A sense of responsibility brings Yachats violin maker out of retirement to restore life and music to 100-year-old harp

 

By JORDAN ESSOE/YachatsNews.com

YACHATS — A musical instrument restorer attracted to ambitious projects came out of retirement to bring one more trounced instrument back to life. This time it was something he’d never worked on before.

David Rivinus is a 72-year-old expert restorer and innovative luthier who in the past invested as much as a year of intense, unpaid restoration work on a single project. One project was an instrument found in crushed pieces and restored to stunning, fully playable condition.

He undertakes projects very few others in his field would because he doesn’t let the marketplace tell him what to do.

Musical instruments are susceptible objects. Wood shrinks. Glue weakens. Pins break. Neglect and human accidents are likely. Even oils, acidity – or more recently hand sanitizer — from musicians’ hands can damage strings and varnish.

“Most fragile instruments don’t survive,” said Arian Sheets, curator of stringed instruments at the National Music Museum in South Dakota. “They wear out, they get lost, they get thrown out, they get replaced. And a lot of it has to do with that equation of how much it takes to fix something versus how much a new instrument costs — and is it worth it?”

The condition and cost of instruments matter. But violas, guitars, and flutes are more than just tools. The place they occupy in a musician’s life amounts to something significantly more sacred.

“There come moments when only music can fill that human, existential void that threatens to overwhelm us all,” said Yachats musician Gretchen Armstrong.

Against the terrible odds of history, a percentage of musical instruments survive. Bone and ivory flutes have been discovered that are more than 30,000 years old.

On the other end of the timeline, even the youngest of instruments commonly need repair. They may need a peg replaced, a fingerboard re-glued and or a warped bow straightened. These are simple fixes you can probably get done at a shop for less than $100.

Yet when you get into extensive restoration work for severe damage, the cost can quickly run into the thousands or tens of thousands. At that price, the instrument will likely not be worth enough money to justify the repair. These are the broken instruments that usually end up in the garbage.

But not always.

Sometimes someone like David Rivinus intervenes.

Instruments survive us

As a craftsman, Rivinus is attracted to the challenge and pleasure of his labor. As a person who has spent a lifetime deeply devoted to all aspects of music, he is driven by a romantic sense of responsibility and stewardship. He keeps an eye on the expansive sweep of both the past and the future.

“These instruments are going to survive us,” said Rivinus. “I’m going to kick the bucket, and this thing is going to endure.”

The philosophy he has adopted takes a holistic, long view. After working with hundreds of clients in the restoration business, he arrived at the idea that instruments cannot truly be owned. In a philosophical sense, he says, even if someone spends tens of thousands of dollars on an instrument, it doesn’t actually “belong” to them.

Nor does it belong to any musicians who played the instrument before them. Or the ones who may come after. The instrument belongs to something greater than all of them. It belongs to history.

“You are its custodian, for as long as you keep it or for as long as you live,” said Rivinus. “But you are basically just a blip on the radar screen of this instrument’s life.”

Rivinus’ restoration work focuses on instruments of the violin family. He was first introduced to the craft as a college student in Indianapolis, where he worked for a local violin maker. As a member of his college chamber orchestra, Rivinus was a shy performer. He didn’t like being on stage. In contrast, he felt immediately at home in the maker’s workshop.

In Hollywood, Calif., he apprenticed under a famous violin restorer named Hans Weisshaar. Weisshaar had two international reputations. He was a brilliant restorer, and a really difficult person to work with. Rivinus studied at Weisshaar’s elbow from 1975 to 1979. As taxing as it was, he didn’t regret a single day.

“That is where I learned to do what I do,” said Rivinus. “He was extraordinary. No question about it.”

In the 1980s Rivinus ran his own shop with a partner in Glendale, Calif. By 1989 he was burned out and took a respite to farm in southern Vermont. During this time, he raised pigs, turkeys and geese, tapped maple trees, and in his spare time invented an instrument design no one had thought of before.

He called it the Pellegrina. The ergonomically compressed viola had an eye-catching torqued body that made Rivinus famous among players and collectors. The Pellegrina was constructed to offset some of the common musculoskeletal injuries professional viola players are likely to suffer from.

“His violas were some of the few nonconventional models that have been fairly widely accepted by professional musicians,” said Sheets. “These ergonomic instruments were actually solving a problem that musicians had. And it helped them extend their careers.”

Rivinus moved to Portland in 1998 where he continued his unique instrument making with great success. He also resumed his restoration work, and soon found himself in the middle of the most daunting and exciting instrument repair he ever attempted.

The violin that had been run over by a getaway car during a robbery. A man had broken into a parked car, searched for things to steal and then discovered a violin case in the trunk. When the owner discovered the thief holding her instrument in the street, she screamed so loud he dropped it – right behind the wheels of his car, before he jumped inside, backed up, and sped off.

Once the insurance money had been paid out, the insurance company officially owned the scatter of violin pieces but had no idea what to do with them. The pieces ended up in the attic of a friend of Rivinus’, where he later discovered them.

Rivinus recognized the destroyed violin. It had been made in the late 19th century by a German-born craftsman named George Gemunder, who was considered by many to be the founder of the American school of violin making. Rivinus touched the tortured parts of the previously dazzling, historically important violin body and was compelled to rebuild it.

