François Bodart
Violin maker
Craftsman and manufacturer specialized in the Viola of Gamba
Violin and Belgium
Viola
Of his training as carpenter, François Bodart primarly retains the pleasure of working on wood.
At 17, the desire for producing musical instruments tortured him: an artist woke up.
He starts to manufacture guitars and lutes.
Autodidact, François Bodart learnt, day after day, polished his technique, discovered the history of the traditional stringed-instrument trade and the art of the violin makers masters.
They make it possible to the large virtuosos to level us delights of the Baroque art.
During several years, François Bodart will build lutes.
The market is saturated and to earn his living by creating this type of instrument is difficult.
The artist became a specialist in the Baroque art finds his crenel.
His favorite musical instrument is the viola of gamba (still baroque) which sank in the lapse of memory.
François Bodart, impassioned by this instrument which knew its hour of glory between 1550 and 1750, decided to build nine of it.
He will become thus one of the rare violin makers in the world to recreate instruments inspired of old models.
If you ask him why it made such a choice, he will make you listen to some one of the most beautiful parts carried out with the viola of gamba by large interpreters.
Then, as an answer, he will ask you a question:
“Don't you find that the sound of this instrument imitates with wonder the human voice, translated perfectly our emotions, of over-played tones with most impetuous interpretation? ».
It is rightly not astonishing that the best artists entrust to him the construction of their viola of gamba, violin, viola, violoncello: if the music is their means of expression, François Bodart provides them the mode of it.
François Bodart S.P.R.L.
Violin maker
Peu d’eau, 11/B
B-5300 ANDENNE
Belgique
Tél : 0032 (0)85 84 26 66
Fax : 0032 (0)85 84 35 84
francois.bodart.sprl@skynet.be
“I like to know the reaction of my customers.
I wish knowledge for which I work.
The dialogue with the interpreter proves to be essential.
In the same way, thereafter, if I do not have a news of my instruments, that returns to me sad”.
A little as if close relations did not give you any more sign of life…
François Bodart considers his instruments as children whom one lets fly away towards their vocation, but, which one never forgets.
François bodart at work : here / here / here / here / here
Any music lover is moved, is filled with wonder at the technical and artistic prowess of the good interpreters.
Their sensitivity is integrated so perfectly into the partition which one has the impression of a personal message, of which we are the privileged confidant.
One forgets of it almost the type-setter of work.
This magic, we allot it to the virtuosity of the interpreter.
We are conscious also that its talent is divided into two unequal portions: 5% of gift, for 95% of perspiration, but, which thinks of the artist, who, at the bottom of his workshop, part after part, works with the hand each detail, seeks the perfection of the tool?
The interpreter and the instrument will be entitled to the projectors and the applause, perhaps with glory. the violin maker, it, will remain modestly in the shade, with for only pride the satisfaction of work well done.
In connection with modesty, do not repeat in François Bodart that we devoted it artist.
He, is regarded as a craftsman, qualified and serious, careful and meticulous person, he refuses the title of Master-Violin maker.
Glory and the money are not its objectives.
Generally only in its workshop, they is there that it feels happy, putting all its know-how at the service from its five or six annual sleeping partners.
It prefers quality with the quantity, the richness of work to that of the banking account, the serene quietude of the workshop of Andenne to the noisy honors or the agitation of the cities.
However, he violins, violas, violoncellos and viola of gamba refer in the whole world today.
François Bodart is quickly encouraged in its step:
to return its gloss and its notoriety to the viola of gamba, by respecting the techniques which made its success as of the medium of XVIe century.
He will be constant in its preoccupation with an authenticity by the Belgian school of viola of gamba.
His research will take along the Belgian violin maker in the museums of Hamburg, Paris, Washington, Brussels and London.
He will join together information as invaluable as many resulting from private collections.
A meticulous study, the concern of the precision, will make of François Bodart the specialist in the typical viola of the large violin maker Joachim Tielke (1641-1724). The sound quality of the instruments reconstituted by François Bodart satisfies the gambists of the whole world fully.
The Belgian violin maker took an active part in the promotion of the viola of gamba.
In 1987, for example, one meets it in Paris, Bruges, Utrecht and even Boston where he will bind friendship with scientists responsible for the prestigious collections of old instruments.
He will have the advisability of being interested in some specimens of the violins and violoncellos of Stradivarius.
A reference, for the specialists in the music baroque.
Casement bolt is the city considered as the capital of the stringed-instrument trade.
The largest Masters passed by there, place of tradition, a potential of studied know-how immense and transmitted by generations of impassioned.
Certain violin makers learned during a whole life the perfection from the sound, varnish colors. François Bodart is inspired with respect by the techniques by the school by Casement bolt by the XVIIIth century.
Its sound, by its quality, worries him: “Precisely, when one interprets, for example, works of Sailor Marsh (1656-1728), my preferred violist, an author which one found five books of “Parts of Viola”, of chamber music and several operas. A music which transpierces me”.
François Bodart will never recognize it, but he is a sensitive artist, doubled of an informed music lover.
The violin maker has the very sure ear.
He adds:
“The sound is essential enormously, more especially as I do not have a store and that I do not make publicity.
My publicity, they are my instruments”.
He does not deal with resale, nor of repairs.
Though… An accident quickly occurs.
The musician is not inevitably responsible and it is due much to his instrument (exercises, repetitions, concerts, with one stick!).
Of course, François Bodart will intervene to help the artist:
He will looked after this wounded baby! (It is an instrument about which one speaks, that you included/understood)
Since more than thirty years now, François Bodart meets the best interpreters of the music baroque.
He puts all its heart and all its talent to manufacture to them instruments of a very high level of quality.
Knowing that his instruments are not always accessible to all the less fortunate talents, he developed a formula intended for young musicians who thus could reach his instruments more quickly.
A violin maker impassioned by his work, insane of music, was to find a means of promoting art by helping the young artists.
Here, it is done!
Congratulations, Mister!
Contination...Artist or craftman ?
