A forest engineer from central Harghita County discovered, four years ago, his passion for making musical instruments, proving, once again, that there are decisive meetings in the destiny of every person and that one can achieve extraordinary things if there is determination, support and faith.

Hadnagy Lehel is 40 years old and lives in the village of Valea Boros, in the Lunca de Jos rural town, in a picturesque area, located approximately 40 kilometres far from the municipality of Miercurea-Ciuc.

Since he was little, he loved wood, with which he worked in his father's small workshop, in Lupeni rural town, near Odorheiu Secuiesc, and later he became a forest engineer and learned how a tree grows and what happens to a piece of wood from the sapling phase until it reaches the hands of a craftsman.

In 2019, a meeting took place that changed his destiny. A craftsman from Hungary, Ladanyi Ferenc, came to the village, who had learned, in the 90s, from a local craftsman, to build gordunas, traditional musical instruments from the Ghimesului Valley.

He urged the locals to also learn to build gordunas, in a desire to pass on this craft. At that time, Hadnagy was flirting with the restoration of old furniture, which did not give him much satisfaction, so he decided to learn to make such musical instruments.

Hadnagy Lehel says that the gorduna is a musical instrument from Valea Ghimesului which, even if it looks like a stringed instrument, similar to the cello, is actually a percussion instrument, its strings being struck and plucked at the same time.

The gordunas started to be used, says the craftsman from Lunca de Jos, also by jazz musicians, but traditionally they are used for popular music from the area. They are also used by musicians from the Ciucul de Jos, Gheorgheni, Bicaz areas, having shapes closer to the cello, and some gorduna-like instruments are also found in the Apuseni area.

In his studio full of light, located next to the house he designed himself, Hadnagy Lehel tells his story with a smile on his face and with a kind of peace of mind that many people seek for years.

He confesses that the beginning was very difficult, with many moments of failure and discouragement, when he thought he would not be able to complete his work, but all the time he had the support of his wife, Helga, and several people who came in time in his life to encourage him to move on.

He made the first gorduna in six months and kept it in the workshop to always remember where he started and where he ended up. Now he manages to make a gorduna in a month. He has improved his technique and everything is much simpler than at the beginning.

The craftsman confesses that it is an advantage he has thorough knowledge about wood, he knows that a good instrument is born from a tree grown at altitude, in constant conditions. And he also says that when a tree is cut down, after over a hundred years of struggling to cope with all environmental conditions, all its balance is destroyed, and the craftsman, during the creative process, needs to bring it back to life and restore his lost balance.

The piece of wood that reaches the craftsman has some "inner tensions," says Hadnagy Lehel, and he succeeds, through the work he does, through the way he cuts, carves, strokes it, to bring it into balance. And the final process ends with the musician, who through sound will restore the final balance to a piece of wood transformed into a musical instrument.

"I am only in the first part of the process, I make the instrument, and then the long road to equilibrium ends when a musician starts to play, then he reaches the final destination. And this takes years. (...) The final sound, in balance, it depends on the musician. I can make a good gorduna, but if the musician is not careful and does not tune it properly, does not play it properly, then even the best gorduna, in the wrong hands, does not sound good," explains Hadnagy Lehel.

At one point, his daughter, Iringo, enters the workshop, and Lehel asks us to stop the discussion for a bit so that he can show us what the traditional music of the area sounds like. So Iringo takes his violin and, accompanied by his father on the gorduna, begins to play, and the space is filled with the sounds of popular music from Valea Ghimesului. After a while, Mozes, the youngest of the family, aged seven, comes into the room, takes the gorduna from his father and joins Iringo. And the craftsman looks at them and his eyes get wet with emotion.

For four years, since he discovered this craft, Hadnagy Lehel has made approximately 80 gordunas, which have reached the country or abroad, including Canada, but he confesses that he is the most happy when the gordunas remain "in the valley," in the area where he lives, because he can see them again in concerts, at popular celebrations, and he is happy when he sees them, like when he meets again with someone he loves.

He has a notebook in which he wrote all the details related to the instruments he made, to whom he sold them, technical details, but also the thoughts and emotions that tried him when he made them.

He admits that, just like a piece of wood has internal tensions, he also enters the workshop, sometimes, with tensions in his soul, but which disappear as he starts working.

"If I start working, the tensions disappear, and if they don't disappear, you have to put the tool down and leave the workshop, because then something is not right," says Lehel, who is convinced that he leaves a piece of his soul in every instrument he makes, due to the emotions he experiences.

In 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, the second decisive meeting followed for the craftsman from Lunca de Jos. He attended, in Ghimes-Faget rural town, a concert supported by great violinist Alexandru Tomescu, with the famous and valuable Stradivarius Elder-Voicu violin.

And, during the concert, fascinated by the sounds, by the way Alexandru Tomescu made the violin vibrate, by the elegance of the instrument, the idea of making the first violin of his life came to his mind.

He came home and, like any engineer, he thought that there must be some models to guide himself by, he looked on the Internet, he documented himself and even ordered a poster from Great Britain with a Stradivarius violin, which had the outline of the instrument on the back.

"Since 2020, from that poster and from that concert, the road to my first violin was very long. (...) It's much more complicated than the gorduna, but it inspires me and it's a kind of challenge to do better," confessed Lehel.

He finished the first violin in his life at the end of 2022, after two years in which he had several moments when he was not convinced that he would succeed. But now he is satisfied with the violin he made, even if he is aware of the mistakes, of the fact that the instrument is not perfect.

He wants Alexandru Tomescu, for whom he made a gorduna in 2020, to come to the workshop, to see the violin built after meeting him and says, with emotion, that it would be an honour for the great violinist to try to play with it. And he hopes that, until June, when Alexandru has scheduled a concert in the area, he will make another violin or even two.

"I think that for every luthier, for every craftsman who makes instruments, it is an honour to have such a renowned performer play his instrument," says the craftsman from Lunca de Jos.

The first violin was made for Iringo, his daughter, and he says that it is a great joy and emotion for the two children to come to the workshop and play instruments made by him.

"I feel honoured that the children come to the workshop and we can play with the instruments made by me. The girl on the violin, the boy on the horn, both instruments made by me. And they are my children and they sing here and it is a great joy. And I want to also mention the support given to me by my wife, without whom I wouldn't have done anything of this. She was the most important person who when I was down lifted me up and gave me inspiration. And she is the one who has extraordinary ideas and together we realize them," he says Hadnagy Lehel.

And because the gordunas were well made, and for one he even received the title of "exceptional craftsman," at a competition in Hungary, Lehel has orders until the end of the year and is grateful that now his passion has turned into a job.

The workshop of the craftsman from Lunca de Jos is also open to tourists, and Lehel welcomes them with open arms and talks to them in Romanian, Hungarian or English about this craft, lets them try to use the tools and hopes that some of them will inspire them, it touches their soul.

Last year, no less than 400 tourists from the country and abroad crossed his threshold.

He is also happy that his son enjoys working in the workshop, even if, for now, he only makes wooden cars, and he says that he tried to pass on the secrets of the craft to other people, because after a certain age, this is a moral duty.

"I am very satisfied and I also thank God that I ended up doing something like this. Because it gives me a lot of satisfaction," Lehel concludes the story of his late-discovered passion that changed his life.AGERPRES(RO - author: Gina Stefan, editor: Georgiana Tanasescu, EN - author: Cristina Zaharia)