ricistruzione della vihuela

Stephen Barber & Sandi Harris, Lutemakers

Catalogue and Price List 2015

1 Six course lutes 8 Gallichone/mandora, colascione

2 Seven and eight course lutes 9 Mandolino

3 Basslutes 10 Continuo instruments

4 Ten course lutes, 9-course lutes 11 Renaissance and Baroque guitars

5 Wire-strung instruments 12 Vihuela, viola da mano

6 Eleven and Twelve course lutes 13 Student Lutes

7 Thirteen course lutes 14 Footnotes

Reconstructing fluted-back vihuelas

Leading the way . . .

Since originally posting the commentary which follows, we've been approached by a couple of

people who felt uncomfortable about our posting a detailed, pointed expos of the shenanigans

and reactions from certain quarters concerning our original ground-breaking work on

fluted-back vihuelas, and the theft of some moulds we were using. Sorry, but we make no

apology whatsoever for exposing simple chicanery and people who have sought to make a

career off of our backs by popping-up and puffing themselves at every opportunity on the

internet and elsewhere by claiming they are experts, whilst at the same time heaping abuse

upon us. Remaining silent and keeping a 'stiff upper lip' may be what certain people would

prefer, but it's not our way: why should we remain silent in the face of self-serving behaviour

which on the one hand masquerades as 'research', and on the other slyly attempts to

undermine us, when the simple fact is that, had we not as a long-standing Lute Society

member remarked recently effectively created a market for these instruments by stirring

interest in them in the first place, by building and showcasing them on this website, how many

recent makers and speakers on the subject would have bothered?

Having given an enormous amount of information to the lute, early guitar, viola da gamba and

vihuela worlds over the last thirty years in the form of published research, drawings, teaching

and lectures, Stephen feels that he has given away quite enough already selflessly and

generously passing information to colleagues and students. What is quite unacceptable is the

unseemly and graceless manner in which certain persons who have taken an interest in

fluted-back vihuelas rather late in the day, have seen fit to attempt to denigrate and insult us

and our achievements. As leading British guitar maker Gary Southwell has remarked to us,

generosity of spirit, let alone offering simple congratulations or even thanks to us for having

led the way, seem to be in lamentably short supply in the early music world where certain

persons are concerned.

Since we made the first proper modern copies of both the Dias guitar and the Chambure

Vihuela (in 1976 and 2001 respectively) and announced them on our website, other instrument

makers have started building versions of them but we note that nobody else had tried to

make a copy of the Chambure vihuela before the wretched FoMRHI article appeared in the

summer of 2001 (and it would appear that, so far, the majority seem to have been working

from this piece of blatant plagiarism which cheekily illustrates a pair of our stolen moulds !

yet have tried to pretend otherwise).

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes http://www.lutesandguitars.co.uk/htm/cat14.htm#vihuela

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The image above shows the relative sizes of the Chambure vihuela and the Belchior Dias guitar of 1581;

both of these examples were made in 2003.

Some of our colleagues might consider pondering this fact: when Stephen drew for publication

comprehensive technical drawings of the sister instrument of the Chambure vihuela the

Belchior Dias 1581 guitar (the oldest known surviving guitar) back in May 1976 (25 years

before we built our first Chambure vihuela copy, and long before many of these people were

even making early plucked stringed instruments), he was the first person ever to have

observed and drawn to public attention the fact that its back of seven deeply-fluted,

double-bent ribs like that of the Chambure was not carved from a block as all other

luthiers, organologists, commentators and writers had supposed but made from individual

strips of wood, bent into shape.

Stephen's original and groundbreaking observation made way back then nearly thirty-eight

years ago that this structure was made from bent ribs, not from a carved block has turned

out to have been one of the most significant contributions to the organology of the vihuela;

and our joint work in recent years, pioneering a completely original and reliable technique for

making these double-bent ribs, has shown the way to others (notwithstanding that a published

article describing the use of our stolen moulds was the vehicle for many). It is to be regretted

that a number of 'colleagues' have subsequently lacked the dignity and honesty to give credit

where it is due.

Sheet 1 (of two) of Stephen's May 1976 drawings of the Dias guitar (available from the Royal

College of Music, London: +44-(0)207-7589-3643) carries the printed observation next to the

back view of the instrument that 2 pairs of its back ribs are bookmatched - therefore bent.

Recent dendrochronological examination of the guitar's soundboard by John Topham has

revealed that it exhibits year-rings dating from 1642 1725, thereby confirming another

original opinion he put forward in 1976, written in the Notes which accompany the published

drawings (formed whilst drawing the instrument for publication, and which has since been

extensively quoted): that the present soundboard fitted to the Dias is from the early

eighteenth Century, probably French work, and therefore not original.

Our technique first devised by Stephen nearly 39 years ago when he made copies of the Dias

guitar, whilst drawing for publication the original instrument way back in 1976 and refined

and perfected in recent years on numerous instruments uses no modern technology

whatsoever, nor does it rely on other people's original research; one day we will publish the

technique in detail, and certain knock-off merchants will be kicking themselves. Moreover, the

vihuelas we have built in this way have all been acclaimed for their clarity, power and

projection: their sound is not at all 'introverted and delicate' as some who have described their

versions of it (which seems to us to be tantamount to an admission that an instrument has

little sound, and is therefore a bit pointless).


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A quarter of a century later . . .

We were the first to re-discover the technique for double-bending fluted ribs via our own

efforts and initiative, and working independently and although others have since jumped on

the bandwagon, they've all simply followed in our footsteps, obviously taking their cue from

plagiarised writings published in the amateur newsletter FoMRHI - consequent upon theft of

early development moulds we were working on in late 2000.

The simple fact is that following its 're-discovery' in 1996 nobody had made a version of

the Chambure vihuela prior to our moulds being stolen and put into the public domain in the

amateur publication FoMRHI in April 2001 (and subsequently passed around the Internet).

It also helps if you can distinguish a guitar from a vihuela . . .

One person Alexander Batov who had taken a recent interest in the fluted-back vihuela,

has sought to try to pick holes in Stephen's original 1976 drawings of the Dias on the internet

(albeit without ever having had the professional courtesy or grace to acknowledge who drew

them) and made the spurious claim that this little 5-course guitar was originally built as a

6-course vihuela. The tone of his opening remarks betray his regrettably unprofessional

attitude:

"First of all, I would like to add a number of corrections to the existing drawings of the

Belchior Dias guitar, from the collection of the Royal College of Music (London) which have

been in circulation since 1976 . . .". Those reading his comments will no doubt have speculated

as to the motive, since they have no basis in fact when contrasted with the clear evidence

presented by the Dias guitar itself.

We originally wondered why he didn't simply do what anybody with basic manners would have

done, and approach the author of the drawings Stephen and discuss his views before

publishing them prominently on his website; after all, colleagues and institutions around the

world regularly consult us and thereby confer on and exchange information. Sadly, it appears

that his motive was simply to sell his own instruments on the back of attempting to cast doubt

on the work of an established and honest expert who has been making early guitars and

vihuelas for far longer than he has. Because he simply went ahead and published this stuff on

his website, we felt obliged to set the record straight and make a response on our website,

with factual evidence, and expose, challenge and refute his misleading claims and 'criticisms',

so long as he chooses to keep this stuff posted on his site. And as at today's date January

2014 the original material Batov wrote continues to be posted on his site, and has never

been updated, let alone corrected we are going to remain vigilant in the face of his

mischievous ramblings, and will continue to expose them for what they are. Comment and

analysis concerning his statements and the questionable nature of his approach in claiming the

Dias to be a 6-course vihuela, can be found further down this page.

Making the first copy of the Chambure vihuela

Our relationship with the Chambure vihuela is something that we feel goes right back to January 1976,

when Stephen started work on comprehensive technical drawings of its sister instrument, the Belchior

Dias 5-course guitar of 1581, in the Royal College of Music collection, London drawings which everybody

offering copies of the Dias has of course been working from ever since. Stephen built two copies of the

guitar whilst working on the drawings (which were published in July 1976) making the deeply-fluted back

ribs with an earlier version of the technique we now use for this construction.

