Paco Santiago Marin "30th Anniversary", 2010

Paco Santiago Marín saves his finest wood for the XXX Aniversario label. This 2010 example got the best of it: a tightly quartersawn set of Brazilian rosewood for the back and sides, a spruce top, Rodgers tuning machines, and the wide ebony center seam that marks the anniversary model. It has been kept so carefully in the years since that it presents as nearly new.

Paco Santiago Marín is one of the senior masters of the Granada school. Born in Granada in 1946 to a cabinetmaker father, he went to work at his uncle Antonio Marín Montero's bench in 1963, when the shop was still the Montero y Bellido partnership, and he has been building classical and flamenco guitars under his own name since 1965, from his own workshop since 1972. He was one of the founding members of the Granada guitar makers' association in 1987, he has taught guitar making at festivals in Havana and Córdoba and in New York, and he built the replica of Tárrega's 1864 Torres for the guitarist Adrián Rius. His son Luis has worked beside him for more than twenty years.

His guitars have a reputation as perhaps the most powerful of the Granada instruments while keeping the elegant, lyrical voice the school is known for, and the company they keep says the rest. Ricardo Gallén has played Santiago Marín guitars since the start of his career and recorded his award winning En Silencio on one. Leo Brouwer has called his Santiago Marín his favorite guitar. Marco Tamayo, Roberto Aussel, and René Izquierdo have all performed on them, Joaquín Clerch wrote his Fantasía en los jardines de Falla as a tribute to the maker, and a new generation is following, among them recent Certamen Llobet winners Airam de Vera Ramos and Belmin Okanović.

Joaquín Clerch performs Bach's Lute Suite in E minor, BWV 996, on his Santiago Marín.

Ricardo Gallén on his Santiago Marín at the Fundación Juan March in Madrid: Granados, Albéniz, Torroba, Asencio, Turina, and Mompou in a full recital from the Segovia legacy series.

The XXX Aniversario is his most prestigious model, the one he reserves for his best materials and his most careful work. This one carries the rosewood every builder wishes he still had. The back is a two piece set of Brazilian rosewood, cut dead on the quarter, with long straight grain in deep chocolate and rust, and the sides match. Brazilian rosewood has been closed to trade under CITES Appendix I since 1992, so a set like this came out of a maker's own pre ban stock, put away for a guitar that deserved it.

The Rodgers machines are the other signal. Hand built to order in England by David Rodgers, who began making them in the 1970s and finished sets by hand until his death in 2024, they are the tuners the finest makers in the world specify for their best concert instruments. These have engraved plates and mother of pearl buttons.

The Granada guitar is a particular thing: light in the hands, quick to speak, and built for color rather than brute force, though the best of them have more than enough power for a hall. Paco Santiago Marín's guitars sit at the powerful end of that tradition, and we know this model well. Earlier this year we spent real time with a 2022 XXX Aniversario, and what stayed with us was the explosive attack when the guitar is pushed, trebles that soar and sing without thinning, basses that are wide and open yet stay controlled under a heavy right hand, and a third string with a full, expressive voice of its own, the opposite of the thin third string that can let a Spanish guitar down.

This 2010 is the same model, built with Brazilian rosewood rather than Indian and with sixteen years on the spruce top. Spruce over a dense, stiff set of Brazilian rosewood is the classic recipe for a clear, ringing top end with a bass that has real growl and sustain underneath it, and a top that has been played in has the openness and immediacy that new guitars take years to acquire.

What players prize in these guitars is the immediacy. The note arrives the instant the finger leaves the string, the attack is clean, and the fundamental is strong without being dry; there is a halo of overtone around each note that gives the sound its warmth. The trebles are sweet and singing in the upper positions, the third string is even and does not go hollow, and the basses are deep and well defined, so that counterpoint stays legible even in fast passages.

Dynamically there is a wide range to work with. The guitar answers a whisper, and it rewards being pushed, the sound growing fuller and more colorful the harder it is played rather than thinning out. It is the kind of instrument that invites a player to shape phrases rather than simply execute them.

The 650 mm scale and the comfortable Granada neck make it an easy guitar to live with, and the light Granada construction means it sits in the lap without fatigue. The Rodgers machines hold tuning precisely and make fine adjustments effortless.

The label reads Constructor de Guitarras, Paco Santiago Marín, XXX Aniversario, Pasaje de Recogidas 1, Granada, and is signed by the maker. The rosette is a fine Granada mosaic, a lattice of small diamonds in dark and light wood bordered by thin dark and light lines, understated from a distance and precise up close.

The back carries the ebony center seam that distinguishes the Aniversario model, flanked by light purfling lines that run around the whole body. The neck is Spanish cedar with an ebony fingerboard, the headstock wears a rosewood headplate in the Marín family's classic outline, and the rosewood bridge has a bone saddle and a traditional six hole tie block. Built on a 650 mm scale.

Specifications

Model: XXX Aniversario (30th Anniversary)
Back & Sides: Brazilian rosewood, quartersawn
Neck: Spanish cedar
Fingerboard: Ebony
Bridge: Rosewood, six hole tie block
Condition: Excellent, no cracks or repairs

Francisco "Paco" Santiago Marín was born in Granada in 1946. His father, Francisco Santiago Oliva, was a cabinetmaker, and Paco was working at a bench by the age of twelve. In 1963 he joined the workshop of his uncle Antonio Marín Montero to complete his training, and he spent roughly a decade there before opening his own workshop in Granada in 1972. He has built classical and flamenco guitars continuously since 1965, limiting his output to a couple of guitars at a time.

Marín has been closely involved in the life of the Granada school, as a founding member of the city's guitar makers' association in 1987, as a teacher of guitar making at the Havana Guitar Festival and the Córdoba Guitar Festival, and as a collaborator with the Andrés Segovia competition in La Herradura and competitions in Linares, Barcelona, and Extremadura. A guitar making competition in Granada has carried his name. His son Luis Santiago now works alongside him, and the XXX Aniversario model is built with Luis's assistance.

Excellent. The guitar presents as nearly new, with perhaps a stray mark or two on the top that take nothing away from an otherwise remarkably clean instrument. No cracks and no repairs.