“While Gemunder’s instruments are not all that valuable,” said Rivinus, “those of us that are successful American instrument makers owe him a debt of gratitude. I thought I owed him this.”

He pauses.

“And it was a really nice violin.”

Rivinus laboriously reassembled and revived the Gemunder violin. Once finished, he parted ways with it, donating it to the Community Music Center, a school sponsored by Portland Parks and Recreation.

David Kerr, restorer and owner of David Kerr Violin Shop, the largest violin shop in the Pacific Northwest, applauds Rivinus for undertaking such personal projects.

“I can certainly understand the passion for wanting to do those projects,” said Kerr. “I don’t know that I ever have myself. I admire that in him.”

Kerr worked with Rivinus on a different violin that required extraordinary repair. It wasn’t quite as damaged as the Gemunder violin but had 11 significant cracks in its complicated inlay work. The instrument was clearly old and the inlay was gorgeous, but they weren’t quite sure where exactly it had come from. Regardless, Rivinus began an elaborate restoration.

The violin was a rare 17^th century German model. After more than a year of intricate work, Rivinus described the violin as the closest he’s ever come to essentially creating a brand-new instrument from the wreckage of the original.

“Everything on the inside that is structurally sound is mine,” said Rivinus.

He donated this instrument as well, giving it to the National Music Museum, where it joined an important group of similar Allemanic violins in their permanent collection.

Out of retirement, sort of

Rivinus and his wife, composer and pianist Charlene Marchi, moved to Yachats in 2018. While the intention was to retire, Rivinus hasn’t quite been able to stay out of the workshop.

Armstrong approached Rivinus last summer about an old, neglected harp she had inherited from her parents. She would give it to him if he would agree to make it playable again. First problem, he was retired. Second problem, Rivinus had no experience with harps.

“My first reaction was ‘That’s all I need’,” said Rivinus, who is also chair of the city of Yachats’ library commission. “It was in horrible shape and I was ready to say no. Charlene urged me to take a second look and then … I got intrigued.”

The instrument brought with it another interesting stretch of history. Plus, it wasn’t hard on the eyes. He had to admit, harps “do look rather angelic.”

This harp was made around 1918 in Syracuse, N.Y. by the Clark Harp Co. and it came to Armstrong’s family with a picture of its original owner, a girl roughly around eight years old. No one knows her name, but Rivinus points out that her finger positioning and posture reveal a capable skill level.

The girl kept the instrument until she died an old woman, somewhere in Florida. Armstrong’s parents, who were fond of yard sales, junk shops and antique stores, acquired the harp in the 1980s. They took it to the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee where it sat out on the sun porch as decoration.

Armstrong was given the harp as her parents were preparing to pass. Following a brief stopover in Atlanta, the harp came to Seal Rock for five years, and then finally Yachats, where it sat another 10 years before Rivinus carried it into his shop and took it apart.

He was aided in the disassembly by sloppy original workmanship that didn’t allow the glued joints to bond correctly. Reassembly presented challenges, however, chief among them being the wood hadn’t been properly seasoned.

Instrument makers ideally only use wood that has been aged at least 10 years. Due to a booming demand for harps at the time, the Clark Harp Co. didn’t do that. As a result, the remaining moisture in the various wood pieces caused them to shrink away from each other over the years. Parts were now mismatched and of slightly different sizes. To avoid losing any ornamentation, Rivinus had to build up all the smaller pieces.

Replacing strings is easy, but a series of pins that held the strings in place had originally been carved in ivory. One pin was missing. This was a problem because it can’t authentically be replaced, only substituted with alternative materials.

Beginning with the Endangered Species Act of 1973, U.S. restrictions on the acquisition of ivory have become gradually more severe. Today, even the sale of antiques that contain a fractional amount of ivory is illegal.

Rivinus had an idea.

He went to a butcher shop, bought a cow’s thigh bone and carved out the delicate, thin shape he needed. His solution to use bone for the harp pin replacement originated from a similar practice of substituting the tips of violin bows with bone.

“This was the first time I ever held a cow femur in my hands and put it through the bandsaw,” said Rivinus.

Waiting for the right person

The Clark harp is not among Rivinus’ most radical restorations. But he believes it was one of his most thoughtful because of the need to constantly innovate. He enjoyed himself and didn’t rush. He took six months to do restoration work he would have previously completed in one. Full retirement stopped feeling as seductive.

“I realized the extent to which I missed doing this work,” said Rivinus. “I certainly don’t want the pressures that come with keeping it as a career. But if someone comes along with another project that looks interesting, I will definitely do it.”

Due to the ivory pins, Rivinus can’t sell the restored harp even if that is what he wanted to do with it. But he doesn’t want to. He’s hoping to find someone to give it to.

“If I found the right person,” said Rivinus. “If it were some worthy student who needed a harp and couldn’t afford to buy one, I’d turn it over in a jiffy.”

One caveat.

“They’d get a little lecture. They couldn’t treat it like the way it’s been treated in the past. As its custodian, you have a responsibility. You have to take care of it.”

Remember, the harp doesn’t belong to you.

• Jordan Essoe is a Waldport-based freelance writer who can be reached at alseajournal@gmail.com

To read a detailed explanation of Rivinus’ restoration of the harp, go here