Item 02
Price: Upon Request
Any guitar created by Antonio de Torres is a historical and musical treasure and this guitar, once owned, concertized with and composed on by maestro Francisco Tárrega, is uniquely precious due to its impeccable provenance and its seminal maker.
This guitar was the third and last Torres owned by Tárrega and, according to his widow María Rizo, his favorite because of its excellent sonority and ideal string tension. Tárrega died in 1909 and the widow kept it until 1920 when it was sold to José de Jesús González for his daughter Margarita González García.
Tragically, Margarita died soon after the guitar arrived in Cuba and her grieving family put the guitar and its documentation in a closet where it stayed for 45 years until November 29, 1965 when the González family sold SE114 to Elias Barreiro, a well-regarded Cuban player. Those 45 years of nonuse surely are a key to the guitar’s survival. Barreiro immigrated to the United States and sold SE114 to the author in 2000.
The soundboard is made of two pieces of straight-grained European spruce with uniform grain spacing of 22 per inch. Their seam is tangent to the bass edge of the soundhole and the grain is at a 2-degree bias to the plantilla’s centerline. The grain bias, easily seen on the full front illustration, gives a false illusion of a slightly misaligned bridge and neck, but the alignment is correct and the grain bias was likely caused by Torres placing his plantilla template a bit askew on the soundboard planks when marking an outline.
The rosette appears simple at first glance but is actually complex and difficult to execute well, which Torres did perfectly. It has a central pattern of a walnut colored chain that is bounded inside and outside with solid and dotted rings of light and dark woods. The carved rosewood bridge has a mother-of-pearl disk set into each wing and its tie-block is topped with ivory. The soundboard edge purfling is six thin strips of wood colored to coordinate with the rings of the rosette.
The three-piece back and sides are Brazilian rosewood. The back’s book-matched outer sections are joined to a non-matching inner section with light-colored wood fillets in the seams. The upper bout of the bass side has burn marks near the neck from Tárrega’s ever-present cigarettes. Neck and head are cedar with the face of the head veneered with dark rosewood matching the bridge. Beautifully decorated Eon & Fils tuning machines are fitted and appear to be original; unusual for a guitar this old but probable since the mounting screw holes are unaltered, and feasible due to the above mentioned 45-year hiatus. These machines have ivory grips.
Talented guitarists have played SE114 and expressed their impressions. They have commented that the sound is warm, balanced, melodic and calm. Concert guitarist Rene Izquierdo felt that he could create a melting luscious sound that evokes the sensuality of Spanish music with its many tone colors, and that this guitar makes one understand how Tárrega’s music should be played. Some players expressed that SE114 inspired them to play better and were amazed by its easy playability.
SE114 needed repair when it was acquired for the collection. Maintenance tasks, large and small, had been deferred, probably because the instrument still played well. The guitar was taken to luthier Jeffrey R. Elliott in April 2001 for restoration and the scope of work was discussed. It was agreed that repairs are justifiable when they repair broken parts or joints, preserve, undo a modification to the builder’s original intent, improve previous repair work or restore playability. It was also agreed that the restored appearance should not look better than new and that correcting original imperfections should not be done. The restoration was completed in August 2002. Elliott kept a log, included on pages 21-23, to document his work for the guitar’s historical record.
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Guitar Dimension Key
