1962 Ignacio Fleta SP/IN

This 1962 Ignacio Fleta is a classical guitar with a spruce top and Indian rosewood back and sides from Fleta's Barcelona workshop, donated to the GSI Foundation.

A 1962 Fleta from the Spruce Years

Built at the height of Fleta's spruce years, this 1962 example pairs a spruce soundboard with back and sides of Indian rosewood.

Sound and Playability

As expected, the sound is incredible – deep and complex, with great dynamic range and balance, and a firmness in the fundamental that gives it real projection and clarity in larger venues. It also has the classic Fleta tone – haunting, mysterious and dark, with substantial power – and unusually good separation of voices even in chordal passages. It plays exceptionally well – ready for the studio or the stage.

Condition

Apart from two hairline cracks on either side of the fingerboard (expertly repaired from the outside – possibly even by Fleta during original construction) and a hairline crack on the back (invisible from the exterior and reinforced internally with 3 small rosewood cleats), the guitar is otherwise entirely original, showing only light playing wear.

It comes from Fleta's golden spruce years, when Segovia and John Williams were performing and recording on his guitars – the sound that so many classical guitar lovers still cherish today.

GSI Foundation

This guitar was donated to our non-profit charitable organization, the GSI Foundation. Guitar sales through the GSI Foundation raise money to directly benefit music education in public schools. Feel free to contact us for more information.

Ignacio Fleta: Master Guitar Maker of Barcelona

For performers and collectors alike, the name Ignacio Fleta (1897–1977) ranks among the elite handful of 20th-century luthiers. Trained in Barcelona as a maker of violins and cellos, he built mainly bowed instruments from the late 1920s until 1955, when he decided to devote himself to the guitar. Countless scores of the finest players in the world have played his instruments – among them Andrés Segovia, John Williams, Angel Romero, Turibio Santos, Alirio Díaz and Marcelo Kayath.

Ignacio Fleta e Hijos: Three Generations

By the mid-1960s Fleta's sons, Francisco (1925–2003) and Gabriel (1929–2013), had become his partners in the workshop – which is why the labels from then on read "Ignacio Fleta e hijos" (Ignacio Fleta and sons). After Ignacio's death in 1977 the brothers carried on, and today Gabriel's son, Gabriel Fleta Jr., continues the family workshop in its third generation. Many dozens of Fletas have passed through our doors over the years.