What It's Like to Restore the World's Most Expensive Violins

(Off-camera): So how long have you been working on violins? Becker: 46 years now, so it’s a little while. This is the workshop of a luthier. Becker: Yeah, a luthier, that’s kind of a funny name, isn’t it. It's actually like an old French word, I believe, for a lute maker. Becker: Not too many of them anymore. [Laughs] A luthier is someone who devotes their life to crafting and repairing stringed instruments. It’s a time-consuming endeavor… Becker: I would say that a restoration would generally start around 200 hours for a more simple one. And, you know, it could go 1,500 hours. Becker: So it's quite a dedication to someone else's instrument. Becker: We do the same level of work, whether it's a million dollar Amati from, you know, 1630 or a $100,000 modern Italian made in, in 1890. That $100,000 violin could be someone's family treasure. A hundred thousand and a million dollars may both sound like a lot of money to put toward a single instrument. And 1890 may not seem all that modern. But this workshop has seen some of the oldest—and most historically consequential—violins in the world. Ever heard of…Stradivari? Becker: When I was 23 years old, back in 1981, I worked on my first Strad. It was a famous Strad called the Adam Stradivari of 1714. It is a magnificent instrument. That was my first one. Luck just, you know, shined on me. Becker: So that’s the original label inserted by Stradivari. Becker: The instrument I find the most interesting are the Nicolò Amatis from right around 1630. Nicolò Amati came from a long line of expert luthiers…who all started dying from the plague around 1630. This made Amati the only major violin maker of the time. Becker: If it weren't for him, the violin as we know it wouldn't exist. Without Amati’s teachings, traditional ways of violin making could have been lost forever. Instead, today’s woodworkers use some of the same tools that Amati and Stradivari used. Becker: This is a very old pair of dividers that, and this is its more modern equivalent. Back in Stradivari’s time, they had very much the same thing. Becker: There is a certain level of satisfaction of bringing it back to a really, really, really nice jewel of an instrument that some musician will cherish for the rest of their life. Becker: Restoration is a complicated job and there are many different levels, since you got deterioration, cracks, deformation. Becker: All violins have their own personal voice. We try to bring out the potential of that voice and maximize it so that the player can bring it out even more.