We knew the market.
That is exactly why we left it.

mezzo-forte is a workshop for carbon fiber string instruments, developed and built in Werther, Westphalia, Germany. It grew out of years inside the trade, a clear view of how little was moving, and a decision to change something ourselves.

If you know a market, you know what it is missing.

We did not look at string instruments from the outside. We spent years inside the trade, as importers, finishers and dealers in high quality wooden instruments. We went to the trade fairs, met the makers, built the ranges, advised the players.

And year after year we saw the same thing: the same faces, the same products, the same arguments. A market that had not moved in its fundamental principles for centuries, and showed no intention of doing so.

Standing still is not a mark of quality. It is a sign that nobody is asking the right questions.

In 2009 we started asking them. Not as academics, not as outsiders, but as people who knew the market inside out and understood exactly what it could not deliver.

• 2002Founded in Werther, Westphalia. Import, finishing and distribution of high quality wooden string instruments.
• 2009Development of carbon fiber string instruments begins. The question: what becomes possible if you rethink a string instrument without the constraints of wood?
• 2011First instruments reach the market. Behind them lie two years of development by trial and error, for the violin alone.
• 2015German Musical Instrument Award, the first carbon instrument in the history of the competition to receive it. Assessed by an independent jury. Assessed blind.
• 2021Joint research project with two companies and two university institutes. Around 200 different violin tops are built, measured physically and compared.
• 2023Second generation of the violin, based on those measurements. Twelve years after the first instrument, starting over again.
• 2026Relaunch on 1 September. New line names mf | pure, mf | core, mf | solo and mf | atelier, new pricing structure, new brand presence.
• todayTwelve people in Werther. Four product lines. Instruments in over 50 countries. And still wooden instruments at streicherwelt.de, because we know what makes a good instrument, whatever it is made of.

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Twelve people. One conviction.

Twelve people work in our workshop in Werther: instrument makers, engineers, technicians, commercial staff. What connects them is not a job title but an attitude. Everyone here has chosen to care deeply about what they do.

You do not build carbon fiber string instruments in Westphalia because it is the easy path. You build them because you cannot stop trying to make them better. Because every instrument that leaves the workshop is the sum of real knowledge, real experience and real care.

No instrument leaves our workshop without having passed through hands that understand what a professional musician needs.

We have invested substantially in our production infrastructure over recent years: CNC milling, spray booth, curing chamber, blasting cabinet, precision tooling. Not to work faster, but because craftsmanship that takes itself seriously needs the right tools.

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Every step in our own hands.

Our instruments are built entirely in Werther, from the first layer of carbon fiber to the final play test. Every stage stays with us: cutting, vacuum infusion, lacquering, assembly, setup.

That is not the norm in this industry. For us it is the condition that allows us to stand behind every single instrument we make.

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Why carbon. And why like this.

We did not leave wooden instruments behind because they are poor. We know their qualities better than most. We left them because wood cannot meet certain demands structurally, and because players feel that every day.

Carbon fiber is climate stable and exceptionally resonant. A material that until a few decades ago was used almost exclusively in aerospace and motorsport. We developed it for the concert hall. Not as a substitute for wood, but as a distinct answer to demands wood was never made for.

Warm, brilliant and powerful in tone. Indestructible on tour.

That is not a slogan. It is the verdict of professionals who use their instruments daily on stage and in rehearsal, under conditions that push traditional instruments to their limits.

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Development does not stop here.

The violin is the hardest instrument in the family. It has the widest frequency range and has to deliver a tonal spectrum from warm to brilliant at the same time. A material optimized for one of those qualities loses the other. Achieving both together was the real work, and it took two years.

In 2021 we did it again. A joint project with two companies and two university institutes produced around 200 different violin tops, which were measured physically and compared. The best one went into the successor model of 2023.

Starting over twelve years after the first instrument, while that first model is selling and carries an award, is not something you do for marketing reasons. You do it because you want to know whether it can be done better.

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Award winning sound, independently and blindly assessed.

In 2015 mezzo-forte won the German Musical Instrument Award, as the first carbon instrument in the history of the competition. An independent jury of experts, professional musicians and acoustics specialists assessed the instruments blind: no maker, no material, no expectation.

The result was unambiguous.

This is not a design award and not an innovation prize for a new material. It is a judgement on sound, made by people whose profession is to judge sound. Not our own claim, but the decision of those with no stake in the outcome.

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Four lines. One standard.

mezzo-forte builds instruments for a full range of requirements, from a reduced entry point to acoustically selected instruments for solo work. Every line is built in Werther, to the same standards, from the same materials.

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What we believe.

We do not believe carbon is better wood. We still sell wooden instruments at streicherwelt.de, to players looking for exactly that. We know what makes a good instrument.

And we know what the market has failed to deliver for decades. mezzo-forte is our answer to that.

Developed and built in Werther, Westphalia, Germany.
Played by professionals in over 50 countries.