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David Hawthorne teaching Joel Pautz, Bow maker, 2012
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Photography by Maggie Holtzberg
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David Hawthorne has been making bows for stringed instruments for over 30 years. He studied under William Salchow, the preeminent bowmaker of his time. He opened his own shop 15 years ago. Prior to that he had worked in a number of violin shops in Boston, including Reuning and Sons Violins, where he was head of bowmaking and restoration. Hawthorne's baroque bows are played by a good percentage of the professional baroque string community. Hawthorne notes that the profession of violin and bowmaking needs a new generation of informed and skilled practitioners and he sees it as something of a responsibility to pass on some of the knowledge he has acquired from others. Joel Pautz has studied violin making at the North Bennett Street School, where he learned how to rehair bows from David Hawthorne. Though Pautz has yet to make a bow, the skills needed for violin making are complimentary towards bowmaking. Pautz will begin his apprenticeship by learning a French style of bowmaking in the tradition of Dominique Peccatte. He will learn to make a baroque bow with a clip-in frog, a simpler bow which introduces many of the techniques of bowmaking, without the metalwork of the modern bow or the lathe work of making a screw-adjusted frog. Based on Pautz's success with this bow, Hawthorne will recommend making a baroque bow with a screw-adjusted frog. They will end the apprenticeship with a presentation of Pautz's bows being played in an open house concert by Scott Metcalfe, a well-known baroque violinist.
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