When my great-granduncle Manuel Ramírez died, his journeymen, Modesto Borreguero, Santos Hernández and Domingo Esteso, continued for some years in his workshop with Manuel Ramírez’s widow.
Filomena Vera Cervelló, Manuel’s widow, as far as we know, was not a guitar maker, although she probably carried out varnishing work, like many other guitar makers’ wives who now sleep the sleep of oblivion. But Manuel’s workshop became her property, which Filomena reopened on 16 May 1918, two years after her husband’s death.
As what he sold was the name of Manuel Ramírez, and his journeymen were not yet known, since what they were doing was reproducing the work of their master and they had not yet developed their own, they reached an agreement with his widow out of mutual interest, according to which the label on their guitars would read ‘The widow de Manuel Ramírez’, and at the same time they would put their initials inside, obviously to gain individual recognition, despite the fact that, even though they were in Ramírez’s workshop, they continued to use his templates, designs, techniques and materials.
It is easy to deduce that, being, as they were, excellent guitar makers, and not in vain had they had a great master, when they achieved recognition as such, no longer in Manuel’s shadow, the three of them set up on their own, and of course developed their own models and obtained a well-deserved fame.
The independence of Manuel Ramirez’s Officers
According to my information, the first to leave was Domingo Esteso, who opened his Gravina workshop in June 1919. It could be that he became independent on the same date or somewhat later, in January 1920.
The next to leave was Santos Hernández, who opened his Aduana workshop on 26 January 1921, where he remained until his disappearance.
Modesto Borreguero, the last to leave, opened his workshop in 1924, later moving to Duque Fernán Núñez 5 between 1927 and 1931, premises that he lost during the war.
The end of the workshop of ‘the widow of Manuel Ramírez’.
The workshop of Manuel Ramírez’s widow continued until the departure of Modesto Borreguero in 1924. Unfortunately, I have had no information about what became of her after that date. It could be that she passed away, and that was the reason why Borreguero became independent.
Memories of Enrique Bodeguero
I knew his son, Enrique Borreguero, who worked in my father’s workshop, and his bench was next to mine. During my apprenticeship he was a great help to me. He was a silent and very serious man. Whenever he saw me in a hurry before an operation, he would choose several tools and come to my bench, silently perform the operation for me to observe, and then return to his post, leaving me to do my newly learned work. From what I know of Enrique Borreguero, if he had inherited his father’s nobility, I have no doubt that Modesto stayed by his master’s widow’s side to the end as a matter of loyalty.
The charm of a house with history
And another curious, and for me very endearing, fact is that the first house I owned, in Calle del Espejo, was a charming attic that I fell in love with instantly, and from whose terrace one could enjoy an imposing view of the upper part of the Teatro Real. The owners had recently inherited it after the death of their relatives, and had put it up for sale. Then I arrived, full of enthusiasm and ready to try to lower the price, as is customary, although it doesn’t always work out.
And in this case it looked like they weren’t going to lower the price by a single peseta, until they found out that my name was Amalia, and the owner started to cry with emotion, and decided to give me a substantial discount because I had the same name as the deceased former owner, whom she was very fond of, and talking about it, it turned out that she was the wife of a guitar maker… of course I asked for his name, and it was Modesto Borreguero. So for 13 years I lived in the house of the last journeyman of my great-granduncle Manuel, who stayed with his widow until the workshop closed.
Well, I like to introduce personal and close details in my writings, as they are the human side of the stories. Not everything is going to be data, because behind them are the people who give them meaning. And after this aside, let’s go back to the starting point of this chapter of our guitar life.
The origin of the initials on Ramírez guitars
The truth is that the origin of my family’s practice of putting the initials of the officers on the inside of the guitars came from the initiative of Filomena Vera and her officers, disciples of Manuel.
The practice of initialling the Ramírez Guitars
Two generations later, my father, José Ramírez III, took up this practice for very different reasons. In our workshop, as in many traditional workshops, there were always several craftsmen working, including journeymen and apprentices. And at the end of the 60s, when my father, in order to respond to the growing demand for his guitars, which had a waiting list of three years, decided to train a large group of young people to become guitar makers and to participate in the making of his work, in the style of the traditional workshops of painting, sculpture, architecture… where the master made his work with the help of his assistants. This is how Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel or the Portico de la Gloria, by the master Mateo, were made, to give a few examples.
The purpose of the initials on guitars
And the reason why my father decided to give a wedge to each of his journeymen with his initials so that they could stamp them on the inside of the guitars they made, was in order to know who had built each one when he checked them and made the final adjustments. In this way, when he found a defect in the construction, he knew who he had to send the guitar back to correct it. And, of course, also to make sure of the skill of his journeymen, although all those who had attained the rank of journeymen had demonstrated their skill, otherwise they would not even have been accepted as apprentices. This, of course, was an incentive for the journeymen to maintain excellence in their work, for they knew that the master would not let anything pass that did not meet the quality he demanded.
