2015 Dominik Wurth SP/IN

This 2015 Dominik Wurth is a classical guitar with a spruce top and Indian rosewood back and sides, built in his workshop in the Alpujarras near Granada, Spain, fitted with a 20th fret.

Built in the Alpujarras near Granada

Dominik names Torres as his greatest influence, and his guitars follow the basic Torres plan: seven fan struts in a domed top, with the two outer struts running through a tunneled lower cross bar below the soundhole. Among contemporary luthiers he looks above all to Daniel Friederich and Antonio Marín Montero, following them in giving the top a strong cross stiffness below the bridge - which lets him thin the top a little more, for a big sound without boomy basses and with warmer, more colorful trebles. Like Friederich he uses double sides for power and projection, but with a special technique of his own: the extra wood goes only where it brings an acoustic benefit, so the guitar stays light - very much in the Granada style.

A 20th Fret for Sueño en la Floresta

This guitar features a 20th fret for players who need that high C natural certain pieces in the repertoire require (most famously "Sueño en la Floresta" by Barrios). Easy to play, with immediate attack and a lively, full sound behind every note, this is overall a joy to play - fantastic in every regard.

Photos of this guitar taken during construction

Dominik Wurth: From the Black Forest to Granada

Dominik Wurth was born in 1982 in Ettenheim, near Freiburg, Germany, and spent his childhood in a small rural village at the foot of the Black Forest. He discovered the guitar in his early twenties, and soon wanted a better instrument than his beginner guitar - so he decided to build one. In those early years he learned with the aid of books and from Sascha Nowak of Freiburg, who taught him the traditional techniques of guitar making. In 2007 he enrolled at Zwickau University (Faculty of Applied Arts, Schneeberg), the world's only university offering the study of stringed-instrument making, graduating in 2012; along the way he also earned the German master title for plucked-instrument making.

A Gitarrenbaumeister in Bad Krozingen

Dominik then spent several years in the south of Spain, in a small village in the Alpujarras near Granada, where he interned with Andrés D. Marvi and then opened his own shop. He later moved back to Germany, where he builds guitars full time - today in Bad Krozingen, just south of Freiburg. GSI is his US dealer.