2023 Stefan Nitschke "Vicente Arias" SP/CY

A 2023 "Vicente Arias" classical guitar by Stefan Nitschke, with a spruce top and cypress back and sides – a tribute to the elusive Vicente Arias. Stefan christened it "La Rocío", the name he wrote on its label, which is framed by a border of handwritten music.

In the video above, Juri Yun plays his arrangement of Joe Hisaishi's "Merry-Go-Round of Life" from "Howl's Moving Castle" on this guitar.

After Arias Guitars of 1897 and 1901

The main inspiration is an Arias of 1901, and the slightly smaller body comes from an older Arias of 1897. The spruce was bought in the 1980s in the Swiss Jura – where José Luis Romanillos found most of his wood – and the cypress is 40 years old.

A Traditional Voice

Seven long, thin fans run from the lower harmonic bar all the way to the lining. The sound is lively, loose and old-world, dry and woody, pure and clear, with lyrical trebles and deep basses; the nut is 51 mm.

Photos of this guitar taken just after completion

Read more: Orfeo Magazine No. 22 – Gernot Wagner and the New German Generation (with a feature on Stefan Nitschke)

Stefan Nitschke: A Guitarist Turned Guitar Maker

Stefan Nitschke is a German classical guitar maker, born in 1982, who works in Kirchhain, Hesse. A guitarist who came back to the classical guitar through the music of Tárrega, he studied at the conservatory in Osnabrück from 2002, where his teacher Ulrich Müller encouraged him to build his first guitar – on the carpet of his living room. He learned more by watching Gerhard Oldiges at work, and from 2004 studied at the Akademie für Tonkunst in Darmstadt while working as a luthier.

Romanillos, Hauser and Santos

His passion is the sound of the old masters, and his models pay tribute to José Luis Romanillos, Hermann Hauser I and Santos Hernández, as well as Vicente Arias and Manuel Ramírez – interpretations rather than literal copies. Like Romanillos, he gives each guitar a name. He was featured among "the new German generation" in Orfeo Magazine No. 22.