Bernhard Ritschard

Bernhard Ritschard was born in Switzerland and initially worked in architecture. In 1995, he decided to move to Cremona to train as a violin maker. After successfully completing his training, he worked in Italy, Switzerland and France. In 2003, he opened his own workshop near Cremona. It was there that he decided to dedicate himself entirely to historically informed performance practice. In 2005, he moved his workshop to Germany, and in December 2006, the workshop was established in its current form in Herrnburg near Lübeck.

The focus in workshop is on the production of instruments and bows for the historically informed performance practice.

Bernhard Ritschard’s work is about creating instruments and bows that are precisely tailored to the repertoire of that period. This allows musicians to concentrate fully on the music without having to worry too much about technical difficulties. Ideally, the bow and instrument do much of the work themselves – creating more space for the music itself.

To achieve this, not only instruments and bows in museums are consulted, but also paintings and texts from the time of the respective repertoire.

Besides reconstructing historical models, Berhard Ritschard likes to create originals: instruments and bows in the spirit of the old masters, designed and built using historical methods. Originals, not copies. But still historically informed.