So it was that 23 years later, we were invited by Jol Dugot to travel to Paris to examine with him the

newly-discovered Chambure vihuela; he was very interested in our opinions, since Stephen had such

intimate knowledge and experience of the Dias guitar. Driving around the Pripherique in northern Paris,

heading for the Cit de la Musique, we were wondering with great excitement what we would find;

speculating about the newly-discovered vihuela, we suddenly had the strong feeling that it was a dark

reddish colour (although we had never seen colour photos, or had its appearence described to us by Jol

Dugot, beyond commenting that its back looked to be built the same way as the Dias). Imagine the


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feeling when we first set eyes on the Chambure, and it was indeed dark red apparently made from

mahogany.

We spent an entire day taking careful measurements, using the special and unique equipment that we'd

developed for measuring lute backs and viol bellies so that we could be absolutely sure of the curvature

of its back ribs in every important plane - and took hundreds of photographs. Jol's parting remark to us,

after we'd visited the Musicora exhibition taking place nearby, and had coffee together in a caf near the

Muse, was "I think you are going to make this vihuela, n'est-ce pas ?". Armed with a comprehensive set

of measurements and photographs (there being no drawing available from the Muse at this time) we

drove back to London, full of optimism and excitement about the forthcoming project to reconstruct this

fantastic instrument.

Once we'd got back to our workshop in London and had the photographs we'd taken printed, and were

able to sit down and study and collate the information we'd collected, we decided that we would set about

exploring how to make the double-bent back ribs, and were determined from the outset to use no modern

technology or adhesives whatsoever - we would only use techniques that would have been available to

our predecessors in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. We began to work on the instrument in early

2000, with the body and neck of the first prototype approaching completion in November 2000, the

punches for its rosette finished in February 2001, and the new vihuela finally strung in early May, in time

for the 2001 Regensburg exhibition. We felt confident that we had, through a lot of hard work and effort,

solved the mystery of how to make the spectacular deeply-fluted back of this wonderful instrument - and

we knew we were the first modern luthiers to do so, and build an exact copy of it.

The plot thickens . . .

However, in early February 2003, it came to our attention that somebody had tried to falsely claim our

original exploratory research on reconstructing the Chambure vihuela as his own work. Here's what

happened:

Experimental moulds which we had made at the beginning of our researches in early 2000 were stolen

slyly removed without our knowledge or consent, back in early December 2000 from a wood-machining

workshop in a college where Stephen used to teach many years ago (where we had temporarily placed

them for evaluation purposes we were considering having more made at the time by the technicians

there, who Stephen had known for 30 years). It was the London College of Furniture as was, now

pretentiously re-invented as the London Metropolitan University (!). At the time we were told by these

technicians that the missing moulds had probably been accidentally recycled for other purposes the

machine-shop in question services a furniture-making course, an interior design course and an

instrument-making course and it often happened that students passing through would walk off with

pieces of timber they found lying around, and re-use them for their own projects although the moulds

which 'disappeared' were in a restricted-access office, apparently safe from prying eyes. Those

responsible for stealing the moulds must have thought that all their Christmases had come along at once.

We were irritated, naturally, at the loss of some of our moulds, but thought nothing more about the affair,

accepting the 'innocent' explanation that they had probably been carelessly sawn-up to be used for

something else by a furniture student; we took the remaining moulds away, and continued working on

development of the techniques we had invented, and working on the prototype instrument, which was

subsequently completed in May 2001.

We thought nothing more about the missing moulds, until we noticed in the last Lute Society quarterly of

2002 (which went out to members in late November) that somebody we seemed never to have heard of

was going to speak on the subject of double-bent vihuela ribs at the January 2003 meeting. We were

simply curious at first, navely thinking that somebody else who had also been working on the Chambure

instrument's construction was planning to present their findings until we remembered that this same

person, Richard Coleman, a former student of the college referred to above had emailed us in early

2002, asking us in a rather abrupt manner why we had made the Chambure's rosette of 2 layers of wood

and 1 of parchment (he erroneously claimed it had 3 wooden layers, he'd obviously mistaken the

over-painting covering the original instrument's rosette for a structural layer - see the images of the

rosette further down this page). Naturally, our suspicions were aroused, since he had attended the college

where our moulds had gone missing.

The truth is out there . . .

Our suspicions were confirmed when we were subsequently able to listen to a Minidisc recording of his


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presentation, given to the Lute Society in London on January 25th 2003 we were, conveniently for him

1000 miles away in Vienna at the time. This peroration contained by way of introduction the following

remark: " If Steve Barber was here, I know I'd be treading on his toes". Indeed ? Furthermore, we were

told by a friend that during this presentation, he was gleefully waving around moulds which she thought

looked suspiciously like ours. You can imagine our mounting anger.

It seemed more than coincidence to us that this 'talk' given on January 25th was announced several

weeks after we had announced on the Homepage of this site (in early October 2002) that we would be in

Vienna between January 14th - 28th, and therefore unlikely to be at the Lute Society meeting on the

25th.

It was then drawn to our attention that an article written by the same person - had appeared in the

newsletter of the organisation FoMRHI (which we have never subscribed to, so didn't know about) which,

on the basis of access to our stolen property, purported to lay claim to and to describe although so wide

of the mark and illiterate, as to be farcical a method for making the back of the Chambure vihuela.

The article began with this garbled but rather telling phrase: "The reader will bear with me if that which I

am unfolding is already practiced, for surely I know some makers use similar methods, and I do not wish

to 'steal their thunder' ". But it's apparently OK to steal moulds, is it ? Maybe the author should read up

on some Norse mythology, wherein he may well ponder that when attempts are made to steal thunder

from the gods, they tend to bite back; he might also consider the fate which befell Prometheus. And as for

the Aztec gods . . . Quetzalcoatl will come and get you, matey.

Here's another extract from this man of letters: "While the former offers no problem for those of us

making lutes, the latter presented a deep wish a sixteenth century Spanish find on vihuela making

particularly the bending of ribs" (sic; from the FoMRHI article) and from his January 2003 'talk' to the Lute

Society: "At this point one wishes that some self-respected 16th Century instrument maker . . . had made

notes. . . without losing his hands. So that down the centuries, I could read these courtesy of Babelfish,

cos I don't speak Spanish..". We think we know what he means here (not sure what Babelfish would make

of it, though) but nobody at FoMRHI seemed to have bothered to try and edit this impenetrable guff, let

alone taken the trouble to check if it was based upon original work. Interestingly, FoMRHI's

editor/secretary taught at the same college; and curiously, the miscreant's teacher whose name

Malcolm was scribbled on one of the pairs of stolen moulds we retrieved made this telling admission to

us: "I mean for what it's worth, when Richard Coleman told me that he was going to do this talk, and it

wasn't something I'd particularly encouraged him to do, I asked him to be extremely careful about what

he said, bearing in mind the work that I know that you had done on vihuelas, and I said I don't want any

question about, as it were, technical plagiarism".

Tellingly, Coleman does not anywhere in the talk or FoMRHI article claim to have invented or actually

made the moulds well, he couldn't in all honesty, could he ? Either that or he was just clever enough not

to try and falsely claim such credit, knowing the likely fallout once we'd learnt the truth

This person, who had tried in this talk and article to claim as his own our moulds and perforce our original

ideas, blurted out during his talk to the Lute Society that once the moulds had come into his hands, what

had defeated him utterly thus far was now made at least possible; yes, we bet it was. Ironically for the

perpetrators (he did not act alone) of this attempt at technical plagiarism and theft of intellectual as well

as physical property, having access to a mould is a very small part of the process and technique we

invented, developed and perfected.

Alerted by these developments, we did some further investigation, and were able to put 2 and 2 together

conclusively: and we now know for certain what really happened to the moulds we were experimenting

with, those responsible having admitted their skulduggery. That the moulds had been stolen was bad

enough, but for somebody to then claim them as his own - and moreover to do so publicly in a talk, and

in print in FoMRHI, was simply unacceptable. Our investigations have revealed exactly who lay behind this

scam, and that furthermore they knew all along (ie since the moulds 'disappeared') that they had our

property illegally in their possession, and without our consent. We of course demanded the return of the

stolen moulds forthwith; interestingly enough, the threat of legal action and public exposure forced their

return; we were not surprised to find that one of the moulds had 'Malcolm' scrawled on it. We will publish

all in due course.

