[Columnist's note: Mr. Ophee has been examining the history of the Spanish guitar for several years in connection with his experiments to revive in some useful way the tripodion of Dionisio Aguado. He has prepared this essay partly at the instigation of a "qualified" question that appeared in my first article on mysteries in the history of the guitar: ...Has anyone found evidence that flamenco guitars of the last century were ever strung with wire strings? Or rather, was the rise of flamenco strumming a wholly new development made possible by the creation of the "new" Spanish guitar by such makers as Torres, in the mid-19th century? While not an effort to deal with this question directly, Mr. Ophee's essay does attempt to debunk some common assumptions that have crept into the literature about the place of Torres in the panorama of the guitar in 19th century Spain. -- T.H.]

In the course of historical research relating to Dionisio Aguado and his tripod, I have come across information which begs to question our accepted ideas about Francisco Torres. These ideas can be summarized as follows in the words of Harvey Turnbull (ex: The Guitar; from the Renaissance to the present day [London, 1974], p.77):

The question of scale length can be settled as follows: In his very first guitar method, the Escuela de Guitarra of 1825 (copy: Chicago, Newberry Library), Dionisio Aguado states that he prefers guitars which have a scale length of 27 pulgadas (Paragraph 232, p. 27).

In trying to determine the precise measurement of the Pulgada in 1825, I have found, with the help of Dr. Heck, a copy of J.H. Alexander's Universal Dictionary of Weights and Measures, Ancient and Modern (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1867. Copy in the General Library, Ohio State University.) It appears that prior to the introduction of the metric system to Spain in 1840, there were three different units of measurement in use in Spain which were called "Pulgada". However, Alexander states, the Castilian Pulgada was used for legal purposes throughout the country. Since Aguado lived in Madrid, the administrative and political capital, it seems safe to assume that this is the unit of measurement he is referring to. The Castilian Pulgada was equal to .9132 of an American inch, which makes Aguado's scale length equal to 24.66 in., or 627 mm. Further: in the second edition of the same book, translated into French by Francois de Fossa and published in Paris in the following year, 1826, the translator states in reference to this same paragraph, that 27 Pulgadas are equal to 623mm. (Copy in the Library of Congress and in the private collection of Dr. Brian Jeffery.) The discrepancy of 4mm can be explained in several ways, but it matters not: both measurements are still smaller than Torres' 650mm.

However, in the very next paragraph in the Escuela, (#233) Aguado states: "En las guitarras de mas tiro que el referido, las cuerdas, por buenas que sean, se rompen antes de subir a su debido tono, y por lo mismo, hay necesidad de mantenerlas bajas con perjuicio de la brillantez." (In guitars of a longer scale length than that to which I refer, the strings, however good that they may be, will break prior to reaching their proper pitch, and for that same [reason] there is a necessity of maintaining them lower [lower tension!] with a corresponding decrease in brilliancy.)

Which means in plain language, that in 1825, according to Aguado's testimony, there were guitars in existence, the scale length of which was longer than his own 627mm. Since the difference between 650mm and 627mm, amount to no more than 3.5%, it does not require any super-human powers of deduction to accept the notion that these larger guitars could not have been much different than the 650mm scale length we always associate with Torres. (More on scale length below.)

The question of the Torres profile does not lend itself to easy bibliographical analysis. There is no question that the guitar, which is depicted in Aguado's hands in his Nuevo Metodo of 1843 (right illustration) is indeed narrow bodied. The fact that this picture comes to us from a book which was published a good ten to fifteen years before the emergence of Torres as a known luthier, tends to underline the marked difference between its profile and the familiar wide profile of Torres. However, we should not forget that this etching is NOT a photograph. How much artistic license has been taken with it can be seen by anyone who bothers to examine the fretting design. Up to the octave the spaces do get somewhat smaller, although not in semitones, but further on, the spaces get larger! Aguado was not exactly happy with the graphic work done for him for this book, and he actually says so! (Footnote to paragraph #63.)

Courtesy of Guitar Review 39

But we do know that narrow-bodied guitars did exist. The examples of Panormo and Lacote are only too well known. Curiously enough, when Aguado invented his famous Tripod and first publicized it in his Nouvelle Methode de Guitare, Op of 1835, he used as a trade mark a graphic design of a guitar mounted on a Tripod (left illustration) which appeared on the title page of Nouvelle Methode, and on every single publication by Aguado until his death in 1849.
There is no question that with slight variations, this profile is practically identical to the profile we have come to associate with the name Torres.

The question of the strutting can best be resolved by a physical examination of the guitar in question. I do not recall coming across any information on such examination done to guitars left behind by Aguado, if any. At any rate, the book Guitars..., by Tom and Mary-Anne Evans, gives precise details of several guitars which date from the late 18th century. One of these, the 1783 Benedit six-course guitar, had a scale length of 656mm, (!), and a limited form of fan strutting. The guitar had been used as a single strung instrument, with no structural changes. No measurement is given of the width of the fingerboard, but it is not hard to imagine that the fingerboard width required to accommodate twelve strings in six courses, could not be any different than the width we are all accustomed to. The other significant instrument described by the Evanses, is the Pages six-course guitar of 1792. This instrument also had a scale length of 655mm, (!) and already employed an advanced system of fan strutting using the same number of struts as Torres. In the words of the Evanses: "Spanish guitars of the late 18th century prove that Torres did not conjure the modern guitar out of this air: his work was, rather, the culmination of a long process of development." (Tom and Mary-Anne Evans, Guitars: Music, History, Construction and Players from the Renaissance to Rock [London, 1977] p. 44) In other words, the genius of Torres does not lie in the invention of any new devices or designs. There was nothing revolutionary about him. He simply made a better guitar, by using the best ideas he could garner from his predecessors.