Born and raised in Florence, Italy, Tacchi took an interest in creating musical instruments from an early age, building his first guitar at age 15.[citation needed] In 1977, he began studying guitar making with Argentinian luthier Ricardo Brané.[1] After Brané’s death, Tacchi traveled to Spain, England, France, and the United States to study with various masters, going in 1981 to Spain to meet with many Spanish luthiers including Paulino Bernabe Senior, José Ramírez, Francisco and Gabriel Fleta to get their critical opinions and advice on his guitar making. With the same goal in mind, he went twice to England to consult with José Romanillos.[2]
Most importantly, during the early 1980s, Tacchi went several times to Paris to visit with Robert Bouchet and Daniel Friederich in their workshops, always with the objective in mind of growing as a luthier through their advice.[citation needed] In Castres, France in 1985, Tacchi competed in the "Concours International des Facteurs de Guitare" organized by Robert Vidal of Radio France.[3] There, he won first prize for Aesthetic Qualities and second general prize for Acoustic Qualities.
Experienced in the restoration of guitars[4] and other antique string instruments, Tacchi has carried out such restorations as the Pagés guitar of Jacob Lindberg, string basses for musicians of the Teatro Comunale di Firenze, and a classical guitar built by Hermann Hauser.[5]
Tacchi has built over 350 guitars, some owned by guitarists including Filomena Moretti, Flavio Cucchi, Carlo Marchione, Antigoni Goni, Robert Gruca, Colin Davin, Minoru Inagaki, and Marcelo Kayath, while others belong to important private collections. Two of his guitars are in the collection of the Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini in Florence, Italy.[2]
Coclea & Coclea Thucea
Detail of the Cerulea Coclea Thucea made by Tacchi in 2012
Tacchi is well known for a guitar he began building in 1989, the Coclea, which possesses unusually resonant acoustic properties. The name refers to the "cochlea" of the inner ear (coclea in Latin), the physiological place where noise is perceived as sound. The Coclea is designed on precise geometrical principles, of which its main characteristic is having top and back conceived of as portions of spheres of different radii.[6][7] Tacchi explains his inspiration for the Coclea: "From the early 80s on, I became interested in understanding the rules adopted by luthiers of the 19th century for designing the form of their instruments, a series of circles and triangles in a mathematical relation to the length of the body. Then I developed a system of spheres of differing diameters and planes in such a way so that these tangents would compose the Coclea."[8]
While he originally created two versions of the Coclea, one with a spruce top and another with a cedar top, it was in 1997 that Tacchi began to develop the idea for the Coclea Thucea, so named because of the combination of the two woods of which the sound board is composed: thuja plicata (western redcedar) and picea excelsa (spruce). Tacchi's Thucea design was partially inspired by a concept applied by Antonio Torres who created guitar soundboards with three strips of spruce of differing densities. He produced the first Coclea Thucea in 2000.[9]
In 2012, Tacchi created a special model of the Coclea Thucea named "Cerulea." Destined for China, the predominant color of the decoration is cerulean blue, inspired by the image of the celestial empire. In the rosette there is a square tile of blue lapis lazuli and as 2012 was the year of the Dragon there is another tile representing a dragon carved from an antique piece of bone.
Bouchet Homage
Andrea Tacchi Bouchet Homage interior photo by Andrea Tacchi
In honor of his former teacher, in 1994 Andrea Tacchi created his first reproduction of a Bouchet guitar, the Bouchet Homage. Following the Cahier d’atelier (workshop notebook) of Bouchet, later published by the Conservatoire de Paris, Tacchi created what is generally recognized as a personalized replica of the master’s instrument.[10][11]
In 1998 the Florentine luthier was invited to exhibit this guitar in Shibuya, Tokyo at the celebration of the 100-year anniversary of Bouchet’s birth.[12] Concerning Bouchet, Tacchi has written: "He linked the 'gesture' with the material, a characteristic typical of sculptors, and one ought not to forget that Bouchet started out as both a painter and a sculptor."[13]
García & Simplicio Replicas
Andrea Tacchi Simplicio Replica, photo by Andrea Faggi property Andrea Tacchi
In 1999 after intense study of Catalan lutherie, Tacchi began to make replicas of García and Simplicio Guitars.[14] Concerning the task of creating replicas of guitars by these two masters Tacchi has written: "When I set out to create a homage to maestro García, my state of mind is quite different from the great white canvas ready to be filled with colors that Simplicio represents for me. I feel freer, more tranquil, and more self-confident. Simplicio is more severe. During the period in which I was assiduously studying his work I dreamed of him often and I always felt intimidated and embarrassed before him."[15]
Skrjabin Homage
Andrea Tacchi Skrjabin Homage, photo made by Andrea Tacchi
Inspired by the piano works of the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin, Tacchi created a unique Coclea Thucea named the Skrjabin Homage in 2010.[7] This guitar was unveiled on 23 May 2010 at the Cleveland Institute of Music, played by Jason Vieaux for an encore.[16]
Articles and lectures by Andrea Tacchi
"Una strada da seguire" in Francisco Simplicio luthier: Note di viaggio sulle tracce di Francisco e Miguel Simplicio nella Barcellona fra Modernismo e Seconda Republica Diego Milanese and Umberto Piazza, eds. Il Dialogo, Milan 2010 pp.180–190
"Inside the Tacchi Workshop" at the Classical Guitar Weekend, Cleveland, Ohio 22 May 2010
Leon Battista Alberti was an Italian Renaissance humanist author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher, and cryptographer; he epitomised the nature of those identified now as polymaths. He is considered the founder of Western cryptography, a claim he shares with Johannes Trithemius.
