2020 Stefan Nitschke "Romanillos" SP/CSAR

A 2020 "Romanillos" classical guitar by Stefan Nitschke, with a bearclaw spruce top and CSA rosewood back and sides – his tribute to José Luis Romanillos. Following Romanillos' own custom of naming his guitars, Stefan called this one "La Madena" – the name is on its label, surrounded by a border of handwritten music.

In the video above, Bryan Fasola plays Dilermando Reis's "Se Ela Perguntar" on this guitar.

Romanillos Details

Stefan follows Romanillos closely in structure and looks: the "Moorish" arch in the rosette, the head shape, the inlay in bridge and head, and above all the open harmonic bar with four struts beneath. It is a tribute rather than a copy of one guitar.

Warmth and Focus

The sound is loose and warm – it sounds almost as it looks – with the qualities we've loved in well played-in Romanillos guitars of the 1970s and 1980s: warmth with clarity, looseness with focus, lyrical trebles and supportive basses.

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.