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Vasile with Constant's cymbalom.
11 February 2020
An Impromptu House Concert
There are not many things that are more gratifying about managing an artist estate than when a beloved object goes to a new owner who will again use it. It is even better when the object in question will be used to make new works of art. Over the last couple of months we have been lucky to share some of Constant’s tools and materials with several artists.
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Quality paints, papers and tools have found new owners and studio’s. New hands will once again transform them into works of art. With Constant’s instrument collection we entered a similar quest.At first we researched the posibility of the instruments staying together as a collection. However, Constant’s collection existed of a wide range of instruments from harps to a sitar and from querky to valuable, which made it unsuitable for most institutes. Also most instruments needed some level of maintenance. The best way forward seemed to be to find new owners for every single item.
In 2012 we were able to sell one of Constant’s three cymbaloms to Greg Knowles, a film composer from London. He came to pick the instrument up with his son and daughter in law. The cymbalom now resides in the Royal Opera House in London. It’s great to know the cymbalom will be played and our contact with Greg has been warm ever since. In January of this year we sold Constant’s Panormo to Nausica Cannella, a guitarist, who plays in a duo with her partner Vincent Dubès. They visited Constant’s house together with musician Gabriel Bianco and between the three of them they played every single instrument in Constant’s music room. For a afternoon Constant’s spirit was very much present.
And now, a few weeks ago, we met pianist and cymbalist Dani Luca. We came in contact with him through the Nationaal Muziekinstrumenten Fonds and violinist Noa Eyl. Brought up with cymbalom music, Dani has gone on to study piano but never stopped playing cymbalom. When Dani and his father Vassily came to pick up the instrument, we were treated to an inpromtu house concert with Vassily playing the cymbalom and Dani the piano. Both instruments had not been played since Constant died in 2005 and once again through the music Constant seemed present.
Below we added two clips of the house concert, the first is a full registration of one of the improvisations and the second is a 59 sec clip for everyone who was born after 1980 with the attention span of a cricket.
[video:https://youtu.be/H5Tp21c7X-4]
[video:https://youtu.be/7E2kyspM6Xs]
