when Heinrich met Jenny

This month, Heinrich the cello will move out to reunite with the young cellist in their new home. In my effort to keep Heinrich entertained over the last few years, I have taken the habit to play cello every day (even though still not as well as a senior cello like Heinrich deserves to be played), so I went looking for a new old cello to keep up the musical exercise.

It's been a very interesting experience trying out half a dozen cellos displaying very different temperaments, even though they're basically all the same shape and size. I settled on a relatively modern one which I bought from Jenny, who couldn't take it with her on her return to her home country. As our string instruments need names, Heinrich's younger sister will now be known as Jenny after her previous owner.

As you can see in the pictures, Jenny has a very nice dark varnish and a pattern of stripes strikingly similar to Heinrich's. She also has a very warm resonant tone. I'm still learning her ways (it's amazing how many things I can forget when distracted by an unfamiliar instrument!) but am looking forward to introducing her to my orchestral and chamber music adventures in September. Some preliminary pictures of the pair (I'm sure there will be more once we see the sun again):

The only structural difference I've spotted so far is that the new cello's fingerboard rises more steeply above the body, which becomes obvious because the bridge is looking much higher (to be precise, the bridge was 12 mm higher for all four strings). A small part of that bridge height was unnecessary, however, as the strings were a bit too high above the fingerboard, so I took them down by a couple of millimetres. In the process I learned that the makers had been too hasty in putting on the bridge - part of the varnish underneath it was attached to its feet rather than the belly of the cello.

Another surprising discovery: the tailpiece is made of metal. Why? And is this a good idea?

PS Having studied the market of private cello sales in Oxford quite thoroughly, I am now also aware of several other cellos that are also really lovely and could make recommendations if anybody else is looking for one.