The String Sensation Guitar Duo — Jona Steinmeyer and Jürgen Ohnemus — play A Felicidade by Antônio Carlos Jobim on two very different modern concert guitars: a Fernando Mazza and a Rafal Turkowiak Opus Virtuoso.
About A Felicidade
Jobim wrote A Felicidade in 1959 for the film Orfeu Negro, with lyrics by Vinícius de Moraes. The song states its subject in the first line and then contradicts it for three minutes: happiness is like a feather carried on the wind, beautiful and about to be gone. Musically that ambivalence is built in. The melody is simple enough to be sung by anyone; the harmony underneath keeps sliding out from under it.
On two guitars the song opens up in a way it cannot on one. The parts can divide melody, counter-melody and bass without any of them having to be compromised, and the result is closer to the arrangements Jobim wrote for small ensembles than to a solo guitar transcription. What a duo has to solve instead is balance: two instruments with the same timbre can cancel each other out as easily as they can combine.
Bossa Nova on the Classical Guitar
Bossa nova was written on a nylon-string guitar from the start, which is why it sits so naturally on a classical instrument — and why it is harder than it sounds. The rhythm lives in small displacements that have to be exact, and the harmony needs voicings that keep the inner parts audible. Our article on João Gilberto and the nylon-string guitar describes where that sound came from.
The Two Guitars
The Fernando Mazza 2026 is a lattice-braced instrument with a cedar top and Santos rosewood back and sides, with an armrest and a sound port integrated into the design. Mazza, an Argentine maker working in Arezzo, builds in the Australian lattice tradition, and the result is defined by speed, power and ease of response. Our portrait of Fernando Mazza introduces his workshop.
The Rafal Turkowiak Opus Virtuoso No. 766 comes from a very different mind. The Polish luthier, born in 1966, built his first guitar as a teenager after dismantling an old one, and has worked ever since on construction ideas that go well beyond the Spanish model. This instrument carries amboyna burl back and sides under a lacquer finish. Our portrait of Rafal Turkowiak describes his approach.
Watch the Performance
Browse the repertoire in our overview of famous classical guitar pieces, or see the instruments in our range of classical guitars.
