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View into a library of woods

2023-06-09T13:32:54.329Z

Highlights: A hiking group of the Jetzendorf Greens visited Andreas Pahler's company Alpentonholz in Altomünster, Bavaria. The company has become an internationally sought-after supplier of tonewood. The spruces come from sites over a thousand meters above sea level in mixed mountain forests in Bavaria, Tyrol and South Tyrol. The maple trunks from Bosnia are better suited for stringed instruments than the tree species native to the area.



Surrounded by many people thirsty for knowledge, Andreas Pahler (middle with a red T-shirt) explains everything related to his profession in the wood warehouse. © east

A hike of a special kind brought the open hiking group of the Jetzendorf Greens to Altomünster. Here, the 23 participants were not only interested in the beautiful area but also in Andreas Pahler's company Alpentonholz.

Jetzendorf/Altomünster – "Please close the door well", with these words an employee of Pahler welcomed the hiking group of the Greens, who stormed the sawmill in the Altomünster industrial park expectantly. The employee explains: "Once it's in, the woodworm, it's in". The fact that "woodworm" is an unscientific generic term for wood-eating insects of all kinds is just one of a multitude of things that visitors learned. It quickly becomes clear which treasures need to be protected in the hall in the industrial park: The hikers followed the explanations of Andreas Pahler, the founder and head of the company. As a trained violin maker and forest scientist, he expertly explained all the steps, from the selection of woods suitable for instrument making to the finished instrument.

There was a huge spruce trunk and an equally huge maple trunk to marvel at, which had only been delivered the day before and were kept well moist outside with a spraying system. The spruces come from sites over a thousand meters above sea level in mixed mountain forests in Bavaria, Tyrol and South Tyrol, the maple trunks from Bosnia. "Because that's the only place where we can get the quality we need," Pahler emphasized.

The 23 visitors were also presented with the huge circular saw with which the wood is cut into boards, the splitting into pieces of cake (for two-part violin bases) and the recording of the templates. Under the canopy behind the hall, the boards hang to dry before they move to the wood store on the first floor.

Wood storage looks like a huge library

There you imagine yourself in a huge library. The woods are stored row by row, shelf by shelf, carefully marked according to their origin and sorted according to quality. "The tonewood becomes really good after ten years," explains Pahler. Some luthiers buy it after three or four years and let it mature at home.

The fact that humble, almost experimental beginnings in the shed of his parents' house in Westerholzhausen have now become an internationally sought-after supplier of tonewood becomes clear when Andreas Pahler tells us that a violin maker from New York sometimes calls when a very specific particle is sought for repair for one of Anne-Sophie Mutter's violins. Or that in the last few days two violin makers from China have been in the company to buy material for the next few years. Pahler also has customers in the USA, Australia and Japan, as the European woods are better suited for stringed instruments than the tree species native there.

Finally, Pahler revealed a curiosity: the Munich violin maker Franz Fuchs had extracted wood for instrument making from the roof of Munich's Frauenkirche, which collapsed during the war. "And somehow a box with this 15th-century wood ended up with me," says Pahler and laughs. At the end, he answered all the questions from the group.

Finally, the interested people from Jetzendorf and the surrounding area stopped at the Kapplerbräu, where the two Chinese violin makers also gave their credit to Bavarian beer. JOSEF OSTERMAIR

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2023-06-09

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