videoclip by Daniël Brüggen
Adriana making G alto
NOW on the web
My story for the book about Fred Morgan wich will be published next year by Mollenhauer
FRED MORGAN 1980
IN LOVE
2005
After many weeks hard work on the copy of my Dream bass that they have made at Mollenhauer, I realize just how strong Fred’s influence on me is, even after all this time. His simple, respectful and artistic style/way/manner of working will never leave me. Now that I work with Mollenhauer so much, I realize just how glorious/wonderful it is to work like Fred. Apart from the actual turning he did everything by hand and with unbelievable skill. It all looked so easy that you thought, “ Oh, I can do that too”.
In practice, of course, it was much more difficult and it took me many years to develop the same sort of dexterity and natural craftsmanship.
How very difficult it is to make a recorder almost entirely by machine!
The same hundredths of millimetres have to be removed but by a team of people using many different machines. The machines remove the wood so much more easily than a chisel that the natural control of doing it by hand is gone.
Getting that sort of control with a machine is still a complete mystery to me and I realize now that in this sort of process the model is incredibly important.
Fred knew how to make something out of any model. Either he perfected the model or, if the model was a bit ordinary, he knew how to give it perfect voicing so that the final result was wonderful/fantastic after all.
In looking for the flaws in the Mollenhauer prototype I now find that my own prototype has perfect voicing but does not have a perfect boring. This, of course, is a big problem if the recorder has to be manufactured. Then everything just has to be technically correct.
For me it is still extremely difficult to let go of that simple intuitiveness and to adopt that technical how-and-why manner of thinking.
1979
I was 22. A faithful group of us (among others, Ardal Powel, Peter van der Poel, Shige Hirao, Ricardo Kanji) used to gather every Friday afternoon in the old workshop in the attic of the Royal Conservatory in the centre of the Hague. You could look out over the roofs of other buildings and watch the sun go down. Fred was always amazed that it took so much longer here than in Australia. For me this always held a certain mystique because at the time I had never been further than France.
Those afternoons were like the endless summer afternoons I remember from my childhood, on my grandmother’s farm where everything was beautiful and real.
The afternoons in the attic workshop were not very efficient.
He taught us to make recorders by his personality and craftsmanship.
We were just there, watching. Haste was an unknown concept.
One at a time, under his instruction, we had to turn a Ganassi while the others watched.
After all my male fellow students, it was my turn.
Everyone else had already gone and Fred was there patiently giving me directions as to how to use the lathe.
I was scared stiff of all the machines but somehow or other Fred knew how to give me enough confidence to persevere.
I don’t know how he did it. I can’t remember him ever giving me a pep talk or anything like that. He was just there, being supportive.
I believe it took six months before we all had a recorder that could be played.
Alongside Frans Brüggen and my Yoga teacher, he was the most important teacher in my life.
And, not surprisingly, I was in love with him.
It is a totally natural feeling that so many young women experience. A man who has so much to teach you and on whom you depend during your study arouses other emotions in you as well. That biological aspect always comes up. In the animal world the females always want the most attractive and strong and clever males as well.
Now I only hope that he never noticed my feelings at all.
1980
I did my soloexam and played, amongst other instruments, on a voiceflûte he lent me. After the exam he came up to me and said he had never heard that recorder played so beautifully. I was unbelievably proud, and now I understand why he told me that.
As a recorder maker it is fantastic to hear your recorders play exactly according to your own sound ideal.
Best of all is when a musician manages to find the soul in your instrument and convey it to the audience.
Recorders produced by other instrument makers interested him very little. Once, one of my fellow students showed him an expensive handmade instrument and on opening the case he remarked, “What a magnificent case”. I must, in all honesty, add that in the previous weeks he had been looking everywhere for nice cases for his own instruments.
No easy task as Fred was a perfectionist.
I am still extremely grateful for what I was able to learn from him in one of the most important periods of my life. And that was not only the art of making recorders.
You can learn that in so many ways. At that age it is so important to have a good example set for you to follow.
You benefit from that for the rest of your life.
It is such a great pity that the sun went down on him so very quickly.
I would have dearly loved to visit him some time to talk about our work.
Unfortunately I never saw him again after he left the Netherlands.
To be honest, I was too shy to ask him for advice.
Fortunately he still lives on strongly in my soul.
Thank you, Fred.
