1933 Domingo Esteso SP/CSAR

Domingo Esteso built this classical guitar in Madrid in 1933, with a spruce soundboard and CSA rosewood back and sides – a fancier model with colorful half-herringbone purfling.

In the video above, Keith Rodriguez plays the Prelude in C Major from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier (arr. Christopher Parkening) on this guitar.

Half-Herringbone Purfling

One of Esteso's fancier models, it has a rosette of very fine quality and colorful half-herringbone purfling around the top as well as inside and outside the rosette.

Sound and Condition

The sound is deep but clean, clear and pure – a strong fundamental with rich overtones in every note – very stylish and refined, with the played-in richness of its age and plenty of volume for a modern audience. There are some well-repaired cracks in the top and it was refinished at some point, but the back and sides are clean, with no repairs or damage. A very enjoyable and easy instrument to play.

Domingo Esteso: From the Manuel Ramírez Workshop to Gravina 7

Domingo Esteso (1882–1937) is one of the great names of the early Madrid school of guitar making. Born on May 12, 1882, in San Clemente, in the province of Cuenca, he learned his trade in the Madrid workshop of Manuel Ramírez, where he worked alongside Santos Hernández, Modesto Borreguero and Enrique García – the shop that carried the legacy of Antonio de Torres into the 20th century. After Ramírez died in 1916, Esteso went on building for his widow, already with his own name on the labels, and around 1919 he opened his own workshop at Calle Gravina 7, where his wife, Nicolasa Salamanca, varnished the guitars. His flamencos were played by the great names of the day, among them Ramón Montoya and Niño Ricardo, and his classical guitars are prized today for their elegance, clarity and natural, woody voice.

Guitars for Buenos Aires and the Birth of the Conde Dynasty

Many of Esteso's finest guitars were made for Argentina, then one of the richest countries in the world, under a special label for Romero y Fernández of Buenos Aires, his sole agents there – some of them branded "Guitarras Iberia". In 1926 his nephew Faustino Conde joined the workshop, followed by his brothers Mariano and Julio. After Esteso's death in Madrid in 1937, in the middle of the Spanish Civil War, they carried on at Gravina 7 as "Viuda y Sobrinos de Esteso" and later as Conde Hermanos – the start of a family tradition continued today by Felipe Conde and his son, Felipe Conde Crespo.