José Romanillos "La Amistad", 2005

Of the four guitars at the heart of Medio Siglo, La Amistad is the one José Romanillos dedicated to his students. He built it between 2001 and 2005, during the years he taught his summer guitar making courses in Spain, mainly in Córdoba and Sigüenza, and dated the label 2005. He named it La Amistad, Spanish for friendship, in honor of those courses and the warm atmosphere he and Marian created there, which many of the young makers who attended remember as a unique, life-changing experience. The course participants signed the inside of the back, alongside the master's own signature.

It is one of the four instruments celebrated in Antigoni Goni's documentary and recording Medio Siglo, which brings together the last four guitars Romanillos created, each tied to a moment in the lives of José and his wife, Marian. In the film, Goni describes La Amistad as a guitar that captures exactly the atmosphere José and Marian created in those workshops, and the way Romanillos taught: treating every student as an equal, and making each one feel capable of producing a masterpiece.

Spruce over cypress, French polished and feather light at 1,330 grams, it has no cracks and no repairs and has had a single owner since leaving the Romanillos family. It is one of our personal favorite Romanillos guitars we have ever played, and certainly one of the most collectible Romanillos guitars in the world.

Medio Siglo

Medio Siglo, Spanish for half a century, is guitarist Antigoni Goni's tribute to Romanillos: a documentary film and a limited edition recording that bring together, for the first time, the last four guitars he created. Each one is tied to a personal event in the lives of José and Marian. La Medio Siglo, which gives the project its name, was built with Marian to mark fifty years of marriage, and Romanillos considered it the finest guitar he ever made. La Rosa was made in memory of his younger sister. Marian, in cypress, was built as his own personal instrument and dedicated to his wife. La Amistad is the fourth, the guitar of friendship.

Goni, a friend of José and Marian for more than three decades, first imagined the project as a birthday celebration for Romanillos, and he was part of its planning until his death in February 2022. At Marian's urging, it went ahead as a tribute. Filmed in Spain between 2022 and 2023, it features Goni playing all four guitars, solo and in duo and trio with Luca Isolani and Maarten Vandenbemden as the Volterra Project Trio, in music by Tárrega, Llobet, and Granados, recorded by engineer John Taylor.

On the album, Goni plays La Amistad in Pavana and El testament de n'Amelia, and Maarten Vandenbemden takes it up for two of the Danzas españolas and the Valses poéticos.

Sound

From the first chord, La Amistad speaks with a delightful combination of punch and a forward, projecting sound, with a brightness and quickness of response that come naturally from its spruce and cypress. It is a rich sounding guitar, and its brightness is never shrill. Instead it offers remarkable clarity and an immediate response that rewards a player who leans into it, and under a sensitive right hand it gives up that sweet, classic Spanish sound while keeping all of its clarity.

The first string glows, warm and resonant, with high overtones that leave a shimmer in the air, and it is backed by beautiful, deep basses. The second string has a purity of fundamental that is rare: an exceptionally clean, true fundamental tone, with little excess sympathetic ringing to cloud it. Left open, the other strings answer with a gentle chorus of sympathetic vibrations. That clean fundamental gives the player maximum control, making it easy to bring out a single melodic note within a chord. The inner voices stay audible throughout, and the basses are powerful and responsive, like stepping on the gas. The main air resonance sits at G, yet in low position chords the guitar seems to resonate lower still, with real power and punch. Tuned down to drop D, the balance is simply incredible.

In the film, Goni singles out the same qualities that struck us: a beautiful voice, very clear and very well balanced. Where does a sound like this come from? Perhaps the cypress, the wood Romanillos favored most personally. Perhaps the blend of Santos, Torres, and Hauser he brought to it. Or perhaps it is simply what happens when a master builds a guitar in honor of friendship.

The great Catalan guitarist Carles Trepat has also recorded on La Amistad, and his recording is a beautiful portrait of everything this guitar can do.

Playability

La Amistad is a very easy guitar to play. The action is set low, 4 mm on the sixth string and 3 mm on the first at the twelfth fret, and the neck is a thin C shape, much like a Hauser II neck. The 53.5 mm nut is slightly wider than typical, and with the slimmer C-shaped neck it feels comfortable and familiar in the left hand. At just 1,330 grams the guitar is a feather in the lap, yet it sounds like a guitar twice its weight. Goni remarks in the film that La Amistad is much easier to play than most of Romanillos' instruments, and the guitar bears that out: it asks for nothing but music.

