Wilhelm Bruckner 15 1/2” Viola

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In 1960 Wilhelm Brückner took over the violin making company, which had been founded in Erfurt in 1897 by his grandfather of the same name (also Wilhelm Brückner). Before Wilhelm Brückner the Elder (1874 to 1925 – from a traditional Vogtland violin making dynasty) settled in Erfurt, he had received training from the violin makers Giuseppe Fiorini and Alfred Stelzner, on which his descendants (now in the fifth generation) could build.

In 1972 he won the gold medal in Poland at the most prestigious and oldest violin making competition named after Henryk Wieniawski. In 1979 he was the first violin maker to be accepted into the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR, which above all brought easier travel to the West.