In July, 1983, master instrument craftsman/repairman, W. Hans Moennig, 79 years young, decided to retire. This issue of The Double Reed is an attempt to pay tribute to him, as one of our IDRS honorary members, by including two recent articles commemorating his long and incredible tenure as the master woodwind repairman in the world. Perhaps in this small way we can return to him a modicum of the devotion that he has given our needs by the loving, tender, and creative care he has lavished upon our musical instruments over these many years.
My own personal encounters with him have been short, but they were both memorable. The first was in 1961 when, as a GI bandsman/bassoonist stationed in Virginia, I took my newly purchased Puchner bassoon to him for some minor repair work. Even now I can vividly remember the awe of visiting his 'Mecca' on 21st Street in Philadelphia. And even then, 23 years ago, the place needed painting! (See Daniel Webster's article.) The second encounter was via correspondence when I was researching my article on the Heckel/Boehm bassoon-built in-the 1930s for Percy Gatz. (See IDRS Journal, Summer, 1983.) I had learned that Mr. Moennig might have worked on the instrument, so I wrote a letter of inquiry to him concerning his recollections. His answering reply contained a wealth of information. With incredible memory he was able to recall vividly details of the instrument and its unique construction. This material was a very valuable inclusion to the subsequent article.
While this issue pays tribute specifically to the repairman, Hans Moennig, it can also be in a broader sense, an acknowledgement of the debt we instrumental musicians owe to the many talented, devoted and hard working repairmen the world over. There is something mysterious and magical about the work of a great instrument repairman. We bring them a pile of poorly functioning wood and metal, and with a few master strokes with their magic wand (a screwdriver) and a few healings over their Aladdin's Lamp (the Bunsen burner), they coax it back to life. They make 'music' on our instruments as surely as we do. Is their artistry any less than ours? Perhaps it is even greater, for consider how we would sound without their assistance!
I have experienced this sensation of absolute awe for the skill, or better, for the artistry of the master repairman twice in my life. The first time was when I went to R. W. MacGibbon's shop in Milwaukee to purchase one of his bocals. 'Mac,' now deceased, had begun to make bassoons in the 1960s, and his instruments and bocals were highly prized. I couldn't afford a bassoon, but at $21.00 I could manage a bocal, although he was hesitant to sell them separately. At first he refused to sell me one. But after much talk and a little persuasion--he loved to reminisce about his experiences in the theatre orchestras of Chicago in the vaudeville era where he played the French system bassoon -- he finally exclaimed, as if he had thought of it: "Well, you came for a bocal, didn't you." With this he reached into an old drawer on his workbench, took out a bocal, and in a flurry soldered a whisper key hasp to it quicker than one could say 'abbrakadabra.' He then handed me this beautiful piece of delicately curved metal that wedded to my old Heckel bassoon like a gentle new bride. I still have it--now in my new Heckel's case. And it still sings as lovely today as when MacGibbon coaxed it to life back then.
My second such experience is much more recent. It happened only weeks ago in Paris when, with Maurice Allard's assistance, I took my ailing Buffet bassoon back to the factory at Mantes La Ville, about 50 kilometres west of Paris, for some much needed repair work. During the preceding months my Buffet had not made a good transition from the semi-arid climate of northern Idaho to that of high humidity which is typical of a Parisian fall and winter. An old crack in the wing joint which had been pinned had re-opened and expanded, and a new crack had also begun. The wing had taken on so much moisture the tenon would no longer go all the way into its boot joint socket.
Mr. Allard called over one of the workers at the factory, a nice looking man with greying hair named Bernard Viot, and explained the problems with the instrument to him. In the next two hours, as I sat and watched, this repairman, this magician, this Bernard Viot not only sealed both cracks beautifully, but with hands absolutely blurred by the activity, he changed every pad and cork on my Buffet and returned to me a virtually new instrument that plays better now than it ever has since I've owned it. It was the most incredible display of virtuoso instrument repair I have ever experienced. It was truly awe inspiring.
As a footnote to this, I might add that for Mr. Viot's incredible 'performance' on my Buffet bassoon I was charged 392 French francs! I will leave my non-French readers with their calculators (the current exchange rate is 8.14 ff to the American dollar,) to determine what a bargain I had received. Perhaps it is true, as Shirley Curtiss says in the Webster article, that master craftsmen/repairmen do charge by the number of times they have to relight their pipes with their Bunsen burners.