Mad cow disease fears over violin strings threatens the works of Handel and Bach

Musicians have warned that the works of Purcell, Handel, Vivaldi and Bach may never again be heard as their composers intended – because of EU rules to stop people catching "mad cow disease" from their instruments. 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 meters 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. The regulations were introduced around ten years ago in the wake of a series of mad cow disease scares.

Special dispensations were granted to some suppliers allowing them to continue to operate, provided they complied with strict precautions. However, the rules were toughened in 2009 and fears for the industry were sparked earlier this month after one of Europe's leading gut string manufacturers, Aquila Corde, which is based in Caldogno, near Vicenza, was told that its dispensation had ended and had not been renewed. The company says the Italian government has not yet brought into legislation the latest EU diktats on the issue and that this means the bureaucratic burden of seeking a renewal is now too great.

It has already stopped production of the strings and will instead concentrate solely on synthetic ones. Mimmo Peruffo, from the firm, said the difficulties it had encountered were part of a wider problem surrounding the EU regulations and predicted that other suppliers could face similar problems. "This is a Europe-wide problem. The risk of production being closed all round Europe is very big, but there is no risk at all from the strings." Other companies involved in the business have previously given up, complaining that they found could not operate under the red tape system.