by Jeffrey McFadden
Many members of the Toronto Guitar Society will remember the "Guitar Canada" competition of 1986. It was, by any reckoning, a rather impressive occasion. For me, as a young guitar student, there was a great deal to be absorbed. I was living in Sault Ste. Marie at the time and Toronto was not a place one could visit without extensive planning and even with such planning, there was the matter of adjusting to a significantly elevated pace upon arriving. I remember the nervous excitement of being in the company of the guitar community elite and having the chance to mingle at intermission with people whom I had known until then only as remote figures of the higher guitar firmament. Manuel Barrueco, Norbert Kraft and even Liona could be seen wading through the crowded lobby of the Jane Mallet Theatre at one point or another. The competition itself was contested at a high level and there was, as usual, a great Darwinian fascination in awaiting the final results.
Still, one of my most vivid recollections of the event was listening to the final round of the competition and being thunderstruck by a guitar played by one of the performers. It looked different. It had unusually smooth lines and an appearance of richness in the materials. It sounded unlike any instrument I had heard before. It seemed to project with extraordinary ease; it was glossy, full and dark in sound and yet it had an almost bullet-like clarity.
I found out that the guitar was made by the Montreal luthier René Wilhelmy. Within three months I was at René's shop on St. Denis street ordering one for myself. In the years since our first meeting René Wilhelmy has become one of Canada's most successful guitar makers. His instruments are used the world over and his waiting list keeps getting longer. I recently had a chance to interview René and following is transcript of our conversation.
Jeff McFadden:
René, when and how did you first become interested in guitar building?
René Wilhelmy:
It was through forces of circumstance, really. I was a guitar student at L'Institut Marguerite-Bourgeois and found myself particularly attracted to Elizabethan music. I started shopping around for a lute with a classical guitar scale and string tension, like the one used by Julian Bream, and soon discovered that no such thing was available and certainly not at any reasonable price. I was naturally handy and so you can guess the rest of the story! I started to seek out all the necessary materials and also found a book on lute construction from the US. I used my father's tools and had some help from local work workers to cut and plane the materials. My kitchen and bedroom became my first shop! It took me over a year to finish it but in the end it was actually pretty good instrument. My teacher, Claude Reid encouraged me to keep on with my new found pursuit but to try my hand at a guitar.
JM:
There is a very satisfying logic to a musician and handyman becoming a luthier - especially when the need for an instrument arises! The more traditional route for aspiring builders is perhaps to have an apprenticeship with a master luthier. Your route seems to have begun with natural resourcefulness and personal research. Did you in fact have any period of apprenticeship as you learned the craft?
RW:
Not in the usual sense, where one works under close supervision of one luthier over many years…. I did meet several different guitar and violin makers during travels in Europe and was inspired by many of them. I also had some informal contact with Neil Hebert here in Montreal and his methods and ideas had a significant impact on my approach.
JM:
That perhaps goes some way in explaining the striking uniqueness of your instruments. But, in these early stages, did you have a particular sound aesthetic in mind? Were you especially attracted to a particular "school" of guitar making, either Madrid, or Granada or Central Europe?
RW:
Yes I was, in fact! During my music studies in the 70's, many guitarists here in Quebec, including my teachers Claude Reid and Jean Vallieres, were strongly influenced by The Presti-Lagoya school and by their direct successors the Ako Ito and Henri Dorigny duo. I remember clearly, the first time I heard Presti-Lagoya's Baroque album, that I was absolutely floored by the sound of the Bouchet guitars, especially on the Handel transcription from that record. The Bouchet sound aesthetic was a very powerful influence. At the same time I was impressed with the construction concepts and power of Ramirez guitars. A lot of performers here were playing Ramirez guitars at the time and I became very familiar with them through doing repair work. In fact, during my first period as a maker, which lasted till about 1985, I mostly emulated the Ramirez 1A format and top bracing.
JM
I see, but was it more Bouchet or more Ramirez ?
RW:
If I were to be more precise I would say my influences were 23.5 % French school and 74 percent Madrid school. Where is the other 2.5%? Well, these proportions actually match those of my varnish recipe, and similarly, the last ingredient, that precious 2.5%, will have to remain a secret!!!!!
JM
Speaking of materials, (secret and otherwise!) how important is it to have excellent quality woods? Many luthiers claim that it's really a secondary consideration. (I've always been sceptical of that Torres experiment where he is said to have made a working guitar with back and sides constructed from papier mache!)
RW:
To me, this idea that materials are secondary is not a supportable argument. It would be similar to saying that there would be little difference in hearing the Ginastera Sonata, for example, played on a $200 guitar from Sear's rather than on a guitar by an accomplished maker as long as a great guitarist were playing it. It is a very narrow view of the art. The recognition of quality and the understanding of materials is fundamental, I think. The better the cut , quality and seasoning of the materials, the better the likelihood of success. I suppose if you gave a good maker common materials he could, with a fine tuned sense of the structure, weight, density and flexibility of those materials build at least a decent guitar, but imagine this same maker's results when given excellent woods to work with! The opposite is also sadly true…. I think all of us luthiers at one point or another have had to face the sad reality of having wasted the potential of some cherished piece of wood.
I can agree that the quality of the wood used for the soundboard has perhaps the greatest impact on the instrument overall. Still, the areas of the instrument that are under constant stress require quality materials too. The better qualities of the woods used, even in the bracing, help to increase the optimum efficiency and even extend the life of an instrument…. The Torres experiment is a brilliant and dramatic way of demonstrating the primary effect of the soundboard on the functioning of the guitar but it's really no more or less than that. Still, since you mention it, I could save my precious stocks of rosewood and build you a guitar with Earnscliffe linen bond (50% cotton guaranteed!!) if you really want!!!
JM:
Sure, sign me up! I'm told that the car I drive, a Saturn, is made not of steel but of plastic, so what the hell! But in all seriousness, access to rosewood must now have become a critical issue for guitar makers given the declining state of the Brazilian rainforest and the classification of some rosewoods as endangered. How are you dealing with this?
Stay tuned for Rene's answer to this and other questions on the mystery of guitar building!!
© Jeffrey McFadden, 2003
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