The legend of guitars with initials
Many of our guitars had passed through Andrés Segovia‘s hands, which were then exchanged for others. We could be talking about more than fifty instruments. The initials stamped on the inside of some of them remained in the memory of the aficionados, and this is how the legend was generated that the guitars with those initials were those of the best builders. But this is not the case. Practically all the guitars that were once used by Segovia returned to our workshop and were subsequently sold. Only in a few cases was this eventuality mentioned when they were sold, but many others passed into other hands without mentioning that they had previously been used by the master.
Historic guitars in the Ramírez collection
We kept only those that could be considered as historical for our collection: the first one he used in his concerts, which was the one from his tour of Australia; the first one with a cedar top; and the guitar ‘del café’ which currently belongs to our distributor in Japan. It is also safe to say that the guitars used by Andrés Segovia were built by practically all the journeymen who worked with my father and my brother, including my brother, of course.
Changing initials for numbers
Later, to avoid the annoying requests for a guitar made by one of the officers with one or other initials, my father replaced those stamps with others in which instead of initials there was a number, corresponding to each officer. And the same thing happened again: in a short time it was known that such and such a number corresponded to one of the guitars used by Segovia, and the corresponding requests were repeated.
The uniqueness of each guitar
It is not taken into account that, although our guitars have a characteristic timbre common to all of them, each one is different in terms of its sound, even though they are made by the same hands and with the same materials and measurements.
Every so often, my father would send three or four guitars to Segovia so that he could choose the one he liked best and replace it with the previous one. And in no case did the maestro ever again choose guitars with the same initials, so the official was not the cause of his preferences.
As I have already pointed out, only the most skilful passed all the exams of the maestro, at that time my father, to become a first class officer. The same applies to my brother’s officers, my grandfather’s, my great-grandfather’s and, of course, my great-granduncle Manuel’s, and to my officers today.
The guitar of Manuel Ramírez and Andrés Segovia
All this reminds me of the story of Manuel Ramírez‘s guitar, which he gave to Andrés Segovia when he was still a young and unknown guitarist, and with which, a few days later, on 6 May 1913, he played the legendary concert at the Ateneo in Madrid, and which he continued to play until it was badly repaired many years later, and never sounded as it did before. After Manuel’s death, Segovia took it to Santos Hernández to have it repaired, and the latter claimed to have built it himself and wanted to change the label for one of his own, to which Segovia refused, although he allowed him to put a small label next to it indicating that it had been repaired by him. Some time later, he took it to be repaired to the other guitar maker mentioned above, whose name I don’t know.
That same guitar is now on display at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and of which we have made an exact replica.
The truth is that, returning to what we were discussing, the subject of the authorship of guitars made in artisan workshops is quite repetitive, but it has no relevance whatsoever.
Comparison with other great masters
It is impossible for me to imagine that, among the artists who helped Michelangelo in the making of the Sistine Chapel, there was a mediocre one whom the master would have allowed to paint even a brushstroke. It is equally impossible for me to think that it would occur to anyone to say that ‘this or that part’ of the Portico of Glory was sculpted by one or other of the master Mateo’s assistants. In the same way, the guitars of José Ramírez are the work of José Ramírez, and not of his assistants. It is the master who designs, researches, teaches his assistants his techniques, buys the materials, takes care of the construction process of his work and inspects the final result, since, in addition to all that, he is responsible for the quality of everything that comes out of his workshop. It doesn’t seem fair that if the guitar is good, it’s the official’s merit, but if it’s not, then it’s the master’s responsibility. They are all the responsibility of the master, that’s why we are very careful with the guitars that leave our workshop and we dedicate ourselves to the process of their construction and we end up doing a thorough check and the final adjustments once they are finished.
Responding to enquiries about builders
We frequently receive emails asking us for the name of the builder of your guitar, based on its serial number or the initials or number stamped on the inside. Out of courtesy we have always replied to these emails, explaining at the same time how the traditional workshops work and that, after all, the guitar is a Ramírez. Now, perhaps because I am the teacher in my workshop, it is more appropriate to refer to our guitars simply as Ramírez. But not so much for the sake of prominence, but for the sake of coherence, where male or female gender no longer has a place.
In a family business like ours, which has been passed down from parents to children directly, this individuality is lost and what is maintained is its common soul, to which each one of us has been contributing a part of our own, introducing improvements, innovations and experiments. Thus my nieces and nephews, Cristina and Enrique, have already begun to contribute a part of theirs, enriching that common, centuries-old soul that we are so passionate about.
And, of course, the contribution of each person who has worked and works with us is also imprinted in our history, because thanks to them we have been able to meet the demand for our instruments with greater ease. Therefore, it is not a question of initials, but of a workshop in which each one of us leaves part of our experience and our life, and that is José Ramírez.
Amalia Ramírez
Madrid, 14 May 2017
