Watch a Luthier Birth a Cello in This Hypnotic Documentary

It’s always inter­est­ing to see how things are made—crayons, Fend­er Stra­to­cast­ers, car­toon eggs

The doc­u­men­tary above takes you through the cre­ation of a cel­lo in the Barcelona work­shop of mas­ter luthi­er Xavier Vidal i Roca. (To watch with Eng­lish sub­ti­tles, click the closed cap­tion icon — “CC” — in the low­er right cor­ner.)

The open­ing shots of luthi­er Eduard Bosque Miñana tak­ing mea­sure­ments have the jazzy feel of a Mis­ter Rogers’ Neigh­bor­hood seg­ment, but once music schol­ar Ramón Andres gets into the act, things take a turn toward the philo­soph­i­cal.

His thoughts as to the ways the “king of all instru­ments” speaks to the human con­di­tion are com­men­su­rate with the lev­el of crafts­man­ship its con­struc­tion requires.

(Though see­ing Miñana patient­ly fit a steam-shaped curve to the devel­op­ing instrument’s c‑bout leads me to ques­tion Andres’ choice of anthro­po­mor­phiz­ing pro­noun. With a waist­line like that, sure­ly this cel­lo is a deep-voiced queen.)

The mas­ter luthi­er him­self acknowl­edges that there is always a bit of mys­tery as to how any giv­en instru­ment will sound. Most mod­ern cel­los are copies of ancient instru­ments. With the design set, the luthi­er must chan­nel his or her cre­ative expres­sion into the con­struc­tion, work­ing with sim­i­lar­ly ancient tools — chis­els, palette knives, and the like. If pow­er tools come into play, direc­tor Lau­ra Vidal keeps them off­screen.

The effect is med­i­ta­tive, hypnotic…I was glad to have the mys­tery pre­served, even as I agree with cel­list Lito Igle­sias that musi­cians should make an effort to under­stand their instru­ments’ con­struc­tion, and the rea­sons behind the selec­tion of par­tic­u­lar woods and shapes.

Igle­sias also notes that the luthi­er is the unsung part­ner in every pub­lic per­for­mance, the one the audi­ence nev­er thinks to acknowl­edge.

The Sara­bande of Bach’s Suite for Solo Cel­lo no. 1 in G major brings things to an appro­pri­ate­ly emo­tion­al con­clu­sion.

via Devour

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Recy­cled Orches­tra: Paraguayan Youth Play Mozart with Instru­ments Clev­er­ly Made Out of Trash

Elec­tric Gui­tars Made from the Detri­tus of Detroit

A Song of Our Warm­ing Plan­et: Cel­list Turns 130 Years of Cli­mate Change Data into Music


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Comments (3)
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  • Rain,adustbowlstory says:

    A reminder in a texting/tweeting cul­ture that all impor­tant beau­ti­ful things require extend­ed time and steady atten­tion.

  • mattmaldre says:

    I live in Oak Park, so I was excit­ed to see Mr. Rogers had vis­it­ed an Oak Park fac­to­ry. Sad­ly, it looks like this fac­to­ry is no longer in Oak Park. Good news is that’s it’s anoth­er Chica­go neigh­bor­hood, Elk Grove Vil­lage. Although, I would per­son­al­ly like to see it still in Oak Park.

  • Antonio Marcos de Souza says:

    ¡Buenos tardes!
    Mi nobre es Anto­nio Mar­cos. Soy evangéli­co de Bac.
    Hoy esto empezan­do mus class de músi­ca, para unir se a la más her­mosa orques­ta de la tier­ra, con el per­miso de Dios quieren tocar la casa del Señor, y mi sueño y tocar el vio­lín o el vio­lonch­e­lo, que se aplepara­do por Dios.
    Esta­ba inves­ti­gan­do instru­men­to y observó var­ios videos de hac­er su vio­lonch­e­lo, muy emo­cio­nante ver cómo mar­avil­losos dones de Dios a su sier­vo.
    No voy a per­mi­tirme com­prar mi instru­men­to, pero sé que Dios des­de el apleparar para mí jugar en la casa del Señor, en el nom­bre del Señor Jesús.

    Le doy las gra­cias por leer este e‑mail, y si un día Dios me da condi­ciones a estar jugan­do uno de los instru­men­tos her­mosas y mar­avil­losas en la casa de Dios.

    Guár­dame, oh Dios, porque en ti con­fío.
    2 Mi alma le dijo al Señor: Tú eres mi Señor; No ten­go otra man­era más allá de ti.
    3 Digo a los san­tos que están en la tier­ra y dis­tin­gui­da en los que es todo lo que quiero:
    4 Sus penas se mul­ti­pli­carán que acel­er­ar tras otro dios; No voy a ofre­cer sus liba­ciones de san­gre o tomar su nom­bre en mis labios.
    5 Jehová es la por­ción de mi heren­cia y de mi copa; Man­ten­go mi suerte.
    6 Las cuer­das me cayeron en lugares deleitosos; sí, ten­go una bue­na heren­cia.
    7 Ben­de­ciré al Señor que me ha acon­se­ja­do; a mi corazón me enseñan en la noche.
    8 He puesto el Señor siem­pre delante de mí; por qué está a mi dies­tra, no seré con­movi­do.
    9 Por lo cual mi corazón se ale­gra y mi glo­ria se rego­ci­ja; mi carne tam­bién reposará con­fi­ada­mente.
    10 Porque no dejarás mi alma en el Hades, ni per­mi­tirás que tu San­to vea cor­rup­ción.
    11 Lejos de mí has ​​de ver el camino de la vida; en tu pres­en­cia hay plen­i­tud de gozo; a tu dies­tra para siem­pre.
    Dios los bendi­ga,

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