Honest research and experimentation are one thing, but that is not what happened in this case: our

property was stolen, and the perpetrators went on to furtively use it although they of course knew

full-well that the moulds were our work and intellectual property and an ill-advised and cynical attempt


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was then made by one of them to falsely claim our research and ideas as his own. Having been made

aware of what had happened, the Lute Society realised that it had had the wool pulled over its eyes, and

that the talk given in January 2003 was blatant plagiarism, using our original ideas and work without our

knowledge or consent. The Lute Society did not publish it, given the circumstances, and undertook to seek

a published correction and apology from FoMRHI, who ought to be have been ashamed of themselves, but

probably aren't, as no apology has ever been forthcoming. So much for the pretence of FoMRHI to be an

honest forum.

Hopeless Old Rebec Makers and Failed Intellectuals: a case of dja-vu, Prior-ity, or publish and

be damned ?

A former student of Stephen's Mark Mitchell produced during his college days a very funny lampoon of

FoMRHI's newsletter back in 1983, which he titled HoRMFI - hence the reference above. When we were

working with Dietrich Kessler in 1988 on investigating the construction of viol soundboards which were

bent, rather than carved, it was suprise, surprise, somebody involved with FoMRHI who rushed into

print (as a clear spoiling tactic) knowing that Dietrich was planning to publish our joint findings himself

(which he subsequently did in the journal Early Music). Needless to say, the method proposed in the

FoMRHI article was laughably wrong and misleading based as it was on a complete misunderstanding of

the process of constructing a viol front from bent staves and apparently published for no other motive

than to pretend to have got there first. Sound familiar ? In the circumstances, we are sure the reader will

understand why we regard these shenanigans with contempt; it is indeed sad that the enthusiasm and

ideals which informed the beginnings of FoMRHI seem to have been traduced and lost in recent years.

Meanwhile, you should beware of imitations and knock-offs, based upon a stolen and only half-baked

understanding of our methods; following a lot of research and investigation since examining the original in

April 1999, we were the first modern makers to produce a proper copy of the Chambure original, strung in

May 2001 with its back made of Cuban mahogany which has a similar density and general properties

to the zizyphus of the original (not of a fruitwood, as the plagiarist mistakenly thought and certainly not

pearwood, which is about as difficult to bend as cardboard, or even maple also easily bent). It would

appear that certain makers have since read the wretched FoMRHI article and taken advantage of the

plagiarism it contains and attempted to jump on the bandwagon, following the garbled and misleading

suggestions Coleman presented in the talk and article although of course it doesn't change the fact that

it was we who got there first, as the plagiarist has since been obliged to admit.

A rash of Chambure 'copies' has appeared since the FoMRHI article was published, and we wonder how

many makers currently building such instruments having read it, are now feeling a little uncomfortable,

with the realisation that the FoMRHI article was not the original work it purported to be, but blatant

plagiarism, based, furthermore, upon our property, which had been stolen. None so far have had the

grace to acknowledge where the real credit lies for the initial discovery of the path towards the solution,

but the fact remains that we got there first, through honest and intelligent endeavour.

Generosity of spirit, honesty and integrity seem to be in short supply among certain 'colleagues',

manifested not least by the whining carpings of a certain conceited freeloading recipient of one Crafts

Council grant after another; and another self-publicising Johnny-come-lately to vihuela playing, who has

jumped from one instrument to another, 'retired' from semi-professional playing (for the second time in 5

years) came back again like a bad penny, then threatened to inflict a boring, ghastly 'blog' on the rest of

us (it strangely fizzled out after one posting). His next announcement was an interest in blues guitar;

John Lee Hooker must have been shitting himself.

It amuses us that one person, in an attempt to gain some kudos for himself in the wake of our having

built the first proper copy of the Chambure instrument, has published an entire article, which has whole

chunks and ideas apparently lifted from this website, although the author coyly states that ". . . bending

the wood into this shape is a difficult technique to master". No doubt reading FoMRHI and trying to

understand Coleman's ramblings is a difficult technique to master, too. We note that this author, too, has

adopted our convention of referring to the instrument as The Chambure Vihuela, as he titles his piece.

This fellow also repeats the canard that the rose is made of 3 layers of pearwood, when it is quite clearly

only 2 layers of wood (possibly pearwood, but with no grain discernible) and 1 layer of parchment (see

close-up images of the original rose, below). If this person failed to observe this rather obvious and basic

fact when he examined the instrument - as he claimed to have done in March 2000 what else did he not

notice ? But thereagain, that FoMRHI article must have been quite helpful, despite an apparent inability to

distinguish parchment from wood.


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The two images above show the original instrument's rosette (the missing section to the right in each

view helps to orientate the viewpoint - the soundboard was rotated through 180 between the two

photographs). Its structure - two layers of wood backed by one layer of parchment on the inner surface -

is clearly visible; the parchment layer carries cut and punched filigree detailing. The outer, upper surfaces

are covered in a thin layer of paint or gesso, whilst the inside view shows the parchment curling away

from the timber in places, with the undulating distortion of the rosette due to the effects of age and

fluctuating humidity unmistakable; a little chip of the gesso/paint layer can be clearly seen missing from

one of the heart-shaped motifs just below centre in the left-hand image. The lowest layer is not as some

people have erroneously claimed very thin wood backed with parchment; it is not, it is simply

parchment, covered in the same layer of paint or gesso as the rest of this rosette.

All along we had developed our ideas way beyond the gormless and semi-literate misunderstandings

presented in the talk and the FoMRHI article, based as they were upon a complete failure to understand

how to use our stolen property. The people behind this the student was obviously not working alone

may have had the moulds illicitly in their possession for some time, but they had clearly utterly failed to

work out what to do with them; and now we have retrieved our stolen property (albeit that we now have

back in our possession a mould which seems, during its X Files-like abduction, to have been mysteriously

covered in cork and christened 'Malcolm' ). This pair of clowns clearly thought they had put one over on

us, but are they laughing now ? Again what goes around, comes around.

And by the way: steaming the wood into shape (which is very far from what we do) as expounded by

Coleman - and sheepishly followed by the others who are currently working from the FoMRHI article - is

simply building dangerous stress into the instrument, which can only come out later, since the resultant

structure is unstable. If you steam something, it eventually tries to revert to its original shape, simple as

that. Sooner or later, the chickens will come home to roost, with the inevitable consequence of

instruments whose back ribs have been steamed or forced into an attenpt at the double-curved shape

eventually folding-up and collapsing. And steaming doesn't work with the timber of the original, which is

why none of the 'steamers' working from the FoMRHI ramblings has managed to produce a proper copy of

the original Chambure vihuela. One of the versions we've been sent images of was made from figured

maple, but with some of the slices missing from the sequence - suggesting that the maker had struggled,

and wrecked a few ribs - and found the steaming technique proposed by Coleman to be far from a

definitive solution. Our moulds may have been furtively spirited away (temporarily, as it turned out - the

threat of legal action forced their return) and fecklessly thrown into the public domain, but without being

able to ask us to explain what you do with them, the knaves responsible were obviously at a loss as to

what to do next they'd scratched their heads, but only got splinters. What goes around, comes around,

guys.

Much ill-informed comment has been written about the Dias and the Chambure instruments, which causes

us not a few wry smiles; having drawn the original Dias guitar and built copies of it over a quarter of a

century ago, and refined those original techniques in the last few years to produce copies and versions of

the Chambure vihuela, we feel that, on the one hand we have nothing to prove but on the other hand

the reader will understand why we view with contempt the petty backstabbing, whining and 'Chinese

whispers' which some have recently attempted to perpetrate (including from a certain dilettante whose

entire career has been underwritten by one Crafts Council grant and bursary after another). None of the

unseemly plagiarism and posturing we've had to put up with recently changes the fact that we got there

first, whilst others have been trailing in our wake.


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A rit of fealous jage . . .