A luthier is a craftsperson who builds or repairs string instruments that have a neck and a sound box. The word luthier is originally French and comes from the French word for "lute". The term was originally used for makers of lutes, but it came to be used in French for makers of most bowed and plucked stringed instruments such as members of the violin family and guitars. Luthiers, however, do not make harps or pianos; these require different skills and construction methods because their strings are secured to a frame.
Antonio de Torres Jurado was a Spanish guitarist and luthier, and "the most important Spanish guitar maker of the 19th century."
Achille Bonito Oliva is an Italian art critic and historian of contemporary art. Since 1968 he has taught history of contemporary art at La Sapienza, the university of Rome. He has written extensively on contemporary art and contemporary artists; he originated the term Transavanguardia to describe the new direction taken in the late 1970s by artists such as Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, Nicola De Maria, and Mimmo Paladino. He has organised or curated numerous contemporary art events and exhibitions; in 1993 he was artistic director of the Biennale di Venezia.
Angelo Gilardino was an Italian composer, guitarist, and musicologist.
Maurice Ohana was a French composer. Ohana's output includes choral works, string quartets, suites for ten-string guitar, a Tiento for six-string guitar, and operas.
Ramírez Guitars is a Spanish manufacturer of professional, concert-quality classical and flamenco guitars. Five generations of the Ramírez family have produced Ramirez guitars.
Making an instrument of the violin family, also called lutherie, may be done in different ways, many of which have changed very little in nearly 500 years since the first violins were made. Some violins, called "bench-made" instruments, are made by a single individual, either a master maker or an advanced amateur, working alone. Several people may participate in the making of a "shop-made" instrument, working under the supervision of a master. This was the preferred method of old violin makers who always put their names on violins crafted by their apprentices. Various levels of "trade violin" exist, often mass-produced by workers who each focus on a small part of the overall job, with or without the aid of machinery.
Roberto Regazzi is a notable contemporary violin maker and scholar who received his initiation in the craft from Otello Bignami. Regazzi lives and works in Bologna.
Cataldo Vito Amodei was an Italian composer of the mid-Baroque period who spent his career in Naples. His cantatas were important predecessors to the active cantata production of 18th-century Naples, and he stands with the elder Francesco Provenzale and younger Alessandro Scarlatti as among the principal cantata composers. Other surviving works include a book of motets dedicated to Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor; a serenata; two pastorales; two psalms; and four oratorios, which were important contributions to their genre.
Hermann Hauser Sr. was a German luthier. He worked in Munich and later in the Bavarian Reisbach. Guitar models by Hermann Hauser Sr. included the Vienna Model and the Munich Model, the Terz-Guitar, the Prim-Guitar and the Fifth-Bass Guitar (Quintbass). But it was his innovations based on the designs of Antonio de Torres for which he "is generally considered to have been the greatest guitar maker outside Spain." His Torres-based instruments are historically important, having profoundly influenced classical guitar builders and performing artists of the modern era. Andres Segovia described the 1937 Hauser Sr. with which he performed and recorded from 1938 to 1962 as the "greatest guitar of our epoch," and it is one of two Hauser Sr. guitars in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York collection. Met curator of musical instruments Jayson Dobney described Segovia's 1937 Hauser as having "changed music history": "This guitar, as much as Andre Segovia, established classical guitar playing." The British guitarist and lute player Julian Bream described Hausers as "the very essence of classicism in guitar sound" and recorded at least eight of his albums using Hauser Sr. Torres models of various vintages. Renowned antiquarian dealers Christie's and Brompton's Fine & Rare Instruments regularly offer Hauser Sr. guitars at auction. Hauser's Torres model is "one of the most copied guitars of today," with master luthiers such as Simon Ambridge (England), German Vazquez Rubio and Brian Cohen (UK), Paolo Coriani (Italy) and Francisco Navarro Garcia (Mexico) among many others, as well as popular manufacturers such as Cordoba, all offering Hauser-inspired models.
Fronimo is a software program for engraving of tablature for lutes, archlute, theorbo and other plucked and bowed instruments.
Luigi Augusto Fontanella is a poet, critic, translator, playwright, and novelist.
Roberto Michelucci was an Italian classical violinist.
Flavio Sala is an Italian classical guitar player.
Stradivarius Records, Italian Casa Discografica Stradivarius is a Milan based independent Italian record label specializing in early music and contemporary classical music. The record label was originally based from a shop in the Via Stradivari, but the shop is now located in the Via Sormani, Cologno Monzese. The label has collaborated with the Milan Conservatory in production of its recordings.
Giovanni Lucchi was an Italian bow maker noted for founding the first school of bow making in Italy.
Ugo Orlandi is a musicologist, a specialist in the history of music, a university professor and internationally renowned mandolinist virtuoso. Among worldwide musicians, professional classical musicians are a small group; among them is an even smaller group of classical mandolinists. Among members of this group, Ugo Orlandi is considered "distinguished." Music historian Paul Sparks called him "a leading figure in the rehabilitation of the eighteenth-century mandolin repertoire, having recorded many concertos from this period."
Roy Courtnall (born Roy Shapiro) artist (painter and sculptor), luthier, author, teacher and lecturer in musical instrument technology.
The Violin Museum, formerly the Stradivarius Museum, is a musical instrument museum located in Cremona. The museum is best known for its collection of stringed instruments that includes violins, violas, cellos, and double basses crafted by renowned luthiers, including Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù.
↑ Robert Bouchet (1898–1986) Cahier d'atelier avec une introduction par Catherine et Bruno Marlat et un commentaire de Daniel Friederich, Musée de la Musique, Paris, 2003
↑ "Una strada da seguire" in Francisco Simplicio luthier: Note di viaggio sulle tracce di Francisco e Miguel Simplicio nella Barcellona fra Modernismo e Seconda Republica Diego Milanese and Umberto Piazza, eds. Il Dialogo, Milan 2010 p.184
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
