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Climate makes cellos less tuneful - 6th January 2023

The impact of climate change is far-reaching, but few will have considered how harmful it is to our ability to make music. In Switzerland, this concern's now unsettling artisanal instrument makers.

The raw material is sourced in the Risoud Forest, which blankets the sub-alpine Jura mountain range demarcating the French-Swiss border. Many of the trees are centuries old and the timber is ideally suited to crafting into string instruments, like acoustic guitars and violins. However, the wood's tonal qualities are being affected by decreasing precipitation and increasing warmth, something which forest ranger Francois Villard is acutely aware of.

Francois Villard: "Global warming is the problem. The average annual temperature, when I arrived here in the Vallee de Joux, 30 years ago, we had an average annual temperature of 5-6 degrees. Now we are way over."

What makes these particular spruce trees so ideal for the instrument-making craft is their specific characteristics, which stem from the terrain and altitude where they traditionally flourish.

Theo Magnin is a tree gatherer.

Theo Magnin: "For musical instruments, you need very tight veins and that's why the more the trees grow in altitude, between 1000 metres and 1200 metres high above the sea level, the veins will be very tight."

Out of every 300 trees felled locally, just one or two will make the grade, having the appropriate resonance for a cello or violin, and Magnin's fearful that climate change will destroy that delicate number.

Theo Magnin: "With global warming and the lack of water, I don't know what we're going to find as resonance wood, high quality wood in the next few years. It's becoming a disaster with the woods drying."

Despite experimenting with a number of alternative options, skilled carpenter Philippe Ramel remains convinced that the best acoustic quality emanates from the wood of the Risoud Forest's illustrious trees.

Philippe Ramel: "It's the air inside the guitar that will, with the vibration of the string, begin to move and which will cause the soundboard to vibrate like the skin of a drum. So we want the best possible vibratory qualities and the Risoud forest guarantees that."