1900s Casa González SP/CSAR

This 1900s Casa González is a spruce and CSA rosewood classical guitar from the Madrid workshop that carried on the work of Francisco González – a top model with exquisite mother-of-pearl inlay.

A Top Model from Casa González

This particular guitar is a beautiful example of a top model from this shop, featuring some exquisite inlay work – the mother-of-pearl in the central band of the rosette is matched in the half-herringbone purflings on the top and on the inside and outside of the rosette. Its label, from the shop at Carretas, 33, Madrid, still lists the medals of 1866, 1867 (Paris) and 1868.

Condition

Apart from several old and stable repairs, the instrument is in extremely well-preserved condition and remains very original – thicknesses of woods, finish, even tuning machines.

Sound

Sound-wise the guitar is nothing short of spectacular, with a huge bottom end that would rival any design that has come before or after. Although the basses are huge, they are transparent to the upper notes and do not crowd out the brilliant, crystalline trebles, so the guitar retains an unusually perfect balance. Duo Apollon (Brad Richter’s “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening”) and Mateusz Kowalski (Chopin) play it in the videos above. This is by every standard a rare, historical, well-preserved and great sounding and playing guitar by one of the most important and influential turn-of-the-century (19th/20th) Spanish workshops.

Francisco González of Madrid

Nineteenth-century Madrid builder Francisco González (1820–1879) was a near exact contemporary of Antonio de Torres but built in his own style – in particular, as he states on his label, his instruments are built in “a new and elegant design with a special system” (…una nueva y elegante forma y construidos por un sistema especial suyo…). González was very celebrated in his own day – he was the winner of several prizes and medals in various exhibitions during his lifetime, among them a first-class medal at the 1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris – and one of his guitars is on display at the Paris Conservatoire.

Teacher of the Ramírez Brothers

González is known to have been the teacher of both José Ramírez I and his brother Manuel Ramírez. Indeed, it was José I’s loyalty to González and the “sistema” and Manuel’s conversion to the Torres design that was the source of the ideological split between the two Ramírez brothers that forced them to break their partnership and instead set up competing shops in Madrid. His daughter Concepción also learned the trade from him and worked in the shop alongside José Ramírez I.

From González to Casa González

González’s reputation in his own day strongly suggests that he must have been a prolific builder; however, much like Vicente Arias, very few of his instruments survive to the present day. After his death in 1879, his work was carried on by his son-in-law Enrique Romans Papell, at first under the name “Viuda e Hijos de Francisco González” and after 1901 as “Casa González”, which remained active into the 1940s.