Classical Guitars: 1926 Rodolfo Camacho Viera (1887-1973)
Rodolfo Camacho Viera
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650 mm Scale, 52 mm Nut, Spruce Soundboard and Brazilian Rosewood back and sides.
The label shows the front and back of the Gold Medallions won at both the 1924 Barcelona and Rome expositions of artisans. Later labels did not show these medallions, but other aspects of his marvelous career, as you will read below.
(Guitar Awarded at the 3rd Communal Exposition of Buenos Aires, with 1st Prize and Gold Medallion. To my friend Tomas Marti. Amicably, Calle Lavalle 823, January 1926, Rodolfo Camacho.") This guitar must have been entered in the 1928, 3rd Communal Exposition of Buenos Aires, or Rodolfo just wrote about his most recent success in the dedication to Tomas Marti.
It has 4 harmonic apertures-Torres style. There are 11 smoothly sanded braces that meet in the center aperture, the other three apertures are on the treble side and have 3 braces running parallel towards the upper bout through the apertures.
The tone has been well developed and the volume, sustain, balance and attack are extraordinary. There are 1 old repair on the top. The back and sides have no cracks or repairs.
It was fabricated for Tomas Marti. The handwritten label reads: "Guitarra Premiada en la 3ra Exposition Communal de Buenos Aires, con 1ra Premio y Medallion de oro. A mi amigo Tomas Marti. Amistosamente, calle Lavalle 823, January 1926, Rodolfo Camacho".
Andrés Segovia got his first Rodolfo Camacho guitar of 2 he owned, in the fall of 1928 (2 1/2 years after this guitar was made), and the 2nd one in 1934. In 1934 Andres Segovia wrote a letter to Rodolfo Camacho that became a part of the luthier's label ever since. It states, translated:
" You have constructed the best instrument of those that have passed through my hands" Andrés Segovia XXXIV (1934)
" Construida la guitarra para me la hecho el señor Camacho Viera el mejor instrumento de cuanto han pasado por mis manos" Andrés Segovia XXXIV (1934)
Tone wise it's obvious why Agustin Barrios owned one and why Rodolfo didn't return from Segovia's hotel room with the guitar in hand. Agustin Barrios visited Rodolfo's workshop, but both guitars purchased by Andrés Segovia were purchased in his hotel room. In 1939 Rodolfo was getting 300% of what a Hermann Hauser I guitar was selling for in Buenos Aires at Romero y Fernandez's music store.
Below is the entry from page 361 in Domingo Prat's Diccionario de Guitarristas published in 1934.
Rodolfo Camacho Viera-Distinguished Uruguayan luthier. Born in Montevideo the 10th of March in 1887. He is the son of a constructor of Andalucian style guitars, that was established in the Canary Islands, and much later in the capital (Montevideo) where his son, Rodolfo would be born, and who settled in Buenos Aires in 1904. The paragraphs we're going to transcribe, procede from personalities in the field, we are exempt from making a commentary of his worth.
The distinguished man of science, writer and guitarist aficionado, Martin Gil, in the year 1925 had written: "It delights me to declare to you that I have tried out a guitar at length constructed by you, receiving a true surprise by the beauty of its sonority and the manner of construction".
Andrés Segovia, the very great artist and unmatched guitarist, in the year 1928, said: "In the instrument that you have had the kindness of bringing to me I have seen not only the carefulness of he who knows the charming esthetic appearance, but also the attentive observation to the spiritual sonority of the instrument. By this method you have gotten the qualities that place you, in a short time, at the top of the Hispanic constructors of superior fame"
As well the very distingished Paraguayan guitarist Agustin P. Barrios, spoke in the same year believing not to be mistaken that the said luthier "You have come to be placed at the height of the most distinguished constructors of guitars of these times"
I have only yet to recall that his instruments were awarded in Rome and Barcelona in the year 1924 and in Buenos Aires in the Community Exposition in 1928 with a gold medallion, those honors being and these transcribed lines, the honorable diploma of the knowledge of this distinguished constructor of guitars and violins. (End of translation of the entry in Prat's Dictionary of Guitarists and Guitarmakers.)
This is a consignment.