As a postscript to this saga, it amuses us that, far from arousing excitement and delight now that a

genuine vihuela has come to light, curiously, the appearance of the original Chambure vihuela has

exercised the paranoid tendencies of certain makers, pundits and other sensitive flowers, who, grappling

with the challenge it represents, would seem to prefer that it did not exist (and who appear to be

terminally challenged by its construction). To our intense amusement, this wonderful instrument seems to

cause a lot of ill-informed barking and gnashing of teeth in the modern guitar and lutemaking worlds; and

we have received some hysterical abuse from a few of these ill-informed 'worthies', none of whom had

ever even examined the instrument, and on the basis of this perforce blind ignorance, have voiced various

ludicrous claims, ranging from the suggestion that it is a fake (of what, pray ?) to a type of 19th-Century

guitar (!) to it having been made in Nrnberg (that well-known Iberian outpost in Bavaria, and famous

home-from-home for lost vihuela players and makers) by local violin maker Matthias Hummel, in the early

18th Century ( Matanya Ophee). Yeah, right.

Matanya Ophee's fulminating and pointless interventions

This vociferous clown whose alleged profession is publishing who told the rest of us that the

Chambure instrument was either a fake or a type of 19th Century guitar, and who hectoringly and falsely

made the Hummel claim, also (in a style reminiscent of the long-vanished Iraqi information minister

'Comical Ali') claimed that the Chambure is identical to 3 vaulted-back guitars in the Sellas style in St

Petersburg, and by the same maker even though images of these instruments are freely available (see

below) and they are about as 'identical' to the Chambure as a cabbage is to a football. The guitar he

claimed as having the Hummel label is actually an Italianate guitar utterly different in the construction

of its back from the Chambure vihuela (none of the guitars in St Petersburg does have an authenticated

Hummel label there is only reference made in a catalogue list to a Hummel label in the collection, but

not inside any of their guitars). He clings to this crap to this day, although nobody's listening. His motto is

clearly 'Never let the truth get in the way of a large attack of verbal flatulence'. Incidentally, has anybody

ever seen Ophee and Comical Ali in the same room, at the same time? Hmm.

His unique style is long-overdue for recognition: here's an earlier example, dating back to April 22nd

2000, when Ophee sent this 'contribution' to the discussion then underway on the lute list* concerning the

Chambure vihuela:

"As for Dugot's presentation and his article: it is an interesting speculation but rather inconclusive IMO.

What particularly disturbs me about the content of the article is that it does not includes (sic) a reference

to the several cognate instruments, probably by the same maker, that reside in the St. Petersburg

Museum of Musical Instruments and were catalogued as vihuelas in the 1972 published catalogue of that

collection compiled by Georgii Blagodatov. And how do I know that the catalogue listings refers to exactly

the same instrument that was supposedly discovered by Monsieur Dugot ? By having been there, given a

complete guided tour by the then curator, Russian lute maker Alexander Batov, and having seen the

instruments in person more than ten years ago.

Dugot, when I asked him about it after his Paris presentation, did not know about the St. Petersburg

vihuelas. So I gave him all the details right then and there, which, so it seems, he either forgot about or

chose to ignore when he wrote his article".

Of course he ignored it, it was rubbish, and the usual Ophee spluttering nonsense; but what's most

amusing about this stupid statement made in a fit of pique because Ophee's own contribution to the

1998 Paris Colloque was not deemed worthy of publishing, and he'd decided to take it out on Jol is that

Ophee clearly was either trying to spread false information by trying to fool people that there were three

other instruments by the same maker, or he really is so daft that he cannot tell the difference between the

guitar in the black & white images below, and the Paris instrument (we've presented images of our close

copy of it for comparison, and to show just how misleading, pointless and worthless Ophee's intervention

really is). Amusingly, Ophee conveniently 'forgets' that the Paris instrument has no label, hence we don't

know for sure who the maker was: yet he feels free to tell us that they are all by the same maker. And

this is the fool who has the hubris to dismiss Jol Dugot's careful organology as 'interesting speculation'. A

measure of Ophee's character is that it is perfectly normal behaviour for him to use the phrase: " . . .

supposedly discovered by Monsieur Dugot" in a worthless attempt to belittle Jol's honest professionalism

and in the next sentence trumpet all the rubbish about Alexander Batov giving him 'a complete guided

tour' in which Ophee claims Batov told him that the three guitars are vihuelas; that's what Ophee's email

says, quite clearly. We'll leave it to the reader to draw their own conclusions about Ophee's motives.


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Alexander Batov since, however (in early 2005) told Ophee on the Lute list* that he does not now believe

that the three hapless instruments quoted by Ophee are vihuelas; he's also tried to explain to Ophee that

they do not have the same fluted-back construction as the Paris 'Chambure' instrument, and are simply

guitars.

The other interesting aspect of Ophee's email is the reference to Batov, who had since moved to the UK,

and recently sought to present himself as an authority on the vihuela. So did Batov really ever tell Ophee

that the three instruments in St Petersburg were vihuelas ? We wonder, since Alexander Batov is currently

claiming on his website that a perfectly ordinary, similar guitar (also having a simple vaulted back) here in

London in the V&A is also a vihuela. For further comment on this, please refer to the article further down

this page.

*The Lute list can be subscribed to at [email protected] by sending a message with the

word "subscribe" in the first line. The lute list archives can be found at:

ftp://ftp.cs.dartmouth.edu/pub/lute/lute_archives-01-4.gz

We have been asked to remind people of the annual Matanya Ophee prize for Recent Setbacks

In Organology. Candidates are invited to submit entries along these lines:

"I think that the St Petersburg guitar N 424 shown in the image below . . .

. . . is identical to one of these"


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Prizes are awarded according to levels of blockishness (Thomas Mace) idiocy and

obfuscation; gratuitous abuse (Matanya Ophee) earns extra points. The distinguished man of

letters and vihuela expert Ophee graciously presents the awards in person, which consist of

signed copies of his slim volume: Matanya's Charm School: A Guide To Graceful Manners.

Ophee has protested on the internet that he has been 'savaged and trashed' by the expos above

(allegedly by one 'Sandi Barber' whoever he or she is); another case of pots calling kettles black, when

his signature style has always been to 'savage and trash' (as he puts it) anybody who dares disagree with

him; that's exactly how he reacted to our initial, dignified announcement back in 2001 that we'd

completed the first modern copy of the Chambure vihuela. As stated above, it's all there for anybody to

read in the archives of the Dartmouth lute list, along with other vituperation he has posted against

anybody so foolish as to express an opinion contrary to his.

Back in June 2005, Ophee announced very publicly that he was about to visit St Petersburg, and would

publish photos of the '3 identical vihuelas' in the St Petersburg museum, to show the world that the

'Chambure' instrument in Paris is clearly identical to them, and ipso facto a German guitar (???). The

great man's June 2005 expedition has come and gone, and we and the world are still waiting . . . rumour

has it that he wasn't in St Petersburg at all, but was sailing up and down Loch Ness in search of the

monster, miffed because it had apparently published some 7-string guitar music underwater. Or was that

Hummel? How strange that he should have been lurking around the Loch, when he affects such contempt

for its namesake Arthur Ness, a decent and honest man.

An acquaintance of his remarked recently that he is so volatile that he would probably explode if one were

to wish him 'happy birthday'. . . so Many Happy Returns, MO.

Another of these 'experts' (an amateur maker and player who apparently scribbles away in the proctology

department in a local government office here in the UK, in Leeds) in a fit of pique - or maybe, as

Inspector Clouseau of the Suret would put it, 'a rit of fealous jage' took the Ren Magritte approach

This Is Not A Vihuela and made the wonderfully surreal suggestion that he did not need to actually look

at the instrument to know exactly what it was (or wasn't) and was thus happy to pontificate from a

distance. He claimed to be able to absolutely tell the difference between as he bleatingly put it an

elephant and a monkey (?) simply by looking in a book, and that was all that was necessary for such a

cognoscento as he. Indeed.


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In response to this extraordinary statement, Stephen wished him the best of luck, should he ever

encounter a marauding elephant only to discover that it was actually a bit larger than an A4 page from a

book . . . or for that matter a vihuela-playing monkey.

To paraphrase the great Dr Samuel Johnson, Employment in local government is the last refuge of the

scoundrel. Well, clearly in the case of two of the characters in this saga.

The frustrated ramblings of this daft pair, whilst providing endless amusement, add nothing to the

furthering of our knowledge and appreciation of the vihuela and its music (or indeed very much else). And

quite what satisfaction they derive from their chosen state of blissful ignorance is anybody's guess.

Unsurprisingly, they subscribe to FoMRHI.

