2024 Mario Grimaldi "1963 Daniel Friederich, ex Ida Presti" SP/AR

This 2024 Mario Grimaldi "1963 Daniel Friederich, ex Ida Presti" is a classical guitar with a Jura spruce top and African rosewood back and sides, made in Italy and inspired by Ida Presti's 1963 Daniel Friederich, for the 100th anniversary of her birth.

An Homage to Ida Presti's 1963 Friederich

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the great guitarist Ida Presti (1924–1967), Mario chose to build a series of guitars inspired by her 1963 Daniel Friederich guitar. Presti's original Friederich is currently owned by a good friend of Mario's, so he has been able to thoroughly inspect and measure all of its details. The guitars in his series honoring Ida Presti are more "inspired by" this 1963 Friederich than a literal copy, which is what we have here.

Jura Spruce, Rosette and Headstock

For this guitar, Mario used a 40-year-old spruce soundboard from the Jura region, an Alpine area between Switzerland and France – the same area where Friederich and later Romanillos used to get their woods. The rosette is Mario's personal design; only in the central area is he quoting Friederich, with the overlapping bean-shaped mosaics. The headstock is sculpted by hand and again references Friederich, though not literally in its shape – it's nuanced subtly to Mario's personal taste. Tuning machines are by Alessi.

A Friederich-Esque Sound

The sound of the guitar is actually quite Friederich-esque – it has a deep, cathedral-like resonance in the box with firm and sturdy fundamentals at the core of every note, giving the guitar a silky, rich and layered quality of tone without loss of clarity. Tone production is a breeze, as the guitar is very responsive to the slightest touch – it's very challenging to produce a bad-sounding note on this guitar! Overall a very impressive guitar from this fascinating builder, with such a varied and interesting background and with experience and knowledge gained over many decades of dedicated work and research.

Photos of this guitar taken during construction

Mario Grimaldi: From Model Maker to Guitar Maker

Born in Filippa di Mesoraca (Crotone), Italy, in 1957, Mario Grimaldi started working with wood at the age of sixteen as a model maker at the Eligio Re Fraschini company, where the models for the Ferrari Formula 1 cars were made. He first entered the world of the classical guitar as a player, studying classical guitar and double bass at the civic music school in Milan from 1982. In 1986 he took the lutherie course with luthier Carlo Raspagni, who gave him the bug to become a professional builder, and in 1989 he opened his own workshop dedicated exclusively to classical guitar making. Today his workshop is in Ovada (Alessandria), and GSI is proud to be his exclusive dealer in the USA.

Bouchet, Hauser and Alirio Díaz

Mario's early guitars were based largely on the work of Robert Bouchet. When the great Alirio Díaz commissioned a guitar from him in 1996, Díaz allowed Mario to study his 1951 Hermann Hauser I, which greatly affected Mario's developing style; he has since adopted many of its design features, including a Hauser-style model of his own.

The Gallinotti Legacy

In 2001 Mario befriended Carlo Gallinotti, the son and only assistant of Pietro Gallinotti (1885–1979), an iconic figure in Italian guitar making and likely the original inventor of the cedar top. Mario became fascinated with Gallinotti's legacy and style, and inherited many of the molds, tools and materials from the Gallinotti workshop, which he has studied and written about extensively. He credits Gallinotti as another influence in his eclectic style.

Restoration, Research and Books

In addition to building guitars, Mario restores vintage and historical guitars, and for many years he has looked after an important private collection of 20th-century guitars by the great Spanish and European makers. He has held conferences in various Italian conservatories on historical Italian violin making of the 20th century and has published the books "Pietro Gallinotti liutaio di Solero" (2006, written with Mario Dell'Ara) and "Il legno che canta" (Curci, 2013, written with Angelo Gilardino).