The German-Spanish Sound – Two Schools of Classical Guitar Making
Classical guitar making has never been a single tradition. Two distinct schools — one rooted in Andalusia and later shaped by the workshops of Madrid and Barcelona, the other developed across Germany and Austria — have produced instruments that differ in construction philosophy, tonal character, and aesthetic detail. Neither is superior. They reflect different answers to the same question: what should a guitar do?
Understanding where your next guitar comes from means understanding these two lineages. The woods, the bracing, the finish, the graduations — all of it traces back to choices made by builders who rarely met and worked from different starting assumptions.
The Spanish Tradition: Torres, Granada, and Madrid
Antonio de Torres and the Foundation of the Modern Guitar
Around the middle of the 19th century, the form of the classical guitar reached its definitive shape. The Andalusian luthier Antonio de Torres Jurado (1817–1892) was the central figure in that transformation. Working in Seville and later in Almería, Torres established the proportions, bracing geometry, and constructional logic that virtually all subsequent Spanish builders inherited. His fan-bracing pattern — seven struts radiating outward beneath the soundboard — gave the guitar its projection and tonal balance. The body dimensions he settled on remain the reference point today.
Nearly twenty years after Torres, Vicente Arias Castellanos (1833–1914) from South Castile continued and refined this work. Together, their instruments set the terms for guitar making in central and north-eastern Spain as that tradition flourished at the turn of the century in Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia.
Madrid: Ramírez and the Concert Guitar
In Madrid, the workshops of brothers José I Ramírez (1858–1923) and Manuel Ramírez (1864–1916) became the dominant force in high-quality guitar production. The Ramírez family — across four generations — defined what a Spanish concert guitar looked like and sounded like for much of the 20th century. Andrés Segovia played a 1937 Manuel Ramírez for decades, and the association between the Ramírez workshop and the concert stage shaped how audiences and players thought about the Spanish guitar internationally.
Madrid workshops also produced flamenco guitars alongside classical instruments. For flamenco, cypress wood (grown locally) provided back and sides that were lighter and brighter. Classical concert instruments used expensive imported woods — rosewood from Rio de Janeiro or Brazil, occasionally maple — chosen for resonance and projection.
Barcelona: García, Simplicio, and Art Nouveau Detail
Barcelona took a different direction. Not a flamenco city, it concentrated almost entirely on classical guitar construction. Enrique García Castillo (1868–1922) and his successors Francisco Simplicio (1874–1932) and Miguel Simplicio (1899–1938) produced instruments notable for both tonal quality and visual elaboration. The Art Nouveau period left a visible mark: ornamental inlays in bindings and rosettes, intricately carved headstocks, and decorative choices that treated the guitar as an object of craft as much as a musical tool. Woods used in Barcelona tended toward the exotic and expensive — Rio rosewood, satinwood, rare mahogany species.
From Madrid and Barcelona, at the beginning of the 20th century, these instruments began their global spread — to the rest of Europe and across the Americas. The Spanish school's dominance of the classical guitar market lasted for decades.
Granada: Marin, Montero, and the Southern Aesthetic
Granada developed its own distinct tradition within the Spanish school. Luthiers like José Marin and Manuel Montero built guitars that many players describe as warmer and more intimate than Madrid instruments — slightly smaller in some cases, voiced differently, with a directness in the attack that suited both concert and chamber settings. The Granada school stayed close to traditional Torres construction, favoring spruce or cedar tops and Spanish cedar necks, without the ornamentation that characterized Barcelona work. José Luis Romanillos, though born in Madrid and based for much of his career in England, also worked within this Andalusian-rooted sensibility — his instruments for Julian Bream became some of the most recorded classical guitars of the late 20th century.
The German School: Precision, Innovation, and a Different Sound
Hermann Hauser I and the German-Spanish Synthesis
The German school did not develop in isolation from Spain. Hermann Hauser I (1882–1952), the founding figure of German classical guitar making, studied Spanish instruments closely — particularly those of the Ramírez workshop — and met Andrés Segovia in 1924. Over the following decade, Hauser worked to understand and then adapt Torres-derived construction to his own sensibility. The guitar he completed for Segovia in 1937 became one of the most celebrated instruments of the 20th century, and Segovia called it the greatest guitar of his time.
What Hauser brought was not imitation but precision. German craft traditions — furniture making, instrument building across lutes, violins, and keyboard instruments — emphasized exact graduations, consistent workmanship, and material quality. These habits carried over into the guitar workshop. The result was instruments that combined the tonal ideals of the Spanish tradition with a reliability and consistency that Spanish workshops sometimes varied on.
The Hauser Dynasty: Three Generations
Hermann Hauser II (1911–1988) continued his father's work after World War II, maintaining the reputation for precision and tonal quality. Hermann Hauser III (born 1958) carries the tradition today from Reisbach in Bavaria, remaining one of the most sought-after luthiers for concert guitarists worldwide. The Hauser workshop has never produced high volumes — waiting lists for new instruments run to years — and each guitar represents a direct continuation of the methods established by Hermann I.
The 1995 Hauser III featured in the video above demonstrates the hallmarks of that tradition: a soundboard graduated to exact specifications, a neck geometry calibrated for playability at the highest level, and a tonal balance that favors clarity without sacrificing warmth.
Dammann, Jellinghaus, and Contemporary German Lutherie
The German school today encompasses luthiers who have pushed construction beyond traditional methods while maintaining the precision that defines the tradition. Matthias Dammann, working in Hemsbach, has become one of the most influential living guitar makers. His instruments, often built with double-top construction (two thin layers of spruce or cedar sandwiching a Nomex honeycomb core), produce a projection and dynamic range that players accustomed to conventional single-top guitars find striking. The double-top is not a German invention in isolation — it was developed collaboratively and refined by several European builders — but German luthiers have been among its most consistent practitioners.
