2017 Dominik Wurth "Torres" SP/CY

This 2017 Dominik Wurth "Torres" is a classical guitar with a spruce top and cypress back and sides, built in Germany, the first Torres model he made for GSI.

Dominik Wurth's Full-Sized Torres Model

Although he has built many "Torres" models (the first guitar he showed us was one of his maple Torres models, based on FE 17), this one was also inspired by the feel and response of a Santos Hernández he saw during a visit to GSI the previous year. Even so, Dominik cites Antonio de Torres as his greatest influence, and the structural dimensions and internal details follow the larger Torres guitars from both epochs. He has experimented with a tornavoz in this model, but feels it fits better in smaller-bodied guitars, so it was left out of this one.

Light, Dry and Woody

Despite being a "full-sized" Torres, it is very lightweight and has the tonal characteristics of older, vintage guitars - a dry, woody, textured quality of sound to every note, with the haunting old-world "pulsation" effect, felt by the player primarily through the movement of the back as the guitar vibrates in every register. This is an incredibly charming guitar with plenty of volume for any concert setting, yet with the indescribably intimate quality of sound found in the old Spanish masters. With it, Dominik has shown his ability to build in a variety of styles - it is unlike anything we've had of his in the past, and an incredibly successful tribute to Antonio de Torres.

Photos of this guitar being built

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.