also depends on the repertoire you play, and since we play a lot of Romantic music on gut strings, I use my E string quite extensively.”

While gut E strings offer warmth, their fragility has long been a challenge for players, especially in varying climates. “Natural gut E strings are still used by players using historical string setups. However, the violin gut E strings are operating at the limits of their strength, so they can be unreliable and prone to breaking,” writes Tao. “When the steel E string became available in the early 20th century, many violinists used them despite their inferior bright sound compared to natural gut. For example, many soloists at the time would use natural gut in Europe, but switch to a steel E string when touring the United States, where the weather conditions were more extreme and unreliable.” In addition, gut strings do not offer the same level of consistency in terms of tuning stability, which can be an issue. 

A Personal Choice

As professional players tend to gravitate toward certain E string materials based on their playing style or genre, so too do they often experiment with different options to find the best match for their instrument and technique. Some companies, in an effort to accommodate their customers, take a flexible approach to the E strings they offer in sets. 

“This is a personal choice, and it is difficult to give general advice here. Most players are happy with the E strings that we offer within each set already. Of course, some players like to mix and match different sets, and sometimes we even offer alternative choices for the E strings within a product line,” writes Müller. “For instance, our Evah Pirazzi strings come with a silvery steel E string in the standard set, but musicians can also choose an alternative goldsteel E string that brings a more powerful and warmer sound, or a platinum-plated E string that provides the violinist with an abundance of sound colors and a wide sound projection.”

The evolution of the violin’s E string, from its fragile gut origins to the durable steel strings of today, mirrors the progression of violin making itself. While the technical advances in string materials have solved many of the problems once faced by musicians, the quest for the perfect E string—one that combines warmth, clarity, and durability—remains an ongoing pursuit.