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| Manuel Ramirez de Galarreta y Planell was born in Alhama
of Aragon in 1864. Manuel was the younger brother of Jose Ramirez
I and at the age of 27 he decided to open his own shop at 24 Cava Baja
Street in Madrid. This move caused bad feelings between the two brothers
that were never resolved.
In a short period of time Manuel
Ramirez developed a very good reputation for building not only guitars
but violins and was named luthier of the Royal Conservatory of Madrid.
In addition to this, Manuel taught many young luthiers during this
period, including Santos Hernández, Domingo Esteso and
Modesto Borreguero.
Although it was his brother
Jose Ramirez I who developed the "tablao" guitar design, it was Manuel
who developed and perfected the design which is still the model for today's
Spanish classical guitar. |
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| It was around 1912 when a young man in
eccentric clothing presented himself at the Manuel Ramirez workshop asking
to rent a guitar for a concert he was about to perform. Because of
the strangeness of the young mans appearance along with the unusual request
he was not taken very seriously until he sat down and played the guitar.
His prodigious technique and vast repertoire prompted Manuel to give him
the guitar, and the rest is history. The young man's name was
Andre Segovia and that very guitar now resides in the Metropolitan Museum
of New York!
The Model 2N-E pictured above "has the same aesthetic
and technical mosaic design, headpiece, stringing, template, scales, bridge,
placement of soundboard bars and cross bar of the E line, entirely as built
by José Ramírez III in 1984. The new NE line is based on
this design, the only changes being the mosaics and a few minor details
of the internal construction in order to improve the sound quality."
As opposed to the older Model 2E, the new 2N-E has solid Indian rosewood
back & sides with a solid bookmatched Western Red cedar top. |
| The design features, inside and
outside of the Model 3N - AE Ramírez guitars, as well as the template,
decoration, tone, and quality of sound and materials, are exclusively Ramirez.
These guitars are made outside of the small Ramirez workshop, in limited
runs, by carefuly selected Spanish manufacturers. They are specifically
and uniquely built for Ramírez, and although their construction
is not directly inspected by Amalia Ramírez, all guitars are
finally adjusted in her workshop by her craftsmen under her personal supervision. |
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