2020 Fritz Ober "La Leona" SP/CY

This 2020 Fritz Ober "La Leona" is a spruce and cypress copy of Antonio de Torres' legendary 1856 guitar (FE 04), built in Munich, Germany, and dated the year of Fritz's death.

The Legend of "La Leona"

Completed by Torres in 1856, "La Leona" is arguably his most famous instrument and one of the most admired guitars in history. Torres never sold it – he lent it to Julián Arcas for concerts, and it was still his when he died in 1892. At an Arcas concert in 1862 a nine-year-old Francisco Tárrega heard it and was enchanted; Pujol, Prat and Llobet admired it too, and in modern times the German virtuoso Wulfin Lieske has recorded it beautifully. José Romanillos devotes a whole chapter to it in his book "Antonio de Torres, Guitar Maker – His Life & Work".

A Guitar That Vibrates Everywhere

It was the first Torres guitar with a tornavoz, and its sound was so big – like a lion's roar – that it earned the name "La Leona" (The Lioness). Its thin carved bridge has no saddle, and inside, the soundboard has no lower harmonic bar; instead, small wooden posts resting on the back support the tornavoz, freeing the top and passing vibration to the back so that the whole instrument comes alive.

Fritz Ober's Replica

Fritz first met the original in 2006, when it came to him for minor repairs, and later kept it in his workshop for a full month to study, document and measure it (click here for photos of the original in his shop). He had always avoided making replicas – "La Leona" was his one exception. This copy is as close to the original as possible; the only changes are a slightly thicker neck, a saddle, and a headshape suited to machines (the original had pegs before it was converted). Those who have seen both, including Wulfin Lieske and David Collett of GSI, are amazed at how fully Fritz captured the look, spirit, vitality and charm of the original. Like "La Leona" herself, it has an enormous palette of tonal color, wide dynamic range, big basses almost without bottom, and sparkling, singing trebles, with great clarity across all registers and between voices.

Orfeo Magazine No. 4: Hauser III, Blöchinger and Ober

Fritz Ober (1955–2020): From Rosenheim to Munich

Fritz Ober was born in 1955 in Rosenheim, Germany, and spent his youth in the small village of Übersee am Chiemsee, where he learned to play the guitar and discovered an early love for woodworking. He built his first guitars mainly for himself, learning largely from books, then served a two-year apprenticeship with Helmut Buchsteiner – at the time the only known luthier in Upper Bavaria besides Hermann Hauser II – before opening his own workshop in Munich.

Old-World Methods and the Great Masters

In Munich he found surprising demand for pre-Torres instruments such as Panormo-style guitars and Renaissance lutes. Through Robert Lundberg, a leading expert on historical stringed instruments, he learned the methods of the old masters: working without machinery or sandpaper, with natural hide glues and resins, and with hand-split spruce – he even sought out his own trees in the nearby Alps. Soon he was restoring some of the most important guitars in Europe's great collections, by Torres, Hauser I, Santos Hernández, Manuel Ramírez, Esteso, Simplicio, Bouchet, Friederich and Fleta, among others.

The Torres/Hauser I Tradition

What he learned from these masters shaped his own style, and for the rest of his career Fritz built almost exclusively in the Torres/Hauser I tradition, aiming, in his words, to "create the deep and profound singing qualities of the Spanish tradition (Torres), combined with the harmonic clarity, evenness and transparency of Hauser I." Working alone, he made only 10–12 instruments a year, and his players included the Romeros, Wulfin Lieske, Jürgen Ruck, Earl Klugh, John Ingwerson, Doug Rubio and Andy Summers. GSI was Fritz Ober's exclusive US dealer during his lifetime.