MARCEL CHARLES LAPIERRE AND THE MEN OF GOOD WILL

Whenever I beg M°  Navea Vera to make a bass bow, his  reaction is always the same, he makes a face, mutters something in Castilian and holds a grudge  for at least one  week. The reason? They are exhausting to do, they break  arms. Think about how many back pains the good Lapierre might have suffered , he did  so many of  them to be known almost only by bassists.

Violin bow by  Marcel Charles Lapierre

To tell the truth, skilled bowmakers turn up their  nose when you ask them to build a bass bow, also because they are the easiest one to be made  and they look at you as if to say - " Do I really  have to make this carpenter work ! ? "

Of course, if you want to do a good job, even  building  for the bass is not exactly a simple thing, but it is undeniable that  violin bows are immensely more difficult. This is also the reason why the great ones  of this discipline; Tourte, Peccatte, Persoit, built very  few of them in their career.

The Grandeur of the bass bows  came with the great laboratories in  Mirecourt, such as Bazin and Morizot. Those were workshops that employed  many workers from  the apprentice until  the foreman, and of course the simplest  and tiring tasks were assigned to the  young and inexperienced  or those ones who were not exactly the highlights of the workshop.

The classic example is represented by the  Morizots, where to the most skilled André Auguste, was given the making of  violin bows , while bass bows were assigned to the least gifted Fireman  until coming to  the Oldie, probably there just by accident , who had  to rough thoughout his life.

I write these words with a hint of sadness, because as you know I've been a bass player, but this unjustified interest for the construction of  bass bows has altered a lot even the  bass players' technique.  A violinist or a cellist, obviously if he has money  to spend, can have the  luck and honor  to meet Peccatte, Tourte, Pajeot, authors who clearly understood and interpreted the machine bow, so that the bows themselves were the  teachers of violin playing  technique . If the bow  is not built according to the mechanical criteria, which incidentally are the same for the whole family, it will force the player  to make incorrect movements, which in the best case affects only  the quality of the music, though more often they  produce  real physical problems mainly to bassist players.

The bass players  unfortunately are the most penalized precisely because no great one  built for them. This indeed happens even in the purely musical field, the literature for bass is immensely poorer than that one  of other components  of the quartet. Furthermore let's consider in addition the level of the composers; for sure Fryba  is not worthy as  Bach!

With that in mind,  let's deal with  Marcel, one of those who built bass bows.

He was born in Mirecourt on March 20, 1907 by Francois Lapierre, plasterer, and  Anne Charlotte  Antoinette Berly, employed at  Laberte workshop. In this period the instrument industry is so much growing that  is  able to create working opportunities  for women as well,  giving them the opportunity to begin the process of social emancipation.

The first approach to bowmaking is given him  in  Thibouville-Lamy's workshop, by which he  remains  from 1921 to 1923. Later on he works for a company that  had a very short life Brouillier & Lotte, operative between '25 and '26.

When Francois Lotte leaves Brouillier, Marcel remains with the former, for whom he  works  until   1936.

Over the next ten years he worked for more than a laboratory. First by Louis Bazin, then Morizot brothers, until he reaches  Emile Auguste Ouchard. After the departure of this latter one  for New York, he leaves Mirecourt  in 1946  and goes to  Geneva by Vidoudez.

He remained there only a year, giving way to  Bernard Ouchard, who, unlike him,  will  remain by  Vidoudez for 22 years.

In 1948 he settles in Mirecourt,  opens  his own  business in rue Vuillaume and later on in rue Gambetta, where he will continue to work, without praise or blame, until the date of his death, June 24, 1979.

The bows

Bass bow by  Marcel Charles Lapierre

There's very little to say about Marcel's bows. As you already might have understood,  not being  exactly the greatest of all time, he  has built a few  violin bows and many for double bass.

His working art,  in the best period, between '50 and '60,  is good, but it always shows  a hidden  carelessness  until turning  into ugliness in the last period of  his life.

As in Morizot , also in his  production of frogs , there are many  "Hill" supports , similar to the "Vuillaume", but octagonal. Widely used even in the late period of Emile Auguste Ouchard, they were not just produced in France, judging by the screws that secure the silver coulisse to the  frog, very popular in Germany at the time.

Honor to the toilsome  plane.

If you want to deepen this topic:

LE JUNE 

THE GOD PECCATTE 

P  R S: THE MYSTERY MAN 

CHARLES NICOLAS BAZIN; THE FOUNDER   

LOUIS JOSEPH MORIZOT PERE AND THE DYNASTIES 

MORIZOT BROTHERS AND THE SUPER HEROES 

PECCATTE, THE SILENT REBELLION 

ETIENNE PAJEOT: THE THOUSAND-HEADED BOWMAKER 

LOUIS EMILE JEROME THIBOUVILLE-LAMY; THE MANAGING DIRECTOR 

FRANCOIS AND  ROGER LOTTE; ANOTHER SMALL FAMILY 

CHARLES LOUIS AND CHARLES ALFRED; THE LAST BAZINS 

EMILE AUGUSTE OUCHARD; THE BOWMAKER OF TWO WORLDS 

BERNARD OUCHARD, THE HUMBLE EDUCATOR  

JEAN BAPTISTE VUILLAUME.  

So long

Paolo