Subscribers to FoMRHI both here in the UK and in North America have been busy ever since, knocking

out versions of this instrument. Various instrument makers have written articles, made presentations, and

generally tried to claim some -priori 'knowledge' of the techniques we pioneered, without any of them

having the grace to acknowledge the truth: that it was our original work, and our stolen moulds

published in FoMRHI which pointed all of them in the right direction in the first place.

There has almost been a queue forming, of people trying to claim for themselves the discovery of a

reliable process; but by a curious coincidence, all of these have appeared since the FoMRHI plagiarism

first surfaced and all those now offering 'copies' of this instrument are surprise, surprise, FoMRHI

subscribers to a man. Even Clouseau could work out the sequence of events . . . Entertainingly, their

'explanations' have ranged from the modestly vague: ". . . bending the wood into this shape is a difficult

technique to master" to the downright flatulent claim by a recent speaker that bending wood in this way is

"Common knowledge in the violin-making world ". Nonsense ! Having for all his working life maintained

close contacts with distinguished colleagues in the violin-making world (including Charles Beare, the

distinguished Stradivari connoisseur, and owner of a fine collection of original Venetian lutes and guitars,

including the Magno dieffopruchar 6c lute) Stephen smiles at this feeble explanation. (This person's

starting-point was, we have been told, an article written by the late Rmy Gug, who spent his own

working life struggling against plagiarists and parsimonious nit-pickers not to mention trustafarians and

freeloaders; Rmy's article concerned the bending of historical harpsichord bentsides using hot sand).

However, neatly leaving aside the fact that no archives or guild records anywhere explain any of the

processes and/or methods used by the old violeros, his mischievous and misleading suggestion deserves

clarification: yes, there are references to vihuelas being made ' acanaladas' (fluted), aconvadas' (convex)

or 'vihuelas tunbadas' (that is with a bent back in the shape of a tomb, tumba) and there are also

references to the use of sandbags in laying wood veneers and tortoiseshell. But all of us who have

searched for a solution to the question of how these double-curved ribs were originally made, and arrived

at a technique for making them, cannot say that our method is definitely what the old makers did.

We can't make such a claim, but what we can honestly lay claim to is having been the first modern

makers to work out a method and in our case, entirely without relying on somebody else's original work.

The vihuelas which we've built in this style have been consistently clear, responsive and powerful

instruments.

And we got there first . . .

VihuelaaMano.com

Postscript:

The Belchior Dias guitar of 1581 the earliest surviving guitar

In response to a number of misleading claims and dubious statements which have been made

by Alexander Batov, since September 2004, both in public forums and on his website, and in

emails to an internet 'discussion group' he was instrumental in setting up misinformation

concerning the Dias guitar and other significant early plucked stringed instruments we have

decided to publish the facts and the background, and images of the Dias. Many people have

contacted us, commenting that Batov's interventions and statements which seem to be

rather transparently self-promoting should be responded to.


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Therefore, in order that anybody misled or confused by him can review the actual evidence for

themselves, and make up their own minds (and contrast the evidence with his ill-observed

'theories') we present the images and text which follow.

The background

When he was initially approached by the Royal College of Music in London to draw some of

their instruments in early 1976, Stephen Barber decided to take a radically-different approach

from previous museum drawings, which seemed at best to have been produced with little

concern for anybody who had purchased them with a view to trying to build an instrument

from them. Approaching the first drawing, the Dias guitar drawn when Stephen was 24 years

old he decided to ignore all previously-adopted 'standards' and conventions and produce a

drawing which the prospective maker could actually work from with confidence. Using his art

school training and photographic abilities, Stephen set about producing his first ever set of

drawings commissioned from a museum the first set of many that followed in subsequent

years. Instrument makers have benefitted from these drawings ever since, and made (and

presumably made a living from selling) instruments built from them.

These drawings revolutionised how museums presented information on important items in

their collections, and they have set standards for accuracy and presentation in technical

drawings of plucked and bowed stringed musical instruments which have since been adopted

and followed by a large number of museums and institutions. As well as being referred to and

acknowledged in countless publications and articles, they have also of course been of

enormous benefit to researchers as well as modern instrument makers around the world. The

late Robert Lundberg and the distinguished German musical instrument researcher and scholar

Friedemann Hellwig are but two major figures in the lute world who have praised the quality of

Stephen's drawings and research work.

Back in 1976, Stephen despite a chorus of ignorance prevailing at the time was the first

person to observe and go on record categorically that the ribs of the back of the Dias guitar

were bent, not carved from a solid block; and he has not only had this observation accepted

and vindicated in recent years by the appearance of a second instrument in Paris whose back is

made in the same way, but also received acknowledgement of this pioneering work from

several organologists and other experts, including Antonio Corona and Jol Dugot; these

endorsements underline the quality, significance and value of the original ground-breaking

1976 drawings.

Nevertheless, a number of books and publications continued to spread ill-informed comment

following the publication of the drawings: for example, in Guitares, Chefs-d'oeuvre des

collections de France (1980, Eurydice, Paris) on page 57 it is stated: "The back of the 1581

Dias is carved from a single block, instead of being built from thin curved strips, and this

makes the guitar heavy for its size".

At least in the Notes on page 318, the authors comment under Note 1 that: "Selon Stephen

Barber, dans ses notes sur le plan de cet instrument, la table n'est pas d'origine et serait un

travail Franais du XVIIIieme sicle. La caisse est de dalbergia cearensis, et le fond n'est pas

taill dans la masse, mais constitu de plusiers bands". The Eurydice book does, however,

contain beautiful colour photographs of several important guitars, including the Dias.

Unfortunately, in Kevin Coates' generally excellent Geometry, Proportion and the Art Of

Lutherie (1985, Clarendon Press, Oxford) on page 148, not only is Dias' name mis-spelt as

Diaz, but the date is also wrongly given as 1582; the text states: "The vaulted back consists of

seven 'Doric'-fluted ribs of fruitwood . . ."

Tom and Mary Anne Evans write on page 27 of Guitars from the Renaissance to Rock (1977,

OUP Oxford) "The arched back is carved from a single piece of wood, and not made from

separate strips as were the arched backs of seventeenth-century guitars, making the

instrument very heavy for its size".

It took a while for the truth of the matter, which Stephen observed while drawing the Dias


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back in 1976 (and clearly presented on the drawings and the notes which accompanied them)

to sink in; today, nobody doubts that the Dias' back is made from separate fluted ribs, its

deeply-fluted, vaulted back construction of double-curved, bent ribs acanalada e aconvada

(Tumbado), according to the original sources.

A response to Alexander Batov's claims regarding the 1581 Belchior Dias

guitar

However, there has been for several years now a commentary published by Alexander Batov on

his website, which attempts to place false and misleading information in the public domain

about the Dias guitar; subsequently, this commentary was then expanded upon and presented

in a public forum at a meeting of the Lute Society. The starting point for Batov's remarks

contained in a webpage somewhat optimistically-titled "The guitar and vihuela crossroads -

looking for evidence" is to gainsay Stephen Barber's published drawings of the Dias guitar,

making the mischevious claim that the instrument is a vihuela. By a mixture of frivolously

nit-picking at Stephen's original 1976 drawings and making a number of false statements

about them, and making unsubstantiable and groundless speculations about the Dias and other

instruments. Through various distortions (and selective quotes from a 2002 dictionary of

Spanish instrument makers although of course the Dias was made in Lisbon, Portugal) he

seems to be attempting to pass off as 'facts' his own fantasies and unsustainable opinions

about this guitar and other surviving old instruments.

For reasons that will become clear from the following text and images, whatever the Dias

instrument was originally made as (we contend that it was built as a 5-course guitar the

suggestion proposed by some, which we think is extremey unlikely, given its date a 5-course

vihuela) one thing it was never intended to have is 6 courses, since by no stretch of the

imagination or the facts was its narrow neck ever made to carry 6 courses.

For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the original Dias guitar, and unable to visit the Royal

College of Music in London and check for themselves, we have published here below a number

of images along with a commentary on Batov's claims and speculations, which expose the

sham contained within them; the reader is thus able to draw his or her own conclusions

regarding their veracity.

