Gaspar Borchardt violin, 2000, Cremona, ITALY | Metzler Violins

soulful, warm, full

About the Instrument
This violin has a lovely depth of sound and resonance, particularly in the lower register. The instrument has a rich reddish-brown varnish over a wheat ground, bringing out the subtle fiddleback flames on its two-piece back and up along the ribs. Its bright purfling has bee-stings. This violin is splendidly antiqued.

Interior label reads: “Gaspar Borchardt / fece in Cremona / in Piazzo Duomo - Anno 2000.”
Length:  356 mm
Upper Bouts: 165 mm 
Middle: 113 mm
Lower Bouts: 203 mm

About the Maker
Gaspar Borchardt (1961- ) was born in Germany. In his early twenties, he moved to Cremona to study at the Scuola di Liuteria, working closely with Alessandro Crillovi and Francesco Bissolotti. Since 1990, Borchardt has worked with his wife Sibylle Fehr in their workshop in Cremona. Borchardt’s instruments adhere to the traditional Cremonese methods of construction employed since Stradivari while using his own cultivated patterns. Known for refined instruments and using excellent and long-seasoned tonewoods, Borchardt often tests his instruments’ sound when they are “white” (unvarnished), as it is still possible to complete some technical changes at that stage for better acoustics. In 2015, Borchardt strove to find the same wood types used in Stradivari’s shop: flame maples in the Bosnian forest, some two-to-three centuries old, and cut during the winter (when the tree is lightest). These efforts are in the documentary “The Quest for Tonewood,” which shows the many complications of Borchardt’s efforts, including the landmines still present throughout the Bosnian countryside after the war in the 1990s.