Strings Feature in Classical Music Magazine

Here is an extract of the article:

Four of the LSO double-bass players play Martin basses. John Van Lierop in the Scottish Symphony owns three!
Add to that the impressive list of testimonials on the Martin website and you begin to get an idea of the respect and acclaim for this team of bass makers. Not bad, particularly when one realises that Martin senior, Thomas, didn’t begin to make basses
until 30-odd years ago.

Thomas Martin was born in 1940 in the United States. ‘My father was a successful lawyer and didn’t want me to go into music,’
he says. ‘But I didn’t do well educationally because I was dyslexic and they didn’t know what dyslexia was at that time. They gave
me tests, then said, “If you’re some kind of genius, how come you can’t spell?” How did I know?

‘I found music early on. Dad was away in the war. Mum was a great music lover. I was hooked by the time I was five. I used to get my Gran to take me on the trolley into town, Cincinnati, to find records by different composers. Then at the age of 12 I went to junior high school where I got my first taste of playing a double bass. The man said: “Who wants to play these two new double basses we’ve got?” — and my hand shot up. I would stay after school to practise and take the bass home during the summer holiday. The next year I got a proper teacher and I couldn’t have had a better education.

‘When I was 19 I joined the Buffalo Philharmonic under Josef Krips. He was director from 1954 to 1963, a great conductor who helped me a lot. I ended up in the military service in Washington, playing in the White House. Fortunately, when I suggested that I’d like to lean to play better, they said: “You find a teacher, and we’ll pay.”

‘It was then that I found Roger Scott at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. I studied with him for over three years, the whole time I was in the military. Then I went as co-principal in the Israel Philharmonic for a couple of years. Then Zubin Mehta took me to Montreal where I stayed for a number of years until I came to the UK, 40 years ago, to the LSO during the André Previn era. It was during a time when we were like film stars. Everywhere the orchestra travelled, people went wild.

’I mention the highly esteemed LSO recording of Walton’s first symphony, and Thomas replies: ‘Walton was there, making sure we got it right! I went with the English Chamber Orchestra for a while, then back to the LSO, first under Michael Tilson Thomas, then with Colin Davis.

‘I also taught for 35 years at the Guildhall School and for the past three years I’ve been at the Royal College. I seem to have clicked as a teacher — I don’t know why. It’s just been one wonderful student after another.

’ So how did you get into instrument making? ‘Luckily, I’ve always been in a good orchestra, so I’ve always been around good instruments. Thirty years ago, I went to a fellow who had been teaching instrument making in Cremona, Andrew Dipper. He used to charge me, but he was worth it. I had a friend in Germany who made basses. He said: “I know how to make, but I don’t know what to make exactly. Could you help me make some models?” I used to help him make instruments. I made four basses my own way. I copied my own bass, one by Vincenzo Panormo, probably the greatest of the bass makers.’ Unlike his father, George did not begin as a bass player. ‘I’ve always been around the workshop,’ he says. ‘My earliest memory is of my dad planning a front. I’d crawled underneath his work bench, which was two trestle tables in his bedroom and got some sawdust in my eye! So I’ve really grown up with bass-making. I used to do a few hours in the workshop when I was young, to earn pocket money. My father had so many orders for basses that I said, “You should go and make basses now”.

‘Like many young people, when I left school
I wasn’t sure what I was doing. Then, when I was 24 or 25,1 got more into bass-making. Now, I wouldn’t want to do anything else.

‘A lot of the wood we use is from Eastern Europe,’ he says. ‘For bass-making, a tree has to be a metre across, which means that it has been growing for 60 to 100 years, some for 200 years. A tree that has grown in a warm, wet climate, will have grown quickly. The next one can have come from up a mountain. Then the grain is narrow. Because the growth has been slow, the wood is hard. English sycamore is softer because it grows much faster. Consequently, it gives a softer tone. The basses we make tend to have a warm, rich, tone, which you can adjust with the strings you fit.’

I mention that there appears to be an open ness at the Martin premises, with no apparent fear of industrial espionage. ‘We’ve got nothing to hide here,’ says George. ‘Although I never tell anyone about the varnish!’
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