Stephen who was commissioned by the Royal College of Music to draw the Dias for

publication in 1976 felt that Batov's remarks and nave speculations should be responded to,

in order that people are not misled by them; he considers that the way Batov has gone about

posting his speculations is unfortunate, and comes across as a gratuitous attempt to gainsay

somebody who is a respected, acknowledged expert with considerable experience as an

instrument maker and researcher, simply to try to persuade people reading his website that his

nonsensical statements regarding the Dias guitar have some basis in fact.

They do not, and Stephen responds to Batov's claims as follows:

"It has come to my attention that Alexander Batov has posted a lengthy commentary about my

drawings (and the original guitar) on his website, in an attempt to convince people that the

Dias guitar was originally built as a vihuela, and moreover, as one with 6 courses. Reading

through his remarks, it is clear to me that they are shot through with false statements and

claims, and arbitrary speculations which are not supported by the evidence, and blatantly

misleading so-called observations and 'corrections'.

Since there is a whole section of his website devoted to trying to convince people to accept his

claims that the Dias is a vihuela and not a guitar, and since these claims start with Batov

questioning the accuracy of my 1976 drawings and observations, I have decided to challenge

his misleading statements and claims and publish here actual images of the Dias along with

responses and corrections to Batov's comments, website and internet postings, which will

allow people to draw their own conclusions regarding his claims and motives.

Since his remarks appeared on the web, I have been contacted by a large number of true

experts in this area, who are concerned that Batov's misleading statements and false claims

are not allowed to pass unchallenged; it is important that anybody stumbling across Batov's


13 di 32 23/01/2015 18:01

statements on this subject on the internet and on his website is made aware that they are

misleading and wrong.

Batov introduces his claims about the Dias (and other instruments) by alleging that there are

several mistakes on my 1976 drawings, and the clear implication is given that they cannot be

trusted; since he has seen fit to post these opinions in a public forum on his website which

has then been actively puffed at every opportunity (on the lute list, for example, and on a

'vihuela discussion group' set up for their mutual advantage by him and his client) I have

decided to publish a detailed rebuttal, since almost all of the claims and comments he makes

are false; I have included herein close-up images of the Dias guitar which of course the vast

majority of people will only know through the few published photographs (and of course, my

drawings) so that people reading the following text can judge for themselves. I also publish

here images of another instrument again a guitar which Batov also tried to claim as

another vihuela.

As a forward to the following remarks, I am using the word 'vihuela' in this context to refer to

the type of instrument that was used to play the music contained in the surviving 7 books of

music, published between 1538 and 1576; I am not concerned here with the habit which

persisted in Spain until the eighteenth Century of using the word 'vihuela' in a generic manner.

Firstly, I note that Batov made no attempt to contact either myself or the Museum of the Royal

College of Music to consult us prior to publishing the material currently on his website; I

regard this as discourteous and deeply unprofessional, and so do the Museum. I further note

that Batov does not credit me with making the drawings, which he originally described as

"Having been in circulation since 1976" He has since at least acknowledged that the RCM

'released' the drawings in 1976, but seems curiously coy about naming their author, or

admitting that they had been commissioned from me with the intention of publication.

Both I and Elizabeth Wells, the former director of the RCM Museum, regretfully note Batov's

carelessness in posting mere opinions on his website (which he claims are 'facts') about the

Dias without having advised or consulted either of us beforehand; the fact that the garbled and

self-contradictory statements he makes have no basis in the evidence presented by the actual

instrument leads one to wonder if his motive is simply commercial after all, he is in the

business of making and selling instruments, yet appears to believe that posting a lengthy piece

on his website which masquerades as insight and something new which has escaped the rest

of us for all these years will pass without comment.

I note that Batov's ideas and statements regarding the Dias have already been the subject of

responses from Antonio Corona, a person who does know what he is talking about regarding

the vihuela and early guitar. Antonio has also demonstrated from the viewpoint of a scholar

and player that Batov has made false and misleading statements in this matter, and that his

opinions should be treated with scepticism; I will demonstrate here that Batov's claims

regarding the Dias and other matters do not bear the scrutiny of comparison to the

evidence presented by the actual instrument.

I was initially surprised by the bizarre way in which Batov set out to cast doubt on my

drawings, which have been in the public domain since May 1976, when they were published by

the Royal College of Music along with accompanying, explanatory notes. I note that nowhere

does Batov have the grace to acknowledge any merit in them which calls into question his

motivation, in my view.

In sharp contrast to Batov's approach, Robert Lundberg has commented: "In July of 1982,

while the lute was open, the English lute maker Stephen Barber published a nicely detailed and

informative set of measured drawings consisting of two sheets of interior and exterior views

plus notes. These were a welcome addition to a very short list of really complete museum-

quality lute drawings" (American Luthierie, #32, 1992). As Batov knows full well, the Dias

drawings are reliable, which is more than can be said for his inexperienced and ill-informed

speculations.

To attempt to dismiss the drawings in the way he originally did which gave the impression

that they are some sort of sketch that has been copied and passed around in a samizdat way


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since 1976 seems to be a deliberate insult to both myself and the RCM. Amusingly, Batov has

subsequently tried to backtrack somewhat by at least saying that the RCM 'released' the

drawings in 1976 although he quite clearly doesn't possess the simple courtesy to name me

as their author; I wonder why not?

The position is this: the RCM, in the person of Elizabeth Wells, the curator of the instrument

museum, commissioned the drawings from me my having been approached by Ian Harwood

and recommended by him. I measured and examined the guitar and produced them for

publication by the RCM Museum, for the benefit of those interested in this important artifact.

Batov has, of course, only been able to make his so-called 'copy' of the Dias because of the

existence of my drawings; I was informed by Elizabeth Wells that he had not measured the

instrument prior to making this 'copy', and only photographed it in its display case, through

the glass. It appears that he only actually had the guitar on the table before him in the RCM

Museum a few weeks after originally publishing the misleading material on his website.

After having initially read the bizarre comments on Batov's website, I decided to look again at

the Dias not having at that point in time (October 2004) handled it for over 28 years. I was

curious to see if any of his claims had any merit or if he had found something new and

interesting which had escaped my attention originally; I take the view that one never stops

learning or discovering new things if one has an open and inquiring mind and I therefore

wanted to give Batov the benefit of the doubt, and look again at the Dias with fresh eyes.

However, I was surprised at just how wrong his claims were, and the unedited photographs

reproduced here (taken on Thursday October 21st 2004) clearly show just how much he is

distorting the evidence and attempting to hoodwink those unfamiliar with the original

instrument.

I am concerned that his claims that the Dias is a 6-course vihuela and not a 5-course guitar

are intended to distort the facts and to mislead; its very narrow neck (which has quite clearly

never been altered from its original state) makes it impossible that it was ever intended to

carry 6 courses of strings.

I therefore decided to put the record straight and respond to his statements, since I feel that

this important historical instrument should not be passed off as something it is not.

Many reading this will know that more than 37 years ago I drew the attention of the world of

organologists and instrument makers to the fact that the Dias guitar's back was constructed

from bent strips of wood and not carved. Many experts and players consider me something of

an authority on these instruments, having built copies of the Dias way back then, and having in

more recent years built the first copies of the related Paris 'Chambure' vihuela. For the sake ofsetting the record straight, so that others are not misled by him, and in order to refute his

unfounded comments about my drawings, I am not prepared to sit back and let Batov make his

misleading claims unchallenged. A detailed response based upon the actual facts presented by

the Dias itself illustrated by close-up photographs I took in October 2004, which are

reproduced below is the best way of exposing his claims to proper scrutiny, and casting the

light of unequivocal evidence upon them.

In tandem with his claims that it is a 6-course vihuela, Batov has posted images of what he

calls a 'complete copy' of the Dias instrument on his website; the instrument he depicts is

fitted with 6 courses and its back and sides are made from cocobolo. The first problem I have

with this 'copy' is that he has made the neck of his 'copy' considerably wider than that of the

original Dias instrument, presumably so as to fit 6 courses (he has made his instrument with

1x1 and 5x2 stringing) onto the neck. The centrally-placed hole which Batov refers to as the

'11th peghole' has been obviously moved by him significantly up the pegbox away from the

lower end of the pegbox rear (and of course away from the nut) so that the player's left hand

would not be obstructed whilst playing in the first position as it of course would with a peg

inserted in this hole, had Batov copied its exact position and equally significantly its angle,

from where it stands on the original Dias. Comparing the images of the original Dias published

here with what Batov calls his 'complete copy' clearly illustrates just how much he has

distorted the original guitar's proportions and dimensions.


