Musikinstrumente + Verlag GmbH

MOECK • Lückenweg 4  D-29227 Celle

Tel +49-5141-8853-0  info(at)moeck.com

Recorder making

From 1930 onwards, Hermann Moeck sen. marketed recorders which were made by cottage industry firms in Vogtland in Saxony, but he carried out the intonation and tuning himself. He also sold gambas, clavichords and spinets which were made in his own wookshop premises.  

In the 50ties at the suggestion of Helmut Mönkemeyer, the so called Krefeld Quintfideln/fifth fiddles? ( for lessons on string instruments at music schools) and the so called octave guitars (for beginners learning the guitar) were made. The marketing of the box shaped Quart-Terz Fideln/fourth-third fiddles? was also established. At the end of the 60ties, a larger series of ornate copies of gambas in the style of Joachim Tielke (1641-1719)  were made under the supervision of Heinrich Haferland.

As a result of increasing interest in the practicalities of historical performance and consequently in historically "authentic" instruments, a special/an exceptional programme  developed in the Moeck workshop: the reconstruction of wind instruments from the Baroque and Renaissance eras (initiated by Otto Steinkopf). The programme was the subject of academic research, was further developed and included crumhorns, cornamuses, (Kortholte), shawns and pommers, dulcians, racketts, historical cornets, Renaissance and Baroque flutes, oboes, bassoons and early clarinets.

In the 1960s, many courses organised and financed by Moecks ensured that playing on historical wind instruments was quickly professionalised and became popular/widespread.

However, the emphasis on instrument making was from the beginning always on recorders.

As from 1948, the marketing by mail order was gradually reduced and the firm`s own production of recorders consistently increased and developed further. Larger workshop premises were established and over the years, Moecks became one of the leading makers of recorders (and wind instruments).

In the 1960s,  the production of high quality copies of selected museum instruments began. The model Rottenburgh, developed in cooperation with the recorder maker Friedrich von Huene, marked the beginning of the development of the simple recorder up to sophisticated instruments for more advanced musical expectations. There followed models adapted from Jan Steenbergen (1675-1728, Amsterdam), Jakob Jenner (1681-1735, Nürnberg),Thomas Stanesby senior (1668-1734, London) and Jean Hotteterre (Paris from 1640) as as well as historically exact Renaissance-Consort-Recorders copied from instruments from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Between 2003-2005 the Ehlert recorder was developed.

Today, Moeck uses the newest computer controlled machines in the production of our instruments, nevertheless the proportion of manual craftmanship is very high. We have been successful over the years in combining the skills and intuition of our craftsmen with the precision of the machines and so producing a variety of high quality instruments to a reliable standard.

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