La Amistad is Romanillos' tribute to the friendships formed at his courses, and it carries their mark. The label reads La Amistad across the top, with José Romanillos' signature, the year 2005, and a second signature of his at the lower right. That second signature points to what lies inside: look in through the soundhole and the signatures of the course participants line the inside of the back, beside the signature of the master himself.

The rosette is unlike any other Romanillos design: diagonally set light squares, each carrying a small cross motif, inlaid into a dark ground so that the tiles form a second square turned on its point. It is simpler than the ornate rosettes found on most of his guitars, and Marian Romanillos told Antigoni Goni that this too is tied to the courses, where there was never time to teach the students the intricate, ornamented rosettes he usually made.

In the film, one of Romanillos' longtime students and assistants describes the guitar as a blend of the many traditions he had studied over a lifetime: a little of Santos Hernández, a little of Torres, a little of Hauser, and yet unmistakably a Romanillos in every respect.

The top is a two-piece spruce (Picea excelsa) soundboard, its halves unmatched but cut from the same tree, with a medium grain that widens slightly toward the edges and a prominent curly flame running across the grain. Beneath it is a seven-strut fan bracing pattern. Romanillos took particular care with the finishes on his last four guitars, and the French polish here is fine and restrained rather than glossy. At the bridge, an 18-hole tie block carries a beautifully ornate inlay; with the strings passing through the holes rather than wrapping over the top, the tie block stays clean and symmetrical. The saddle leaves plenty of room for adjustment.

The back is two book-matched pieces of cypress divided by a simple center strip, its grain moving irregularly around a branch in the middle bout, framed by the finely detailed purflings Romanillos is known for. A small heel cap comes to a triangular point against the rounded heel. Cypress was a wood Romanillos held especially dear; Marian, the guitar he finally built as his own personal instrument, is cypress as well.

The neck is Spanish cedar, joined to the head with a traditional V-joint. The head is the classic Romanillos outline, recognizable from across the room, veneered in rosewood with a center inlay strip and fitted with tuners with white rollers and black buttons, their plates carrying a lovely patina. The guitar is built on a 650 mm scale with a 53.5 mm nut.

Specifications

Year: 2005 (built 2001 to 2005, label dated 2005)
Name: La Amistad
Top: Spruce ( Picea excelsa ), two-piece, curly flame figure
Back & Sides: Cypress, two-piece book-matched back
Neck: Spanish cedar, V-joint, thin C-shaped profile
Headplate: Rosewood veneer with center strip
Rosette: Diagonal light squares with cross motif on a dark ground
Bracing: Seven-strut fan
Bridge: 18-hole tie block with ornate inlay
Finish: French polish
Action: 4 mm bass / 3 mm treble at the 12th fret
Tuners: White rollers, black buttons
Dedication: To the participants of Romanillos' summer guitar making courses
Signatures: José Romanillos and the course participants, inside the back
Featured In: Medio Siglo, documentary and recording by Antigoni Goni
Ownership: One owner since leaving the Romanillos family

José Luis Romanillos is one of the most influential Spanish guitar makers of the twentieth century, celebrated not only for the breathtaking quality of his guitars but for his lasting influence on modern guitar making. Through his craft, his books, and his workshops, he shaped generations of luthiers. His instruments have been played by some of the most prominent guitarists in history, most famously Julian Bream, who recorded and performed on Romanillos' guitars for much of his illustrious career.

Born in Madrid in 1932, Romanillos trained as a cabinet maker, a title he was proud to correct people on, and began building guitars in England on his kitchen table, guided by a book by A.P. Sharpe borrowed from the local library. It was from his workshop in Semley, in rural England, that his reputation spread around the world.

He was equally important as a historian. Years of research in Spanish archives, much of it alongside Marian, produced his landmark 1987 book on Antonio de Torres, and what he learned from examining the great Spanish guitars flowed back into his own instruments. His lifelong search was for what he called the Spanish sound: a deep, fundamental bass register that supports the music, with the middle and treble built up on that foundation, the sound he heard in the great guitars from Torres to Manuel Ramírez and Santos Hernández.

After returning to Spain, José and Marian settled near Sigüenza, in the province of Guadalajara, where he continued to build and research and held the summer guitar making courses, in Sigüenza and Córdoba, that inspired La Amistad. Every summer he shared everything he knew about guitar building with the next generation, and many luthiers left those workshops with a whole new perspective on life and on their craft. His students remember a teacher who treated everyone as an equal and held nothing back. Romanillos died in Sigüenza on February 12, 2022, at the age of 89.

Mint. No cracks and no repairs, with only a few light nail impressions on the top. La Amistad has had a single owner since leaving the Romanillos family and has been kept with great care in a climate controlled private collection.