2022 Dominik Wurth CD/IN

This 2022 Dominik Wurth is a classical guitar with a cedar top and Indian rosewood back and sides, built in Germany, voiced low for a dark, rich sound with excellent intonation.

Dominik Wurth's Influences

Of his work, Dominik cites Antonio de Torres as his greatest influence, and the first guitars he built for us followed 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. Other early influences included Daniel Friederich and Antonio Marín Montero. In recent years his style has become more personal, as a result of studying the instruments of other great makers of the past - Dominik visited GSI shortly after we acquired the Cleveland collection, to assess and evaluate a large number of fine instruments all at once.

Five Fans and a Solution for Wolf Notes

For this classical guitar, Dominik adjusted his earlier design: it has 5 fan braces instead of 7, which he feels gives a darker color in the trebles and lowers the air resonance very close to "F" - quite low. Such low body frequencies usually increase the effect of "wolf notes", but Dominik has developed a new technique to tune them to specific frequencies, minimizing or even removing them entirely. The guitar is indeed quite low, with a very rich bottom end and thick, meaty trebles, and keeps great balance up and down the registers - a long-standing challenge in guitar making that Dominik's new system handles beautifully.

Construction, Sound and Playability

The sides are built from three thin layers of wood, adding power to the whole guitar like double sides, but with less weight; since the first guitar he tried it on, Dominik has used this method on every guitar. A compensated nut and saddle give excellent intonation, especially in the lower registers, and slightly larger frets make it easier to play (less distance from string to fret) and allow spectacular glissandos. To us it has improved responsiveness in all registers and a bigger, more robust sound, with balance and excellent intonation - easy to play, with immediate attack, a lively, full sound and plenty of power to project in any concert environment. 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.