2016 Dominik Wurth SP/IN

This 2016 Dominik Wurth is a classical guitar with a spruce top and Indian rosewood back and sides, built in Germany, on the seven-fan Torres plan with partial double sides.

The Torres Plan, Friederich and Marín

Of his work, Dominik cites Antonio de Torres as his greatest influence, and indeed his guitars are built on the basic Torres plan - seven fan struts in a domed top and a tunneled lower cross bar (below the soundhole) through which the two outer struts run. But he is also influenced by several contemporary luthiers, most notably Daniel Friederich and Antonio Marín Montero. He follows these two makers in achieving a strong cross stiffness to the top below the bridge, which allows him to thin his tops a bit more - a system that achieves a big sound without boomy basses and increases the warmth and color palette of the trebles. Also like Friederich, his guitars feature double sides, which Dominik finds effective in achieving more power and better projection; to avoid much of the added weight of typical double-sided guitars, he uses a special technique, adding wood only in the areas where the acoustic benefit is achieved - keeping the instrument light, one of the hallmark qualities of the Granada style.

It plays easy, has immediate attack with a lively, full sound behind it and is just overall a joy to play. Fantastic instrument in every regard.

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.