Jürgen Jellinghaus, also working in Germany, builds guitars that similarly emphasize precision and tonal consistency. His instruments have been played by leading concert guitarists and are known for a reliability across climates and performance conditions that matters practically for professional musicians who travel.
Hanika, a family workshop based in Baiersdorf, occupies a different segment: production guitars at prices accessible to serious students and advancing players, built with German precision applied to a higher-volume context. Hanika guitars regularly outperform their price point and have introduced many players to the German school's sonic characteristics without the waiting lists or prices of the top individual luthiers.
Lattice and Double-Top: Innovation in the German Context
The German school's willingness to experiment with construction techniques extends to lattice bracing — a grid-pattern internal structure that stiffens the soundboard differently than fan bracing, often producing guitars with greater projection and a more immediate response. Australian builder Greg Smallman popularized lattice bracing, but German and European luthiers have adapted and refined it extensively. The result is a family of instruments that some players find ideal for large-hall concert performance, though others feel the tonal character differs enough from tradition that it represents a separate category.
These innovations matter because they are structural, not cosmetic. A double-top guitar plays and sounds differently from a single-top. A lattice-braced guitar responds differently under the fingers than a fan-braced one. Players choosing between German and Spanish instruments are often, in practice, also choosing between these construction philosophies.
Tonal Character: What the Schools Actually Sound Like
Generalizations about national guitar sounds carry real risks — individual makers vary enormously, and a fine Granada guitar might project more than an average German one. That said, tendencies exist that players and teachers generally recognize.
Spanish guitars — particularly those from Granada and the traditional Madrid workshops — tend toward a warmer, rounder tone with a vocal quality in the midrange. The attack is present but not sharp, and the sustain blends into a resonant decay. Many players describe this as a "singing" quality. For Romantic repertoire, for Spanish music, and for players who value expressive shaping of individual notes, these characteristics work well.
German guitars, particularly from luthiers like Hauser and Dammann, tend toward greater clarity in the upper registers and a more immediate response. The separation between notes in contrapuntal passages is often more pronounced. For Baroque transcriptions, for music where textural clarity matters, and for players who need projection in large spaces, these characteristics have practical advantages.
Neither description is absolute. A 1937 Hauser is warm. A fine Romanillos is clear. The schools overlap at the top. What does hold is that the range of sonic choices available within the German tradition has expanded significantly with double-top and lattice construction, producing instruments at extremes of projection and clarity that traditional Spanish construction rarely reaches.
Construction Differences Worth Knowing
Neck Joint and Body Construction
Traditional Spanish construction uses a slipper heel — the neck is built integral to the body, with the sides slotted into the heel block before the guitar is assembled. This produces a very stable neck-body joint but makes neck resets more complex. German builders have sometimes adopted this method and sometimes used bolt-on or other joinery techniques that allow easier adjustment. For players who worry about long-term setup, the neck joint matters.
Finish
French polish (shellac applied by pad in many thin coats) is traditional in both schools and remains common among high-end luthiers. It is thin, acoustically transparent, and beautiful, but less resistant to humidity, sweat, and temperature change than lacquer. Some German builders use lacquer or catalyzed finishes on instruments intended for professional touring. This is a practical choice, not a quality shortcut — French polish on a touring guitar requires careful maintenance.
Wood Selection
Both schools use European spruce (Picea abies) and Western red cedar for soundboards. Spanish builders have historically favored spruce slightly more for classical guitars, though cedar has been common since the mid-20th century. German builders use both, with individual makers having strong preferences. For back and sides, Indian rosewood is now the most common choice in both traditions (Brazilian rosewood being largely unavailable due to CITES restrictions), alongside cypress for flamenco instruments and various other tonewoods including maple and mahogany.
Choosing Between the Schools
The practical question for most players is not philosophical. It is: which instrument serves my playing, my repertoire, and my playing conditions?
If you play primarily Spanish or Romantic music, value a warm and singing tone, and prefer instruments built within an unbroken historical tradition, the Spanish school offers the direct connection to that lineage. A guitar from a Granada or Madrid workshop descends directly from Torres's instruments, with all the associations that carries for interpretation and sound.
If you play in large concert halls, need maximum projection, play contrapuntal music where note separation is critical, or are drawn to the expanded tonal range of double-top construction, the German school offers instruments purpose-built for those demands. The precision of German construction also means consistency: two guitars from the same maker in the same year will often be more similar than two Spanish guitars from the same period.
Many players own instruments from both schools over a career. The choice for a first serious concert guitar differs from the choice made ten years later with a clearer sense of repertoire and preferences. Both traditions produce instruments capable of the highest concert use, and both are well represented in the current instrument market.
Further reading on construction history and tonal analysis is available in the full PDF version of The German-Spanish Sound.
Guitars from Both Schools at Siccas Guitars
The inventory at Siccas Guitars includes current and vintage instruments from both traditions — Spanish guitars from Granada, Madrid, and Andalusia alongside German instruments from Hauser, Dammann, Jellinghaus, and Hanika. Comparing instruments from both schools is the most direct way to understand the difference. Sound files and videos accompany each listing.
Browse the full selection of classical guitars or explore the range of flamenco guitars, where the Spanish tradition of cypress-bodied instruments is well represented. For context on the players who have defined the repertoire these instruments were built for, the profiles of great classical guitarists trace the connection between instrument and player across the 20th century.
The repertoire itself has its own entry points: famous classical guitar pieces covers the works most associated with both schools, and Francisco Tárrega — the composer whose work shaped what the Spanish guitar became — offers context for why the Torres tradition took the direction it did.
