N.Z. fibreglass violin bow selling in U.S.

Press, 29 August 1979, Page 17

N.Z. fibreglass violin bow selling in U.S.

By JOHN HUTCHISON in San Francisco It all sounds a bit improbable, but a law professor at the University of California has introduced to the American market handmade, fibreglass violin bows made in Wellington. The bows were crafted by Mr Robert Berg, who plays bass in the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra said the man who imported them, Mr Mortimer Schwartz. One of the bows was used by Mr Peter Shaeffer, the orchestra’s concert master. Described as possessing very high professional quality, the bows sold in the United States for about $3OO, well below the cost of handmade wood bows, which cost, as much as $lOOO. Mass-produced fibreglass bows sell in America for as little as $3l and good pernambucowood bows can cost $350. “1 have a customer for a Berg bow in New York, a professional violinist in New York, who wrote to me that some violinists will prefer the bow for playing quality to fine wood bows costing twice as much,” Mr Schwartz said. Mr Schwartz, a man of many parts, none of them particularly musical, teaches professional ethics and is the law librarian at the university’s campus at Davis, north of San Francisco. An avid fisherman, he met Mr Berg in 1977 while visiting New Zealand as a lecturer in law at the University of Auckland while on sabbatical leave.

He and Mr Berg have been fishing companions and he hopes to go fishing again when he visits New Zealand in November to deliver a paper at a meeting at the University of Canterbury of the Human Rights Commission. Mr Schwartz, who has also been a real estate developer, wants to build a business as marketing representative for “cottage industry” products from New Zealand. During his November sojourn he hopes to explore sources of pottery, knitted goods, woollens, men’s and women's clothing, and dehydrated foods. He believed there is an expanding future for handmade items from New Zealand. As a violin-bow importer, what instrument did Mr Schwartz play? “None,” he said. “I just barely know how to turn on my hi-fi set.” ...