Atelier

Ralf Netsch began studying recorder making in Marktneukirchen in the early 1980s and opened his own master atelier in Thüringen in 1991. His many clients around the world have since come to esteem his craftsmanship and æsthetic sense highly.

Not only does the wide variety of handmade Renaissance and Baroque instruments emerging from the workshop reflect Netsch's ongoing research into surviving historical models, his work also incorporates experienced performers' technical and musical feedback. He specializes in exact and in-the-spirit-of interpretations of original instruments by Bressan, Stanesby, Denner, or the fine, richly ornate alto Oberlender in the Grassi Museum, Leipzig. His fascination with extravagantly designed and decorated originals constantly pushes his technical skills to the utmost. Such craftsmanship requires exhaustive preparation of tools and materials. The implementation of unusually advanced period detail elicits extraordinary results.

The Netsch atelier appears regularly at instrument exhibitions in London, Vienna, Boston (BEMF), and elsewhere where instrument maker colleagues and top players gather. Netsch instruments are increasingly well represented in recordings and on the world's stages. He continues to tackle such stylistically and technically demanding projects as recreating an historic recorder consort preserved in the Schloßmuseum Quedlinburg and realizing a mirror copy of a newly discovered Oberlender alto.