1868 Antonio de Torres SP/CSAR

This 1868 Antonio de Torres is a spruce and CSA rosewood classical guitar from Seville, built at the very end of his first epoch – a full-size Torres with a tornavoz, which comes with its original Jerome tuners and an old wooden case.

In the videos above, GSI's Chris Garwood gives a first look at this guitar, and Evan Hirschelman plays it, including the first movement of his "Shapeshifting".

A Late First-Epoch Torres from Seville

Built at the very end of the so-called "first epoch", while Torres was still working in Seville – its label reads "Calle de la Cerrajería número 32, año de 1868" – this is a marvelous and extremely rarefied example of Torres' most representative work from the period. It is a full-sized instrument, completely "modern" by today's standards in terms of measurements and proportions which, incredibly, remain the blueprint for all guitar makers ever since, with little to no modification from this basic design.

A Majestic Sound and the Tornavoz

Sound is absolutely majestic. It has a huge voice with a velvety texture, rich in overtones yet retaining great clarity at the core of every note. The body resonance is very deep, partly due to a device Torres used with some regularity, especially in the first epoch (most famously in such guitars as "La Leona", FE 08, FE 13 ex Llobet and FE 17 ex Tárrega): the "tornavoz", a conical tube attached to the soundhole, which here adds a sonic boom to the bottom end and gives the trebles a brilliant, sparkling clarity.

Rosette, Purfling and Condition

The instrument is as beautiful in appearance as in sound. It has a 3-piece CSA rosewood back, a ringed rosette with a central herringbone motif and matching "thick" purfling on both the back and sides. The tuning machines were replaced with a custom set made by Rodgers of England for functionality; however, the original Jerome tuning machines, as well as a very old (likely original) wooden case, remain with the guitar. Condition is excellent, particularly given that it was built over 150 years ago: all repairs were expertly done and the guitar is in performance-ready condition. Another breathtaking example of a well-preserved, elegantly built and simply gorgeous Torres, highly desirable to the most discriminating collector or performer alike.

More on Antonio de Torres

There is much more to read about Torres: our biography of the maker, an excerpt on the Torres sound from José Luis Romanillos's book "Antonio de Torres", and a conversation between Pepe Romero and Kenny Hill about the master luthier. Also see Orfeo Magazine #9 – The 200th Anniversary of Antonio de Torres.

Antonio de Torres: The Stradivari of the Guitar

The name of Antonio de Torres (1817–1892) is to guitarists what the name of Antonio Stradivari is to violinists. Taken as a whole, the corpus of instruments made by this legendary maker's hand is today regarded as the foundational basis of the modern guitar. The impact that these guitars made on successive generations of luthiers is impossible to exaggerate – still to this day, most or nearly all of Torres' structural and tonal improvements are in use by all top contemporary builders.

The First and Second Epochs: Seville and Almería

Torres built his first great guitars in Seville, from the 1850s to about 1870 – his "first epoch", when his labels read "Calle de la Cerrajería, número 32". After some years away from the bench he took up guitar making again in his native Almería in 1875, and from then until his death in 1892 his labels say "Segunda Época", usually with the guitar's number written in by hand. In his biography of the maker, José Luis Romanillos catalogued the surviving instruments by these two periods, which is why Torres guitars are known today by numbers such as "FE 17" (first epoch) or "SE 114" (second epoch).

Played by Tárrega – and by Today's Artists

In Torres' own day, the leading players such as Julián Arcas and Francisco Tárrega were already performing on his masterpieces, and successive generations of players over the 20th century continued to play them. Although increasing values over the past several decades have placed them largely within the sphere of collectors, they are still highly desirable to leading professional players and occasionally make their way into the recording studio or even the concert stage. Pepe Romero, Stefano Grondona, Wulfin Lieske and Marc Teicholz, among others, have brought them to life in recorded and live sound, and we all hope this trend continues in the future, especially as more Torres instruments come to the public's attention.