Lorenz Duftschmid is an Austrian viol

Viol

The viol is any one of a family of bowed, fretted and stringed musical instruments developed in the mid-late 15th century and used primarily in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The family is related to and descends primarily from the Renaissance vihuela, a plucked instrument that preceded the...

 player and conductor.

Biography

Born to a musical family, Duftschmid began studying music in an early age, and enjoyed the opportunity to learn from the great masters of the viol, such as Jordi Savall

Jordi Savall

Jordi Savall i Bernadet is a Catalan viol player, conductor and composer. He has been one of the major figures in the field of Western early music since the 1970s, largely responsible for bringing the viol back to life on the stage...

. He studied at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis

Schola Cantorum Basiliensis

Schola Cantorum Basiliensis is a music academy and research institution located in Basel, Switzerland, and focusing on early music and historically informed performance....

 in Basel

Basel

Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

, Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

.

Duftschmid is the director of the ensemble Armonico Tributo Austria, besides his solo career as a gamba player. He is also a member of Jordi Savall's ensembles Hesperion XX and La Capella Reial de Catalunya

La Capella Reial de Catalunya

La Capella Reial de Catalunya was created in Barcelona in 1987 by its conductor Jordi Savall as a group of soloist singers whose aim is to make the repertoire of Catalan historical music and, by extension, that of Spanish and other music widely known throughout the world...

.

Duftschmid is an expert in the field of Baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

 music, and excels in the performance of Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 and early Classical

Classical period (music)

The dates of the Classical Period in Western music are generally accepted as being between about 1750 and 1830. However, the term classical music is used colloquially to describe a variety of Western musical styles from the ninth century to the present, and especially from the sixteenth or...

 repertory as well.

Instruments

Duftschmid owns and plays on the following viols:

• Gasparo da Salo (ca. 1580)
• Jakobus Stainer
  Jacob Stainer
  Jacob Stainer was the earliest and best known Austrian luthier.Stainer was born in Absam, Austria. His designs influenced instrument construction in Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, parts of Italy, and several other countries....
  
   (Absam-Tirol, 1679)
• Nicolas Bertrand (Paris
  Paris
  Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
  
  , 1699)
• Antony Stephan Posch (Vienna
  Vienna
  Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
  
  , 1717)

Discography

Duftschmid took part in more than 70 recordings. To mention some of the prominent releases:

• Johannes Schenck
  Johannes Schenck
  Johannes Schenck was a Dutch musician and composer.Schenck was born in Amsterdam in 1660 where he was baptised on 3 June into the Reformed Church...
  
  : Les Fantaisies bisarres de la Goutte (CPO
  Classic Produktion Osnabrück
  Classic Produktion Osnabrück is a record label founded in 1986 by Georg Ortmann and several others. Its declared mission is to fill niches in the recorded classical repertory, with an emphasis on romantic, late romantic and 20th-century music...
  
  )
• Georg Muffat
  Georg Muffat
  -Life:He was born in Megève, Savoy, , and of Scottish descent. He studied in Paris with Jean Baptiste Lully between 1663 and 1669, then became an organist in Molsheim and Sélestat. Later, he studied law in Ingolstadt, afterwards settling in Vienna...
  
  : Nobilis Juventus (CPO)
• Marin Marais
  Marin Marais
  Marin Marais was a French composer and viol player. He studied composition with Jean-Baptiste Lully, often conducting his operas, and with master of the bass viol Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe for 6 months. He was hired as a musician in 1676 to the royal court of Versailles...
  
  : Pieces de Caractère (CPO)
• Johann Joseph Fux: Concentus Musico-Instrumentalis, Vol. 1 (Arcana)
• Johann Heinrich Schmelzer
  Johann Heinrich Schmelzer
  Johann Heinrich Schmelzer was an Austrian composer and violinist of the Baroque era. Almost nothing is known about his early years, but he seems to have arrived in Vienna during the 1630s, and remained composer and musician at the Habsburg court for the rest of his life...
  
  : La Margarita (Arcana)
• Telemann: Viola di Gamba (Arcana)