Recently I traveled to Austria with a small string orchestra from my school district. Due to several concerns (including the cost of renting a flight case) I did not bring my own bass. The conductor of the group found some way for me to rent a bass in Austria for almost no money. When I got there, I was surprised to see a very old, fine instrument waiting for me. It was poorly set up, with outrageously high action, crappy strings, and a slightly warping bridge, but somehow it still made a very beautiful sound. I could not find any label inside, but then again I did not have a mirror or a proper light so I could not look everywhere.
I found out the next day that the bass came from the monastery in the small town of Kremsmunster. I was told the instrument is well over 200 years old, and that the monks were reluctant to let anyone use it, but the owner of the hotel where we stayed had a few connections, and somehow convinced them.
The bass really was lovely, although it was very small (I think it must have been a 1/2 size). Realizing that I would depart from Austria and never see the instrument again, I made sure to take a few pictures. I will provide links to them at the end of this post. (I wanted to keep them large, so I am hosting them myself)
I did have one question after looking at the inside of the bass. It had a flat back, and the back was of course heavily braced. In fact, there was one brace right in the middle where the soundpost met the back, so the post was resting not on the back of the bass but on a brace. In one of the pictures, you can actually see this. I started wondering, wouldn't this type of disruption have a negative effect on the tone of the instrument? And yet this bass played very nicely, with a dark, old sound. Maybe one of the luthiers here at TB can answer that for me. But that's not the main point of the post. I'm just telling my cool little story.
Check out the pictures...
http://tsbeers.home.comcast.net/Austria_037.jpg http://tsbeers.home.comcast.net/Austria_038.jpg http://tsbeers.home.comcast.net/Austria_039.jpg http://tsbeers.home.comcast.net/Austria_040.jpg http://tsbeers.home.comcast.net/Austria_041.jpg http://tsbeers.home.comcast.net/42.jpg
Bass/post 
