2012 Thomas Norwood "1932 Esteso" SP/CSAR

This 2012 Thomas Norwood “1932 Esteso” is a spruce and CSA rosewood replica of a 1932 guitar by Domingo Esteso – the most ornate of his models.

The Most Ornate Model

This guitar completed the series of three replicas we ordered from Tom after meeting him in Paris in 2010. The Esteso is the most elaborate of them and demands the highest level of woodworking detail, and Tom executed it with the same precision seen on the original. The label reads “Thomas Norwood, Luthier à Paris, Année 2012”. The tuners in the photos were later replaced by the owner with Rodgers tuners with mother-of-pearl buttons.

Sound

It elegantly captures the old-world charm of the original: the sound is warm, velvety, open and very loose. Mateusz Kowalski (Schubert’s “Moment Musical” No. 3) and Andras Csaki (Barrios’s Vals Op. 8 No. 3) play it in the videos above.

See photos of this guitar taken during construction on our blog.

Read more: Orfeo Magazine No. 7 – An American in Paris: Thomas Norwood – also available in print in the collected edition Orfeo Magazine 6–10:

Orfeo Magazine 6-10 (print)

Thomas Norwood: An American in Paris

Thomas Norwood (died 2021) was born in Pasadena, California, and taught himself guitar making from Irving Sloane’s book “Classic Guitar Construction”. He fell in love with Paris on a bicycle tour of Europe and settled there in the mid-1970s, visiting the workshops of Daniel Friederich and Daniel Lesueur; Friederich became a close friend and recommended Tom’s guitars to GSI. He built in his atelier in the heart of Paris for over 40 years.

Replicas of the Spanish Golden Age

Besides lutes, Baroque guitars and hurdy-gurdies – he was considered one of the best balalaika makers outside Russia – Norwood made a model of his own and four replicas of the Spanish golden age: Antonio de Torres, Manuel Ramírez, Domingo Esteso and Santos Hernández. Each began as an exact copy of one original, built to sound as it would have when new; only later did he make small changes to the bracing to improve the occasional weaker note.