Santos Hernandez – 1924

Description

Santos Hernandez (Madrid, 1873-1943) started very early an apprenticeship at the workshop of Valentin Viudes where he worked only for a short time. After that he started to work in Granada at the workshop of José Ortega. Finally he went back to Madrid where he worked at the workshop of Francisco Gonzales. In 1893 he stopped to work as a luthier for five years because of the military service he has to absolve. During that period he was also in Cuba to fight in the Spanish-American war. In 1898 he left the army and opened his own workshop in ‘Calle Nicolas Salmerón’. In 1905 he started to work at the Manuel Ramirez workshop were he took over the position of Enrique Garcia (Garcia has gone to Barcelona). It seems that Hernandez was very much involved in the construction of Segovia’s guitar that was made at the Ramirez workshop in 1912.
After the death of Manuel Ramirez in 1916, Hernandez stayed there to work for the widow till 1920. In 1921 he opened again a new workshop in ‘Calle La Aduana’.
The guitar we present you here was built in 1924 in this workshop. It’s one of the very rare instruments with flamed maple back and sides. The spruce top is in good condition and has only three very well repaired cracks – two below the bridge and one crack along the centre seam from bridge to soundhole. The tuning-machines are original. This guitar is a gem! The sound has great depth (low air resonance down between E and F) the treble is very clear and brilliant and the basses are not too dominant. A great guitar from one of the most important luthiers ever lived. A hardshell case is included.