Thom de Klerk - Building Bassoons

Building Bassoons

Just after the Second World War de Klerk was invited to be a consultant to the renowned builder of music instruments Cabart in Paris. The story goes that during the Second World War the Nazis had forced the French oboe factory Cabart to build German bassoons, though the archive proving or disproving this account was lost. The bassoons produced after the Second World War upon approval received the hallmark Cabart/de Klerk.

In 1950 Thom de Klerk started his own bassoon atelier. At first on the top floor of his home in Amsterdam, later in a larger atelier in the very heart of that city in a historical street called the Nes, on which site the Flemish Cultural Centre has now been built. The number of bassoons produced in total remained modest though. The talents of Thom de Klerk were many, however being a business man was not one of them. Running the business on a day to day basis he left to his in-laws - not one of his brightest ideas. Fairly soon in 1952, the bassoon atelier went bankrupt.