For more than 20 years, two friends had constructed famous classical guitars, used by top performers of the 20th century, in a small “guitarreria” close to Madrid`s well-known “rastro”, in “Ribera de Curtidores 9”. Manuel Hernandez (1895–1975) and Victoriano Aguado (1897–1982), amigos since their common work in a piano factory, established themselves as restorers of furniture, and later, starting in the mid-fifties, as “guitarreros”. Against the trends in Spain`s capital, where since the early 1960s, heavy cedar-top-guitars were “en vogue”, both followed the old tradition of instruments, as been built by Manuel Ramirez (1866–1916) and Santos Hernandez (1874–1943). They had received a lot of informations from the great virtuoso Don Regino Sainz de la Maza and Don Modesto Borreguero, the youngest member of the Ramirez “taller”. Hernandez and Aguado started guitar-making in their “ripe years”, and so the time of successful collaboration must have been limited by lifetime.
And it was around 1970, when Victoriano Aguado due to problems with the eyes and legs caused by diabetes had to give up his profession, in which he had been responsible for varnishing, designing and decorating the instruments. Hernandez` Son-in-law, Jesús Belezar, who had worked with both friends since the late 1960s, stroke out of his own. And Hernandez needed another companion, as there were a lot of orders from all over the world.
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