1 mins
MY SPACE
ALL PHOTOS MARTIN KRAUSE
LUTHIER
MARTIN KRAUSE
LOCATION Saarbrücken, Germany
This workshop has been based here in southwest Germany for almost 50 years. My mother and father met while studying in Mittenwald and then worked together at workshops in Amsterdam and Berlin, until one day they heard there was a great need for a violin workshop in Saarbrücken.
They came here in 1973 and started their own business.
Both of them are still working, but I took over the running of the workshop in 2011. Both my parents are still making new instruments, but since the start of the pandemic they’ve been working more from home while I’ve been keeping the workshop going. Six years ago I moved it to a new building, just a few streets from the old one; it was very overgrown and we had to work hard to turn it into our new workshop.
Saarbrücken is quite a musical region of Germany; there are two orchestras based here as well as a conservatoire, and we’re very close to the border with France and Luxembourg, so musicians from both countries can get here very easily. There used to be a radio orchestra in nearby Kaiserslautern as well, but around ten years ago it merged with the one in Saarbrücken, so musicians from both orchestras now regularly commute from one city to the other.
As well as crafting new violins and cellos, we make quite a lot of Baroque instruments. They’re bought by musicians from both orchestras, who have a great interest in 18th-century music, and we enjoy stretching ourselves by making more unusual models. On the right of the inset photo you can see a baryton and a violone.
Because three luthiers used to work here, the workshop is quite large – around 80 sq m. My main workbench is in the window, which is north-facing so the light is quite neutral. I usually do my varnishing in the morning light.
INTERVIEW BY CHRISTIAN LLOYD