Johannes Kitselis, 2025

This 2025 Johannes Kitselis No. 89 arrives wearing a master grade set of Madagascar rosewood, the finest back and sides Johannes offers. Double tops are rarely praised for sounding like wood. This one is.

Many modern double tops are ultralight and punchy, built first for volume and immediacy. No. 89 takes a different path. This is a double top for the player who wants a rich, creamy, overtone-laden voice with a natural wooden character, the gentle bloom of a traditional guitar, and sustain that is clearly a top priority of the design.

The first Kitselis built for GuitarCollection.com, No. 94, a spruce double top with Indian rosewood, stayed with us for about two or three days before it found its owner. No. 89 is only five numbers away from that guitar and shares its open, naturally woody voice.

There is a beautiful reveal waiting when you turn this guitar around, but you may not get to it right away, because the sound takes hold first. Even at rest the guitar feels active and responsive, ready to be played. We are proud to be the exclusive USA dealer for Kitselis guitars, and this is exactly the kind of instrument that made us want to represent him. They do not come up for sale often, and we suspect that is because the players who buy them hang on to them.

What is most refreshing about Johannes's guitars, and this one especially, is the woody nature of the sound. This is a Nomex double top, yet it has a very open, relaxed, and naturally wooden voice that is charming in a way modern double tops often are not. There is woodiness, breathiness, and a fine sparkle on top, perhaps the spruce making itself heard, along with plenty of clarity for this style of double top. If you tend to avoid double tops because they can sound sharp, harsh, or too quick in the attack, so that the instrument feels different from a traditional guitar under the hands, this may be the double top that changes your mind. The sound is natural first and powerful second.

The response is true to a natural, organic, traditional guitar. Notes do not leap off the string in an aggressive way. They bloom gently into a sea of overtones. The first and second strings carry a beautiful high overtone sparkle. The third is sweet and fat, and rewards a very gentle touch. The fourth has no shortage of punch, and the fifth allows an unusual amount of vibrato. The basses are chunky and medium in weight, with tons of sustain underneath. This is a guitar that grants the player all the freedom they need.

Sustain is one of the great strengths of No. 89, and it may be one of the benefits of a build that is not chasing ultralight weight. Like No. 94, this is a very overtone rich guitar. Notes develop rather than simply decay, and there are no dead spots in the sustain anywhere on the neck. Play something long and exposed, like the Preludio from Barrios's La Catedral, and you feel very secure, because the guitar carries every note for you. The body is so alive that on certain notes the player can feel it resonating against the right arm. The sound port returns a slightly more airy, wooden picture of the sound to the player, and the main air resonance sits at G.

The neck is C shaped and rounded, not too thick and not too thin, a profile most players will be a big fan of, with tall, wide frets. Action at the 12th fret measures 3.75 mm on the sixth string and 2.75 mm on the first, nice and low, and the guitar feels very good on the fingers. A compensated nut keeps the third string well in tune, a raised fingerboard makes the upper frets easy to reach, and a small integrated armrest rounds out the ergonomics. At 1,740 g it is not the lightest double top in the world, but ultralight weight is not what Johannes is going for, and that extra mass is reflected in the sound.

The top is a spruce double top with a cedar inner layer over a Nomex core, built from extremely thin layers that are vacuum glued in stages. Makers who pair the two woods this way often say the voice carries something of both. Underneath is a bracing pattern that is very much Johannes's own: three fan braces running roughly parallel to the grain, two of them spruce and one cedar, plus two diagonal cedar braces, one running counter to the usual fan direction on the treble side and the other angled across the bass side. Kitselis mixes spruce and cedar in his bracing intuitively, choosing each material for where he wants stiffness or lightness, and he gives each guitar its own bracing pattern. It is an unusual layout on paper, yet the guitar itself is remarkably even across its range.

Johannes rotates his rosettes from guitar to guitar. This one is small and elegant, in red, dark brown, and pale white with a small central motif, and a colorful red, black, and brown pattern on the inner and outer rings. The same motif is picked up on the tie block. Inside, the label carries a colorful tree whose tones echo the rosette, along with Johannes's signature, the number 89, the year 2025, and a small DT at the lower left for double top. On the headstock a wheat style motif in red and a lighter tone runs down the center, and the back of the neck carries a dark veneer as an accent.

The armrest is the kind we like best: small, seamlessly integrated, invisible from fifteen feet away, and useful in practice. It keeps the forearm off the top, where it could dampen the sound or wear the French polish over time. The sound port sits in the upper bout facing the player and is medium in size, neither the smallest nor the largest we have seen.

The back and sides are the headline. This is a master grade set of Madagascar rosewood, the best Johannes offers, with a striking band of sapwood down the center of the back and beautiful color and figure throughout. It has a deep reddish glow, a dark red-brown that calls to mind the rose stone of Petra. Tuning is handled by Alessi machines, among the finest made in Italy, on square base plates with ebony buttons and ebony rollers.

Specifications

Label: No. 89, signed, marked DT (double top)

Top: Spruce double top with cedar inner layer, Nomex core

Back & Sides: Master grade Madagascar Rosewood

Bracing: Three fan braces (two spruce, one cedar) with two diagonal cedar braces

Finish: French polish

Nut: Compensated

Action: 3.75mm bass, 2.75mm treble at the 12th fret

Fingerboard: Raised

Appointments: Integrated armrest, sound port

Johannes Kitselis built his first guitar at fifteen, in 1984, and has been refining his craft ever since. His early development was shaped by woodworking mentorship from Edvin Täubert, and a 2009 encounter with the Greek luthier Giannis Paleodimopoulos proved formative. After years of experimentation he established his professional workshop in 2007 in Ängelsberg, Sweden, about 150 kilometers from Stockholm. His instruments are now played across Europe, the United States, and Asia.

Kitselis works within the Spanish tradition while incorporating his own innovations. His signature is individual bracing patterns that make each guitar distinct. Alongside his double tops he builds traditional instruments, an Atmos Concert model, a seven string, and Stauffer style guitars. His double top construction uses extremely thin layers vacuum glued in stages over mixed spruce and cedar bracing, with each material chosen intuitively for stiffness or lightness, and modern enhancements such as raised fingerboards, sound ports, and integrated armrests are executed with restraint.

In 2017 his Guitar No. 37 won First Prize at the International Classical Guitar Festival in St. Petersburg, judged blind on playability and craftsmanship. GuitarCollection.com is the exclusive USA dealer for Kitselis guitars.

Near mint, presenting practically as new. The top is flawless. Looking closely, the Madagascar rosewood back shows a couple of very light scratches from play, and there is no wear to the French polish. Overall this is an outstanding example that has barely been played.