Gaspar Borchardt violin, 2004, Cremona ITALY

Gaspar Borchardt is a highly considered luthier. Born in Germany in 1961, he moved to Cremona in 1984 to attend the International School of Violin Making. His production is characterized by a remarkable attention towards details; Borchardt makes his instruments following the “classical Cremonese method”, but using his own forms. In 2015, Borchardt set out to find the same type of wood that Stradivari used: a flame maple from the Bosnian forests; 200-300 years old, straight with dense annual rings; felled in the winter, and in the proper lunar phase, when the tree is at its lightest. Not only do these specificities seem daunting, but traveling in Bosnia is highly dangerous due to the existence of land mines remaining from war in the 1990s. This incredible expedition was recorded in the documentary “The Quest for Tonewood.”