albertus bekker

violinmaker

76 seventh street

linden, 2195

johannesburg

south africa

phone: 0829035832

e-mail: albertus@bekkerviolins.com

 

Where a violinmaker lives

 

Albertus Bekker knows violins inside out. His dreams are filled with shavings, glue, gouges and sensual curves in wood.

From the start, before we can sit down, a book is given to me: Stradivarius by Tony Faber (Pan Books), non-fiction about ‘five violins, one cello and a genius’. It is about the Italian master violinmaker Antonio Stradivari and his creations.

‘Read this,’ says Albertus Bekker (36). He is wary of laymen who write articles on violin builders. For him a violin is not just a violin — it is a piece of art with its own voice, emotions and soul.

Emma (33), his busy bee wife, enters with a pot of Earl Grey tea. She calls him Alber (pronounced like the French Albért).

Three children peek nosily round the corners of their friendly, bohemian family home in Linden. Against one wall is a painting of Baldinelli. Oblong cases containing violins lie stacked on the dining room table.

‘I see a lot of magazine articles about violin builders with gross errors,’ complains Albertus. (He is actually an introvert, explains Emma. She offers to fill in here and there.)

The warning is sounded: ‘It is a very conservative industry. Very little has changed in five hundred years. People have very fixed ideas about violin building.

‘Locally there is a small community of violin builders that all know each other, about ten. There are some good ones in the Cape — a few are world class. I dream to be there one day.’

For him it is a hobby, but definitely also a passion.

Alber is a solid six-footer with a sturdy handshake. His loose black T-shirt, denim pants and sneakers goes well with his shaven hair, inquisitive greenish-grey eyes and pointy nose. Typical handyman and home inventor.

‘Violin building is not woodwork in the traditional sense,’ says Alber and strokes the feminine curves of one of his creations, a child’s violin. ‘Few things are straight or square on a violin.’

A beginner's lesson follows: the top is made of imported spruce from Italy, the back and sides from maple with a velvety holographic flame. The black accessories are made from ebony.

‘The neck material is not that important. It is traditionally also made from maple wood,’ he explains, clearly in his element. ‘Some parts on the inside can be made of willow wood. Don't leave a cricket bat lying around in this house — it can easily be sacrificed for the arts!

‘You start with a thick piece of wood and carve it to shape. Many people think that the plates are bent, but it is actually carved. The sides are bent.’

‘He uses my ovens, pots, laundry irons and kitchen stuff,’ adds Emma. ‘And he cooks his own varnish. Then the smoke is all over the place. Once when I got home with the kids, it looked like a major pest control operation is taking place.’

Can one not buy suitable varnish?

‘Ordinary hardware store varnish is not suitable. A violin builder wants to have control over all aspects. The varnish is key to the colour of the final product as well as the sound. Most violin builders make their own varnish.’

Alber is the youngest child of the well-known writer and poet Pirow Bekker. His mother used to be a primary school teacher who sang in the Pact opera choir. His brother and sister both play the piano.

That is why his parents decided that he has to play a different instrument. He picked up his first violin at the age of eight.

He was a student of Annemarie Swanepoel, the ‘doyenne of the violin’  in Pretoria. The lessons continued till matric when the demands of the first fifteen rugby team became too much.

‘I never had the talent to make a living as violinist,’ he admits. ‘That is not what I wanted to do. But the bug bit me nevertheless.’

At school (Oost-Eind primary and later Affies) he showed some ability with his hands and that led to studies in Mechanical Engineering, in which he holds a masters degree.

One of his friends, Patrick Köhler, also played the violin. (‘Another violin nerd,’ says Emma.) In their second year at university, Patrick and Alber went traveling overseas with part of their bursary money. During this grand tour of Europe they passed through Mittenwald in Germany — the centre of the German violin trade.

‘There I stood watching through a shop window how a craftsman builds a violin,’ he remembers. That experience planted the seed and an idea formed in his head.

With their return in 1989 he was keen to give it a try. But he was broke and the right tools, wood and instructions were not available locally. He had no option but to teach himself, as there were (and are) no violin building schools or willing mentors in South Africa.

‘At the time there was no internet to order books and stuff. I bought a piece of timber and a stack of sand paper and proceeded to sand for months. But without the right tools I had to let it go.’

