...the idea came to a cello player...

Sometimes, you wander around the web and you find little gems which only apparently have little to do with what you were looking for. 

...but at a closer look... at 0'30 there are some historical pictures: note the dimensions of the factory and the name: Maillot is the actual president of the Savarez strings company... Babolat is from Lyon, we know from Patrizio Barbieri a few hundreds of workers moved to Lyon at the end of 18th century from Rome.

At 0'55 an astonishing picture of the inside of the factory: from left to right, there are machines which substituted the scraping with the cane (those white rolls, there is also a closer look just after in the video), in the center there are ladies selecting guts on a table and on the right they are cleaning with the thimble.

Another nice video showing the actual factory.


Tags

baroque music, double-bass strings, early music, gut strings, gut strings history, gut strings maintenance, gut strings manufacture, tennis strings, viol strings, viola da gamba strings, viola strings, violin strings, violoncello strings


You may also like

Varnished strings

“I couldn’t play without varnished strings. Yes, I know they are not historically correct, but there is no other way for me, as my hands are so sweaty and I am so busy, that I move from hard air-conditioned to hot and humid environments even trice per day.”Is this familiar to you? I hear this

Read More

Savarez in strings history

Savarez in strings history.  From the castle of Savaresse Sarra, in Musellaro (a village just close to Salle), to Paris: a family of string makers who set one of the largest string factories in 18th and 19th century (the largest outside Italy), with more than 400 hired workers, all coming from Salle, Musellaro and Bolognano

Read More

What makes a good gut string?

Good gut strings: where do they come from? What does really make a difference for the quality of a gut string: in my opinion, the first factor which really affects the final quality of a string is that the numbers of gut strands used is balanced to the gauge we want to obtain. This is

Read More