2014 François Leonard SP/IN

A 2014 classical guitar by François Leonard, with a spruce top and Indian rosewood back and sides – his 40th guitar, and one of the first we had from this young French luthier.

His 40th Guitar

Built in June 2014, it already shows what François had learned in England, at Lakewood in Germany with Tobias Berg and from Dominique Field: double sides, a careful French polish and sharp, clean workmanship.

Sound

The tone is full-bodied, every note plump and juicy from the basses to the trebles; it is stylish and expressive, with plenty of power. George Sand wrote that "Simplicity is the most difficult thing to secure in this world; it is the last limit of experience." François has made it his mantra.

François Leonard: A French Luthier in Lorient

François Leonard was born in Nantes, France, in 1973. After studying the guitar for a few years he moved to England in 1995, at 22, to learn guitar making at the Newark School under Roy Courtnall, and stayed five years, also building traditional instruments such as the Swedish nyckelharpa and the hammered dulcimer. In 2006 he set up his own workshop in Lorient, Brittany.

Lakewood, Tobias Berg and Dominique Field

Around 2000 he moved to Germany, where for five years he worked at Lakewood Guitars alongside Tobias Berg, in charge of body construction on several thousand guitars – learning above all how to choose tops and hear their thicknesses – and where Michel Brück taught him French polishing. In the French tradition of Daniel Friederich and Dominique Field, whom he visits regularly, he builds with double sides, and he meets with acousticians to add science to the intuitive side of his craft.