Mad Cow Disease Fears Could Change Classical Music

File this in the “it’s too crazy to make up” department. Turns out Mad Cow Disease might change the way we hear classical music.

A new report reveals that the regulations overseeing the use of certain animal tissue – like beef gut – could force musical instrument companies to rely on different materials to create violin and cello strings.

Regulations which tightly control the use of certain types of animal tissue are unwittingly threatening the centuries-old technique of making musical instrument strings out of beef gut.

The craft is covered by the same strict controls on raw materials from cows, even though campaigners say that to catch Creutzfeldt – Jakob disease, (CJD) – the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy – from violin or cello strings from an infected animal you would need to eat several metres of them.

The musicians warn that regulations are threatening the industry and could force gut string manufacturers to close, with disastrous consequences for the ‘period orchestra’ movement, which aims to recreate every aspect of music as it was first performed in the years 1650-1750.

Without gut strings, they argue, it would be impossible to play the music of Purcell, Handel, Vivaldi and Bach as the composers intended it to be heard …

…. Internationally acclaimed musicians using gut-string instruments include Viktoria Mullova, the London-based, Russian-born violinist. She said the end of the use of gut strings would be “terrible”.

“We wouldn’t be able to play music any more. I wouldn’t be able to play Bach, and we can’t live without Bach,” she added.