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Above: The hole drilled through the pegbox which Batov claims is an 11th peghole made by Belchior Dias,

the original maker of the guitar; note the rough scratches near the nut, probably associated with the

poor-quality workmanship of whoever drilled this extra hole near the nut.

In the set of images below, I placed a peg in this hole (which has a different taper to the other

10 holes) and it is quite obvious that when playing a guitar as small as this one (553mm string

length) the left hand would strike any peg placed in this hole: the first fret whatever the

fretting system employed is impossibly close to the peg; this is quite unambiguously clear

from the left and central images below. Batov knew this, and of course moved the central hole

in his 'copy' further up the pegbox, out of the way; he also moved the other pegholes further

up, and changed the proportions of the design of the original pegbox and elongated it.

So: a 'complete copy' ? This, coupled with the obvious widening of the neck of his 'copy' from

the original widths of the Dias guitar's neck: 40mm at the nut, 48.5mm at the body: these

dimensions produce perforce a bridge spacing of 55mm, which is found on many surviving

guitars from this instrument onwards, for over a century (55mm - 58mm occurs across a range

of old guitars which have their original bridges). This widening in itself makes a nonsense of

his claim that his instrument is in any meaningful way a'copy'. He has simply literally

stretched the facts to suit his opinions. I invite the reader to compare these images of the

original guitar with Batov's 'complete copy'.

Above: The original guitar does indeed have a hole drilled through the pegbox right behind the nut, and


16 di 32 23/01/2015 18:01

at an angle leaning away from the other pegs. As is quite obvious here, this hole was clearly not made by

Belchior Dias, despite Batov's mendacious claim that it was. Consider for one moment trying to sit down

with a little guitar of some 55cms string length, and trying to play it with that peg standing thus; now ask

yourself how you could play the vihuela repertoire with a peg sitting where this one does. Small wonder

that Batov altered its position and angle on his so-called 'Complete copy'.

Had Batov had the courage of his convictions, and wanted to honestly demonstrate that the

Dias had been originally made as a 6-course vihuela as he claims, then he would have exactly

copied the existing neck widths of Dias (which have not been altered or narrowed) and placed

the '11th peghole' (as he calls it) exactly where it is on the Dias in other words, copied those

factors which would allow a player to judge for themselves if the instrument was actually

playable in the 6-course set-up he contends for. It is quite clear to me that he knows full well

that the hole through the neck joint is not original, it was not made by Dias, it was probably

not intended to house a tuning peg, and that the instrument was made as a 5-course guitar,

not a 6-course vihuela.

The extra hole is drilled off-centre at the rear of the neck; is that really very likely to have been

done originally by Dias as Batov claims given the beautifully-executed workmanship of the

rest of the instrument ? Is it really plausible that such a craftsman would drill a hole so

off-centre and crudely? It passes through the purfling decoration of the pegbox front (the

other pegs are carefully placed within the loops of the design) and it is crudely made; at least

Batov partially admits this in passing in his text. And moreover it clearly makes playing the

instrument in the first position next to impossible: imagine for one moment sitting (or

standing) and trying to play this little guitar with a peg in that position.

Where we differ is that to me it is inconceivable that Dias made that extra hole, since apart

from being off-centre and roughly-made, it places the peg through the decoration, it is too

close to the nut, it stands at an angle sloping towards the body of the instrument which

would make playing impractical and uncomfortable and its crude and rough execution and

obvious jarring with the existing decoration and design of the pegbox point to a later

intervention or alteration. Batov knows this to be the case, which is why he has altered the

proportions and dimensions of his 'copy' simply to try and prove his groundless claims.

Elizabeth Wells (at the time the RCM Museum curator) commented that she as a 'cello player

was certain that a peg would not be placed so close to the nut how would any player

manage to play through a piece which required he or she to return to the first position, on such

a small instrument, without extreme inconvenience ? Indeed.

Above: The hole drilled through the pegbox right behind the nut, offcentre and leaning at an angle away

from the other pegs.

Batov knew when making this 'copy' that the existing dimensions and proportions of the Dias

let alone the angle of the extra hole would make playing the instrument as a 6-course tuned

as a vihuela completely impossible, which is why he changed them to try and make a false

point; the implication of his description of the instrument he has built as "Complete copy" is

that he has indeed copied it in all aspects. But he emphatically has not. And trying to explain

away (as he does) the narrowness of the original instrument's neck as something that modern

players simply don't know how to approach, is in my view both lazy and an insult to the last 30


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years of scholarship, study and performance by a vast number of players. Antonio Corona, Jol

Dugot and myself, not to mention an enormous number of players, makers and scholars of the

vihuela (and early guitar) clearly don't know what we're talking about . . .

Regarding the existing string spacings available on the Dias guitar 55mm (dictated by the

width of its neck) one of the nearest comparable string spacings for five courses on a

near-contemporary sixteenth Century plucked instrument is the six-course Gerle lute in the

Vienna KHM, which measures 55mm for the first five courses; the Magno dieffopruchar

six-course would produce around 56mm (its original bridge is missing). Nobody in their right

mind believes that somehow vihuelistas in Spain and Portugal were struggling with 6 courses

jammed into the space that other players were accustomed to having for five; and quoting

theorboes, mandolins and other later instruments as Batov does in an attempt to support his

claims about string spacing on the Dias is both misleading and irrelevant.

Six courses cannot be fitted onto the existing neck of the Dias (which is 40mm at the nut and

48.5mm at the body joint) which is why on his 'copy' Batov has increased the neck width from

the original.

Cocobolo ?

I now turn to the issue of the wood from which the guitar's sides and back are constructed; on

his website, Batov says "It is very likely that the body of the Belchior Dias guitar/vihuela is

made from cocobolo (Dalbergia retusa) rather than, as is commonly believed, from kingwood

(Dalbergia cearensis)". I note with the contempt it deserves the sly attempt here to denigrate

my professional competence: 'commonly believed" ? Batov, despite trying to present himself as

somebody with experience in these matters, seems to me to be trying to gainsay my original

and correct identification of kingwood for the simple reason that he does not know what it

looks like, and probably does not have access to any true kingwood; reading a description of a

timber in a textbook is no substitute for knowledge and experience.

When I examined the Dias 32 years ago, I immediately noted that it was made from kingwood

(I was familiar with this timber because my grandfather a cabinetmaker used it in his

workshop). I was in the fortunate position of having obtained a large quantity of kingwood in

the 1970's, before it became effectively commercially extinct, thus I was in possession of a

range of logs (and hence samples) of this timber. Having delivered the drawings and notes to

Elizabeth at the Royal College of Music museum in July 1976, I also left with her a sample of

kingwood a split log some 150mm in diameter and the same length (with one half of its

surface planed), in order that anybody doubting the attribution of kingwood as the material

from which the Dias' back and sides had been constructed, could compare and see for

themselves.

It should be stated here that many museum timber attributions are wrong, and these mistakes

can get amplified and distorted in published information: for example, Kevin Coates describes

the Dias as being made of pearwood in his treatise on geometry and proportion (published

several years after the Dias drawings appeared). I was therefore determined that with my

drawings now in the public domain, a correct attribution would be presented from the outset

which is why I left a sample of the timber at the RCM Museum for all to inspect and compare.

Kingwood is also more elastic than other rosewoods (it and cocobolo as well as Brazilian, or

Rio rosewood, are dalbergia species) which lent further evidence to its use on the double-

fluted ribs of the Dias guitar's back; I had direct experience of this property back in 1976 when

I made two copies of the instrument (as a 5-course guitar, naturally, with kingwood sides and

back).


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Above: The small pores and characteristic gentle streaking of kingwood are clearly visible here, the ruler

being included in the photo for scaling purposes; the continuous grain across the back ribs which have the

triple purfled lines inlaid is also clearly visible in the lower image; note the lack of "rather strongly defined

tight black veining", which is a signature characteristic of cocobolo, not kingwood (please see next image

below).

Batov says on his website that kingwood exhibits "rather strongly-defined tight black veining".

