Recorders... and Makers 2

The wood

Boxwood sawing
A huge pile of boxwood stands in a corner of my workshop, enough to create recorders till the end of my life. I harvested it myself, twenty five years ago in the south of France from hundred to two hundred year old trees. One of them even predates the French Revolution.
Museums visits
I did a lot of research before creating my own recorders. The instruments that attracted me were those from the end of the 17th C. and the beginning of the 18th C. that allow us to play J.S. Bach's, Haendel's and Vivaldi's music.
Carved ivory alto recorder by Denner
Denner alto
The making of recorders became defunct at the end of the 18th C. Today, there are no more master-craftsman to teach it and no written documents either since the teaching was an oral tradition passed from master to apprentice. Therefore, I toured European museums in order to study plans of numerous old recorders. This way, I was able to get measurements on recorders from the greatest makers of the time: Bressan, Denner, Bizey, Terton... or from previous times such as Rafi or Bassano.