4,000 violins destroyed in factory fire

4,000 violins destroyed in factory fire

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norman lebrecht

January 17, 2017

A fire in Europe’s biggest musical instruments factory – at Reghin, in Romania – has wiped out much of its stock, including a estimated 4,000 violins.

Damage is assessed at quarter of a million Euros. About half the stock was saved.

Report here.

 

Comments

  • Myrtar says:

    If the damages are 250.000€ and half the stock was saved, then each violin that burned was worth 125€ … are we sure they weren’t Violas? Hardly a loss.

  • Will says:

    Tee Hee…! ‘Nice one’!

  • John Borstlap says:

    In a poor country like Romania, filled to the brim with utterly musical people, this is a disaster.

    In the rich West, nature is helped a bit by personal musical action:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwlCD2y2tBA

  • Mihail Ghiga says:

    As a romanian, I feel obliged to give some inside view.
    – The region where the factory is has a microclimate, and it’s a sort of romanian Alaska. It get’s -20 -30 frequently. And we just have such a wave of cold. I remember being there an having 8 degrees in JULY, while I had only t-shrts with me. The cold I had….
    – Fires in this conditions, extremely cold, start easy and are very hard to put out. Water freezes in pipes, even the fire extinguishers freezes.
    – While this factory produces cheap instruments, mostly for entry level and folk fiddle players, it is still a main source of revenue for the locals, and as such, this is real bad. The wood they use is good quality and that’s a big loss aswell.
    – Especially in rural areas, an euro can get you a long way. Bureaucratic european regulations (meant to help the multinationals) forbids peasants to sell their products directly or more than a few km farther than their origin place, so prices are very cheap in situ. We buy as much as we can directly from the producers, and just an exemple: a homemade huge panetone or a kilo of smoked cheese costs a couple or euros.

    • John Borstlap says:

      Incredible! And what a despiccable role the EU plays in this.

      I once had a performance by a Romanian orchestra and while the playing was enthusiastic and very musical, the instruments sounded like a Historically Informed Practice ensemble, probably the same they had early 20C. The difference between musical prowess and physical poverty was appalling.

  • Robert King says:

    What we should remember, amongst the somewhat unkind jibes above – whilst having huge sympathy for these good people who have had such a terrible disaster – is that factories like this, selling their violins at €125, see them being sold in shops for maybe €300-400 once wholesaler and retailer commission is added. It is exactly instruments like this that make perfect instruments for beginners. Without such makers, the next generation of violinists struggle to find an affordable starter instrument.

    So for providing affordable, entry-level instruments for my (and everyone else’s) children we should be grateful, as well as hugely sympathetic, to these good people facing such a calamity.

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