Julian Gomez Ramirez, 1930

Every so often a guitar comes along that hides everything it can do until the moment you actually play it. This 1930 Julian Gomez Ramirez is exactly that instrument. Pick it up and it feels almost unassuming, fairly small and remarkably lightweight, the kind of guitar you might underestimate before a single note sounds. Then you play it, and it completely rewrites your expectations.

This is a player's guitar in the purest sense, an instrument with no bells and whistles that simply wants to be played. Gomez Ramirez built some fancier guitars in his time, but plainer ones like this were often the most desired by players, because he was building for musicians who did not have much money yet wanted a truly excellent instrument. That is precisely what he built here, and nearly a hundred years later it may be one of the most exciting guitars from this period we have had the pleasure of playing.

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Specifications

Luthier: Julian Gomez Ramirez
Year: 1930
Top: Spruce
Back & Sides: Brazilian Rosewood
Construction: Traditional, seven fan bracing
Scale Length: 650 mm
Nut Width: 51 mm
Action: 3.5 mm bass, 2.5 mm treble
Frets: Recently refretted by a specialist in this period
Air Resonance: Just under "A"
Weight: 1,345 g
Tuners: Original Fustero
Strings: D'Addario XTC45FF with normal tension nylon first string
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Condition: Excellent for its age, top with no cracks or repairs and one stable repaired crack on the back

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Sound

Play the first notes on this guitar and it is as alive as ever, and it is extremely powerful. When we first tuned it up, we found ourselves reaching for the other traditional, double top, and lattice guitars in the room just to check whether this one was actually louder. It was. The sixth string in particular lands like a sack of bricks thrown through drywall, all boom and authority the moment you hit it.

It is an unbelievably open sound, one that recalls those lightweight Spanish instruments by makers like Domingo Esteso and Arcángel Fernández that seem to explode when you play a note. The trebles are every bit as special as the basses. They have a very quick response, a beautiful fundamental, and a soul that blooms out of the guitar in the way we associate with the very best Robert Bouchet and Daniel Friederich guitars, where the notes simply leap out of the instrument. If you like to play rasgueados, this guitar handles them in excellent fashion. However you come at it, and whatever your experience with these instruments, you are going to be impressed.

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Playability

For all of that power, the guitar is astonishingly easy to play. The neck is extremely comfortable, and the action feels very low even when you drive the instrument hard, set at 3.5 mm on the sixth string and 2.5 mm on the first. It has been refretted by an expert who specializes in instruments of this period. This may be one of the easiest guitars to play we have ever picked up, and certainly one of the most projecting and responsive traditional guitars of its era.

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Construction & Design

Beneath the spruce top is a seven fan bracing design. The rosette is very simple, a set of concentric rings that recalls the early rosettes of the Parisian and Mirecourt makers such as René Lacôte. That same understated taste carries across the whole guitar. The bridge has a simple tie block accented with two beautiful wood strips running down it, a classy little touch, and a tasteful purfling frames the body in matching colors.

The back and sides are a fine set of Brazilian rosewood, now nearly a hundred years old, with figuring that flatters the eye far more than any flashy inlay work could. Up top sits the classic Julian Gomez Ramirez headstock, still wearing what we believe to be its original tuners. At just 1,345 grams, this is a genuinely lightweight instrument, and that lightness is a big part of why it responds and projects the way it does.

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About the Luthier

Julian Gomez Ramirez was born in Madrid in 1879 and died in Paris in 1943. Around the age of thirteen he was apprenticing with the Madrid luthier Agustín Andrés, who would later also work in Paris. By about 1910 Gomez Ramirez was working for José Ramírez I, and although they shared a surname the two were not related. It is also said that he worked for Manuel Ramírez, the maker of one of Andrés Segovia's most famous guitars.

One of the first luthiers of Spanish descent to settle and practice in France, Gomez Ramirez is considered, alongside his countryman Agustín Andrés, an initiator of the Spanish guitar in France. His work met with great success, and his clients included such prestigious names as Ida Presti and Alexandre Lagoya. His guitars are marked by a great sobriety, standing apart from the flashy, mother of pearl laden decoration fashionable in his day, with refinement expressed instead through simple concentric rosettes and beautifully chosen woods.

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Historical Context

Though born in Madrid, Gomez Ramirez is largely responsible, along with Agustín Andrés, for inspiring the French school of lutherie. His guitars brought the influence of the Madrid school into Paris, in direct contrast to the smaller nineteenth century romantic instruments that were still popular in the city at the time.

Robert Bouchet met Gomez Ramirez in the 1930s, the very decade this guitar was built. Bouchet regularly visited his workshop and even ordered a guitar from him in 1938. These instruments were the inspiration for Bouchet, who began building in the 1940s and in turn inspired a whole generation of luthiers that followed, from Daniel Friederich to Dominique Field and so many others. In that sense this guitar is something of a touchstone for the great era of Parisian classical lutherie that came after it.

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Interestingly, this guitar does not carry a label, an unusual detail that may point to it having been one of the maker's own show instruments. Despite the absence of a label, its construction has been cited by several historians of these guitars as unmistakably the work of Julian Gomez Ramirez. Built in 1930 and now approaching a hundred years old, it is in remarkable condition. The top is exceptional, with no cracks and no repairs, which is very hard to find on a guitar of this age. The back has a single repaired crack, addressed properly with cleats on the inside, and the Brazilian rosewood is otherwise in excellent condition.

As with any well loved instrument nearly a century old, you will find small imperfections here and there, some from the workshop itself and some simply from a lifetime of being played, including a little natural warping of the wood along the sides. None of it takes away from what this guitar is. It has been set up and prepared by us and is in excellent playing condition.

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