Official Luthiers Forum!

Sad news from Madrid:

Paulino Bernabe, one of the world's greatest classical guitar luthiers, passed away last Friday, May 11, 2007 at 6:00am in Madrid at the age of 75. Condolences to family and friends of this great artist.



Listed below is a short bio for those of you not familiar with his work...

Paulino Bernabe was born in 1932. Like many well-known builders, he started out as a cabinet maker. Unlike most makers--who can not play the instruments they build-- Bernabe is an accomplished guitarist. At seventeen, he began four years of study with Daniel Fortea, one of Tarrega's pupils. It was during these years that he developed a growing interest in guitar construction. In 1954, he started as an apprentice in the workshop of Jose Ramirez. During the years that Segovia started playing Ramirez guitars, Paulino was head artisan and foreman of the Ramirez workshop. Ramirez guitars of the 1960s bearing PB initials are highly sought after by collectors. In 1969, he left the Ramirez to set up his own workshop. He is a not only a very fine craftsman, but an experimenter who has developed his own strutting system and construction methods. The sound of Bernabe's guitars are distinct from those made while working for Ramirez, being noticeably less sweet. With robust basses, and strong trebles, his guitars are not only tonally rich, but   uniquely powerful, clear, and focused, with great sustain, projection and punch. Because of these qualities his guitars are widely used by many concert guitarists and recording artists, such the late Narciso Yepes. In 1974, he received the Gold Medal at the International Crafts Exhibition in Munich. In the early, 1980s, he moved his workshop from his store to his home. Since then he has worked he has worked side by side with his son, Paulino, who he describes as his best and most faithful disciple.

I've worked on many of his guitars over the years.
He had many great ideas on making that he implimented and they worked because of his great skill !!

He was also a "player" he knew what guitarists needed !!
I've always felt drawn to his guitars and personality !

There were not many like him around in this world !
mike Collins

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Mike Collins

It is sad to see such a master go. 

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

a great loss to the lutherie community.

While I am not familiar with his instruments, regretably... I trust the glowing opinions of the venerable luthiers here.. who hold him in such high esteem.
However its always a very sad event to lose such a pool of wisdom, within any art or field...
I wish the family and friends of this man my condolences
Cheers
Charliewood

I have some more information about Paulino Bernabe...

He had had heart problems and a few years ago had a heart operation. From a blood transfusion that was part of the operation he contracted Hepatitus C. One of the side affects of Hepatitis C is that it over time destroys your liver. It was this damage that eventually took Paulino's life after struggling with it for the last several years.

As John had mentioned, Bernabe experimented with different strutting patterns, some more successful than others. He had a closet full of guitars that were experiments that once completed, if he did not like how they sounded, would never be brought out or sold. He was always experimenting and was willing to take risks that other Spanish builders would not.

While at working at Ramirez, he trained and worked with alot of builders that have gone on to be master builders themselves such as Contreras, Manzanero and others. Some think that his contribution as a teacher and mentor of other builders is more important an achievement than most realize.