No it doesn't, as is obvious from the photos above. He seems to have directly quoted this

phrase from some textbook or other, rather than observed this from personal experience or

been in possession of actual samples of kingwood to compare to cocobolo; since real kingwood

became effectively commercially extinct around 20 years ago, most textbooks refer to a similar

wood which the timber trade calls 'para-kingwood'. I should know: apart from having several

logs of the old wood, I also have a rather large log of para-kingwood, and the difference is

more startling than that between Brazilian and Indian rosewoods. Para-kingwood comes from

as far north as Mexico, and only began to be widely offered when true kingwood became

scarce, whereas real, original kingwood as used on the Dias is Brazilian.

I reproduce below an image of a typical sample of cocobolo so, which timber has the "rather

strongly-defined tight black veining" ? And note the typical orange hue that is presented by

cocobolo.


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I wonder if Batov has ever seen actual kingwood itself, otherwise presumably he wouldn't

make the false claim that it has "rather strongly-defined tight black veining". On the other

hand, this, his chosen description of kingwood obviously yet another quote from somebody

else's work rather than personal observation and knowledge is a phrase which rather neatly

describes cocobolo, by comparison a rather vulgar wood, relatively cheap and easily available

(it always was, compared to kingwood). What he also neglects to mention is that cocobolo has

a completely different pore structure to kingwood. I can tell the difference between cocobolo

and kingwood, so can Jol Dugot and a host of other experts who have looked at the Dias

guitar over the years; Batov apparently cannot yet he felt free to suggest that I've got it

wrong and denigrate my expertise by using the rather dismissive phrase "as is commonly

believed".

There of course remains the small matter of the Dias having been made in Lisbon from

kingwood a timber from the then Portuguese colony of Brazil, whilst cocobolo originated

from Mexico, then a Spanish colony; its importation and use in Spain (not Portugal) is not

mentioned before the early years of the 17th Century, long after the Dias was made; on the

other hand, kingwood was being used in Portuguese furniture in the mid-16th Century. The

Dias guitar was made in 1581: go figure.

I invited him to visit the RCM museum, and ask them to show him again the kingwood sample I

left with them over 30 years ago, and take along a sample of his beloved cocobolo ( I

understand that Batov was shown the 1976 kingwood sample, and apparently went rather

quiet) and see if he could spot the difference. His attempted dismissal of my own expertise in

these matters by speculation and what comes across as thinly-veiled insult rather than

observation and knowledge of the subject is treated with the contempt it deserves: "It is very

likely that the body of the Belchior Dias guitar . . . is made from cocobolo . . . rather than, as is

commonly believed, from kingwood". Quoting from a timber book and then selectively quoting

from Romanillos & Winspear's book are no substitute for experience and knowledge and

moreover do not mean that the Dias is made from cocobolo! How can Batov possibly suggest

that because there is a 1622 reference to Pablo Herrera having made 2 guitars from cocobolo,

that perforce means the Dias must be from this wood too? What sort of chop-logic is that?

Perhaps he might try explaining this line of 'reasoning'.

Other Constructional details misunderstood by Batov

Pine blocks adjacent to soundboard bars

Batov claims that these are wrongly-placed on the drawings; I accept that he has a point here,

I did indeed indicate that they were next to the existing bars (dating to the 17th Century

soundboard and its bars). They are in fact slightly displaced from alignment beneath the


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existing bars; however, I do not think they are original, they appear to be glued over the linen

tape which reinforces the joint between the two side ribs rather than the tape being cut back

to allow their being glued directly to the inner surface of the ribs (as they are in all other

examples of Iberian guitars I've examined).

They do not appear to sit flat on the tape (ie, there was never a small, shallow groove worked

into their surface to allow intimate wood-to-wood contact with the timber either side of the

linen as well as the linen itself and thereby sit properly on the wood and the tape). Looking

at these again recently, I still am of the opinion that they are probably not original; Batov's

proposal that they indicate the original bar positions is, in my view, like everything else 'new'

he writes about the Dias, simply wrong. I've worked on enough old guitars including Iberian

instruments such as Robert Spencer's former Dias-like guitar and Julian Bream's six-course

Joseph Benedid guitar of 1787 to know that these bars (he refers to them as 'tuning-fork

shaped') which support the soundboard bars (and which are usually glued in after the

soundboard is glued on, with the instrument face-down, therefore before the back is glued on .

. .) are not made like this, and I therefore consider that these tiny blocks in the Dias probably

have nothing to do with supporting soundboard bars, even if they were original. Other guitars

have strips of wood glued to the insides of their side ribs in order to give added strength to the

sides (when the sides are either veneered, inlaid or assembled from more than one piece the

Ashmolean Voboam guitar of 1641 is an obvious example); and in the Dias, there are also tiny

pine blocks placed along the joins of the back which would appear to perform a similar function

of strengthening a joint.

On the Chambure vihuela they are much larger, so this is not a useful comparison, since even if

the Chambure instrument originated from the Dias workshops or school of makers, these are

worked differently to what is found in the Dias. Again, had Batov had the benefit of properly

examining the Dias, he might have seen what is actually there, rather than what he would like

to see. His contention that these little blocks perforce show where the original bars of the Dias

were (and according to him place the bridge perforce 5mm further up the soundboard !) is

nonsense.

Inlaid triple purflings

Batov claims that the triple inlaid lines in the valleys of three of the back ribs of the Dias go all

the way through; no they don't, they only do this at the ends. If you hold the guitar up, face

down, and sight along those lines, they are wavy from side to side, and do not stand in a plane,

therefore they are not assembled as fillets as he claims because if they were fitted between

two planed halves of the rib (as would be implied by a 'sandwich' construction, rather than an

inlay technique) they would perforce have to describe a flat plane from one viewpoint at least,

and they do not; any lutemaker would understand this simple principle. For Batov's

information, it is clear that Belchior Dias obviously inlaid the triple lines (which are,

incidentally, not white-black-white as he claims, but rather white-brown-white, being ivory-

kingwood-ivory) after the internal linings of linen were glued in place, to give strength to

support the inlaying of these purflings. It seems that Dias may have deliberately let the inlaid

lines run off at full depth at the ends, perhaps to baffle anybody subsequently examing his

handiwork; if so, he seems to have succeeded with a certain person.

Furthermore, the grain across each of the three ribs fitted with these inlays is absolutely

continuous, it has not slid out of alignment at all (which would be likely had the rib been sawn

in half, had a flat edge planed on it and then re-assembled with a fillet of ivory/kingwood

/ivory glued between the two halves). There would also be evidence inside the instrument,

where the linen tape which is glued to reinforce the inner surfaces would reveal the presence

of a 'sandwich' construction at least somewhere with a ridge or undulation, which would be

produced by natural shrinkage over the centuries; of course it does not, because the lines are

inlaid, not assembled. Dias was a brilliant craftsman, but clearly no fool; he didn't make more

work for himself than necessary.

Having closely re-examined the guitar recently, I stand by my original view that the triple lines

in the valleys of the back ribs are inlaid, probably to around half of the thickness of the rib, and

not assembled as a 'sandwich' or fillet. The ones in the side ribs possibly are assembled,

although the lack of any 'drifting apart' of the joints, coupled with their erratic course along

the ribs, led me at the time to conclude that they, too were inlaid; that's why it says that on

the drawings.


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Strap-button hole at the top of the pegbox

In the images below, we can see the original guitar's pegbox, which apart from showing that

Dias never drilled the suspicious hole near the nut, clarifies another spurious claim made by

Batov, clearly exposed by these images that there is a hole at the top end of the pegbox

which goes all the way through and was drilled to hold a strap button of some sort. It can be

seen here as clearly not an original feature made by Dias: why would he disrupt the carefully-

designed and beautifully-executed 'rope' inlays around the pegholes by compromising its

upper resolution with a carelessly-drilled hole, and moreover one also drilled so close to the

edge of the pegbox?

Take a look at the large chunk of wood broken out of the rear of the pegbox by the careless

and clumsy drilling of this hole (not at all clear from the vague image Batov has posted on his

website). Contrary to his claims, this hole does not go all the way through, as can be seen in

the face view and close-up below right; we couldn't shine a light through it, and couldn't pass

ricistruzione della vihuela

Documents

course lutes

early guitar

certain quarters

dias guitar

certain persons

certain people wouldprefer

simple congratulations

simple chicanery