One of the things I always hear in the harpsichord world is that a thicker or thinner string will solve a breakage problem, but in fact, they mostly break at the same point.
However, cranking up some strings and actually breaking them (I mean, what else do I have to do) reveals the following: for brass, the breaking point is similar, but not exactly the same, even for carefully measured and weighed strings from the same run. This mirrors the published breaking points on German sites. For gut, the ones I broke varied about a whole tone. They did all eventually break. And some broke instantly, darn. And the "shredding point" is more usefull--the pitch at which the string will not unfurl for a day or so. Which is not much, but if you are trying to decide between 440 and 392, well, it kinda falls within the margin of error. So maybe, tune it up before it starts to unfurl. Asssuming that historical strings were better made, one could push the margin to a minor third, reasonably. And that does not include a wide variety of anecdotal evidence about string manufacture, such as Pepy's string, which was varnished and the thickness of a hair--20-100 microns. Obviously, they had manufacturing that we don't have (or very thick hair...) So I for sure don't know the answer, but the pitch would not have been a problem for lute players since they used a transposing system, just like everyone else. I usually perform the Monteverdi Vespers with the strings at 415, the brass at 440, and the winds at 465. You can take an A theorbo at 415 and play it as a G theorbo at 465, and so on. If we take Purcell's tuning fork, well, that is the pitch. Hey, it is the same as Handel's tuning fork. But the pitch of what? dt To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