With the arrival of babies all the dreams of violins were put aside. Meanwhile Alber started a career as a mechanical engineer that changed to financial engineering after three years. Nowadays he is a risk manager with a banking group.

Then in 2000 the dream was resurrected — this time the internet was much better and the necessary funds were available. He could order everything, from plans to specialised tools, through cyber space. The maple, for instance, comes from Slovakia where his supplier knows him well.

‘Alber can spend hours with the catalogue of violin building tools that we receive,’ shares Emma.

He also had to come up with his own solutions, like the UV-cabinet that he built. ‘The oil varnish needs UV-exposure to dry properly,’ explains Alber. ‘I also use the UV-cabinet to tan the wood.’

Emma tells about the time when she received an urgent phone call from her husband to bring a violin inside because a big storm was on its way. ‘The violin was hanging from our satellite dish!’

He devotes his evenings and weekends to his hobby. Every night he spends at least an hour in the workshop.

Pirow (12) and Jacob (9) each has their own Albertus violin, complete with inscriptions: ‘For tiny fingers’ and ‘For growing fingers’. The boys are taking violin lessons just like their dad many years ago.

Emmie (7), who inherited her dad's alert eyes and plays the piano, gives him a hug.

The kids are often taken to classical music concerts. ‘Even if they are difficult and boisterous, they manage to sit through all the concerts.’

The violin lessons from Alber’s youth haven’t been wasted. One the one hand he now knows the instrument from the inside out and on the other, he also, to his joy, plays second violin in the Randburg City Orchestra. That has increased his admiration for classical music tremendously.

‘Music is the coming together of so many things,’ he says philosophically. ‘First there is the composer that works it out in his head, something that is incomprehensible to me — like Beethoven’s fifth symphony in all its complex layers and nuances.

‘Then there are all the players who had to work hard from childhood to master each instrument — and the violin is one of the more difficult ones. There are the instruments that were once living trees, growing for hundreds of years against snow-covered slopes. And finally there is the conductor his own creative energy and then, of course, the audience.

‘But what is it actually? Vibrations in the air.’

After this meditation, something magical hangs in the air — like the floating emotions of a rare violin.

‘The average time to build one is about one hundred hours or two weeks of constant work. In Europe, where builders are formally trained, some are required as part of their final exam to build a complete violin — without the varnish — in five days. They work day and night. With my limited time it takes five to six months to complete a violin.’

The varnish takes the longest to perfect. That is an epic struggle.

‘I use hide glue,’ explains Albertus. ‘It is similar to gelatin that is used for cooking — pure protein with a bit of a smell.’

‘There are always pots of hide glue in my freezer,’ complains Emma.

‘Hide glue is the oldest glue known to humankind,’ says Alber. ‘Nothing modern gets close to it. It lasts literally for ever. They have found furniture in the pyramids that were glued with hide and it is still holding together. And it can be undone with moisture and heat, even if it is three hundred years old. Modern glue can’t be undone easily.’

Musicians with broken instruments sometimes come to Albertus if they can’t be helped elsewhere. One woman repaired her violin with Prestik and others used white glue and wire.

‘When we renovated our one bathroom, the builder came with two broken fiddles. Alber had a look and they exchanged quotes,’ remembers Emma.

‘We received a bathroom makeover in exchange for two violin renovations. When we wanted to redo our kitchen, we asked him: “Don't you have a broken cello lying around somewhere?”

Later we stroll out on the back porch with a long wooden table made by Alber and down to the garden with a swimming pool, shady corners and a massive quiver tree.

‘We have a vegetable garden with tomatoes and strawberries,’ boasts Emmie and her eyes sparkle.

The Bekkers have been staying for the past six years in Linden's ‘peach neigbourhood’.

‘If you dig in our garden, you find old peach stones everywhere,’ says Alber while he unlocks his workshop. ‘This used to be the dressing room for the swimming pool.’

The space is cosy and eccentric — a real Hobbit hole with shelves filled with tools, pieces of wood, a high workbench and chair, a CD player and a small heater for the cold winter nights.

‘The kids often come and sit with me and keep me company. Sometimes they help me with the building.’

He picks up a small gouge. ‘This one I made myself.’

‘Violin building is a popular hobby all over the world, but most builders struggle to make a living. There is a saying that when a violin builder wins the lottery, he will continue building violins until the money runs out.’

Alber looks at the workbench, and the promise of many piles of wood: ‘I will carry on while I am still enjoying it.’