More than 40 years ago, Bernard Lavilliers sang The Extraordinary Adventures of a Banknote, passing from pocket to pocket and seeing the wide world. Those of Franiérois Laurence Bouvin’s hurdy-gurdy aren’t bad of their kind, either. Who knows what this ancestral musical instrument, somewhere between bagpipes and accordion (see opposite), may well have lived between its disappearance during a theft and its discovery, fortuitous, during a search, 11 days more late.
It all started on Thursday, February 16. Laurence is on a business meeting in Mons. Rue du Gouverneur Damoiseau, she parks her car and finds it later with the rear window shattered. The precious contents of his chest have disappeared. “A transverse flute, my hurdy-gurdy and a bag with equipment.“
Obviously, the thief (in series, neighboring vehicles were visited) does not know anything about what he stole. Like the sellers-buyers of the Cash Converters, a little further, who will not hear anything. “That’s where I rushed straight, says Laurence, convinced that the criminal would have no other solution than to resell his theft to make it worthwhile. I showed them pictures… but it was already too late.” The brigand had already passed and had “offloaded” the flute… for 15 €. “She is worth much more.“As for the strange object that the store employees had trouble identifying, it was a miss.”It is worth between €3,500 and €4,000, but its sentimental value is priceless! I cried for days, determined not to stay idle. I went to file a complaint with the police, but legally it takes a while to open a file. “
“I turned all of Mons upside down”
So, in the meantime, Laurence redoubles her efforts. Virtual, with a gut-wrenching post on the networks that has been shared more than 4,000 times, and in the field, rummaging everywhere, in the trash cans. “I turned all over Mons, put up posters all over the city, which I knew very little about, the shops, the bars. I was received in an exceptional way, I was encouraged, I was offered a coffee. Then, as I had learned that the person was homeless, I went to meet these people, in the street and the shelters day and night.“But you have to face the facts, despite the beautiful contagious energy,”I did not receive a call, even for a bad lead. “
The policeman was a music lover
Until last Friday, the old man’s birthday! “A week has passed and an accordionist calls me. There was a search in a Mons building, not as part of ‘my case’ – the file was not yet open – but of drug trafficking.“
But a policeman, a music lover, notices this pretty lady of wood and strings. She was thrown there, vulgarly, in spite of her nobility, on a whole lot of other things. The bloodhound quickly sends the snapshot to an accordionist friend, who has seen several times on his news feed publications showing a similar instrument. He has six friends in common with Laurence , six chances that the bottle overboard will be found by the right person.
“It was my old lady. The PJ contacted me, I had to wait a few days to get her back. I cried as much when I found her as when I lost her. What beautiful solidarity. On Vivacité, they announced that it was the good news of the day! Then, people I didn’t know were going to search eBay every day. It’s amazing how an instrument can touch people’s hearts. Casually, despite what has been said, it is useful and essential.“
A niche instrument, the extension of its soul
Is the hurdy-gurdy to be heard? ” It is a thousand-year-old bowed string instrument that produces a very harmonious sound. In Belgium, there must be about thirty viellistes, mainly in Flanders. It is seen in fantasy and medieval events“, continues Laurence who adopted hers 20 years ago.
“Contrary to what its name might suggest, it is not Breton but rather well established in the center of France, La Châtre. My teacher was German and the hurdy-gurdy is very popular in Eastern countries. I bought mine second hand, and well tuned. It’s the 622nd created by luthier and maker Audren Kerboeuf. Each object is a unique piece, each head is sculpted like a face, different each time. A man, a woman. On mine, I think it’s an angel. Depending on the moment, I see a man or a woman. “
If in her flight from Mons, Laurence’s hurdy-gurdy received a nasty blow, restorable – if not, it will leave a trace of this breakaway –, “the musicians of my group confirmed to me that it always sounded as well “.
It must be said that with RavenscaR, a folk-metal group, Laurence is preparing a hell of a deadline: April 8, the semi-final of the Wacken Metal Battle at the Jeugdhuis de Schakel in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert. “If we go to the end of the competition, we will be scheduled for the big metal festival in Wacken, Germany.“
But to play, you had to find LA/an old woman. “A friend quickly offered to lend me hers. Fortunately, there was no need. “In another folk register, ballroom and Renaissance music, the Bouvin-Deplasse duo does a lot of things at medieval festivals, clearance sales, café-concerts.