To be sure, his professional route is not banal. Right from the beginning. He was born in Geneva in 1962, the son of a swiss father and an Algerian-born French woman. That very year 1962 saw the end of the « events » in Algeria, the word that was used for a war. He started life in Geneva. After the « baccalauréat », he became an apprentice and learnt how to be a cabinetmaker. He often travelled to Avignon, in the Vaucluse, to visit a cousin who was a stringed instrument maker. Retrospectively, it appears like an indiction of fate. And in Avignon he met a charming Young lady, Nicole, who was training tu be a bow maker. They went up to Paris for a few months. She studied to improve her art ; he attended a design school. Then he settled down in Vedène (in the Vaucluse) as a cabinetmaker ; for two décades he successfully designed contemporry furniture.
Nicole and Yves got married, lived on a barge anchored at the « ïle de la Barthelasse », opposite the Palais des Papes in Avignon. Two adorable twin daughters were born to them, and a few yars later, a lovely baby boy. They could not live on a bargeany longer. With the generous help of Nicole’s mother,they were able to buy a farm in the countryside near Barbentane (Bouches-du-Rhône). They di dit up and installed there their respective workshops. They’ve been there for fifteen years.
You might say : even though cabinetmaking is an art that requires attention to détail and talent, it’s a far cry from stringed instrument making, even though his wife is a gifted bow-maker. You must know that Yves had been immersed in music since his childhood. From his father, an amateur guitar-player, he acquired a taste for music and from an early age, he played the concert flute and the sax. An amateur jazz musician, he started bands, but, amazingly, he has trouble with his bass-players who often dropped him. To make up for their désertion, he himself learnt how to play the bass ; his last bass-player was his mentor.
Then things took a tragic turn for the Descloux. Nicole had cancer. Yves gave up work to take care of his wife. A few months of anxiety ensued, while she underwent a heavy, but effective treatment. Meanwhile, Yves started putting back together the eighteen parts of a bass he had been entrusted with. He took great pleasure in it. Then he had the desire to make one, from scratch. He had to learn the art of making stringed instruments. Thanks to his friend, the violinist Raphaël Oleg, he met the gréât instrument- maker from Lyons, Jacques Fustier. Fascinated by a most original seltee Yvas had created, Fustier agreed to initiate him. They became friends. That was in 2002. Yves would tell you that, during the four years of his initiation, Jacques Fustier xas more than a master for him. In his workshop in Lyons, Jacques taught him much more than his art.
First, Yves learnt how to make a violin in Lyons (since then, he has made three that sold very well) while in Barbentane he designed a bass from plans he found on the Internet and surveys made from a Jacquet. When Nicole was cured, Yves went back to work as a cabinet-maker but soon found out that he couldn’t combine cabinet-making and stringed instruments. He took the plunge and officially became a stringed instruments maker in 2005. As such, he adjusts and repairs instruments, but what he really enjoys is creating instruments. In addition to his first three violoins, Yves created four basses and two electric ones. As soon as June 2004, when he head completed his first bass, it was played on by Vincent Pasquier a solist with the Orchestre de Paris, who liked it a lot, during a concert at the Méjan in Arles, when Laurent Korcia, Michel Portal and Jean-François Heisser gavec a wonderful performance. A bass-player from the Orchestre National de Bordeaux-Aquitaine, Valérie Petite, was only too glad to « adopt » one of his « children ». Steven Zlomke, first bass solo in the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, wrote recently about one of Yves’s instruments (a five-stringed bass) he had played : « the instrument, only a month old, proved to be spple and powerful. It is malléable even in the forte with a range of different articulations and colour. I can recommend it as a first-rate instrument » (15 februar 2007). No comment.
Yves Descloux has certainly started well. He well go far ; he has got the strength and character required. And, I was about forget, he has got an alto in préparation… !
Philippe Gut, april 2007
English translation by Gisèle Weidenfeld
Vincent Pasquier, Michel Portal and Laurent Korcia