2022 Gabriele Lodi "Torres" SP/MH

Italian luthier Gabriele Lodi comes from a family of classical guitar makers, happily spending the majority of his childhood helping out in his father's workshop. By the age of 20, he had officially made guitar making his profession and began to focus on his fascination with historical instruments. Because of this interest, many of his guitars today are strongly rooted in traditional design and aesthetic.

This instrument is part of Gabriele's "Expo Series" and was featured at the 2022 Roma Guitar Exhibition. It is also his latest tribute to the great Antonio de Torres, who has in the last many years become a primary driving force in Gabriele's work as a restorer, historian and of course, as a builder. Gabriele has restored several important original Torres instruments, and along the way, captured some insights from the hand of Torres that have led him to explore less conventional current practices. For example, Gabriele has noticed that Torres used a variety of tonewoods other than CSA rosewood (like quilted mahogany, birdseye maple, cypress, etc) for his back and sides and often woods with irregular grain patterns and varying densities. Gabriele believes that adopting this exploration opens new avenues in the search not just for aesthetic variety and beauty but also to change the structural constraints that determine his building decisions like thicknessing, doming, etc. that distribute the energy of the sound production throughout the entire body of the instrument - in effect, "harmonizing" the various tensions found in all parts of the guitar and uniting them in a singular tonal direction, but always starting with the flexibility of soundboard as the source of the sound production. As Gabriele says, the aim here is "to evoke plural voices or a small orchestra and come directly to our emotional side with a tone that we can internalize."

The particular instrument which Gabriele used as his primary source of inspiration is an original Torres from 1888 (SE 122) which features a 3-piece back of mahogany and central portion of CSA rosewood (see photo of this guitar in the image gallery). For more information on SE 122, it is featured in the book "Antonio de Torres - Lo Stradivari della Chitarra moderna", of which Gabriele is a co-author. So Gabriele sourced some very rare woods, including a select set of Italian spruce for the top, "wavy" mahogany for the sides and lateral back parts with central wedge in African rosewood. Structurally very influenced by Torres in shape, proportions with Gabrieles' modified seven fan system. And to state the obvious for anyone who has already seen images of the guitar, a high degree of elaborate decoration throughout the instrument - not just the rosette and bindings, but also all purflings and inlays in the head, tie block, back, sides and top. It's as marvelous to look at as to listen to!

This is an exquisitely built instrument with no detail overlooked. We believe Torres himself would be astonished and proud to see his legacy being carried out, more than a century after his death by the important work of many makers such as Gabriele, and in particular with this instrument. Our congratulations to Gabriele on what can only be considered nothing short of a masterpiece!

Orfeo Magazine #13 – Lodi, Bottelli, Coriani, Peruffo