My name is Job ter Haar; I am a cellist and Baroque cellist, and I play a beautiful Baroque cello by Pieter Rombouts, on loan from the Musical Instrument Fund. It has already been ten years since I was granted a loan of this magnificent Rombouts Baroque cello. This made a dream come true: Rombouts is my favorite luthier, especially when it comes to early music. Since then, I have used the cello in countless concerts both at home and abroad, and with my Baroque ensemble, Musica ad Rhenum, I have made a large number of CD recordings. Of all the Rombouts cellos I’ve seen so far, this is the smallest; according to Hubert de Launay, who researches 18th-century Dutch violin making, it was originally a large model that was later scaled down. In any case, it has the ideal size for an 18th-century solo instrument. The sound has the typical, almost matter-of-fact solidity so characteristic of Rombouts, but because of its small size, the A string is very bright and the cello responds instantly, allowing me to execute all articulations and nuances intuitively and without hesitation. According to the famous flutist (and violinist and oboist!) Quantz, it is the Baroque musician’s task to throw the listener from one emotional state to another (though he puts it slightly differently); and no other cello enables me to do that as well as this down-to-earth Dutch instrument.
