Ricistruzione Della Vihuela

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes
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http://www.lutesandguitars.co.uk/htm/cat14.htm#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).
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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 lute-request@cs.dartmouth.edu 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
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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 museumquality 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 of
setting 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
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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 doublefluted 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 ivorykingwood-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 carefullydesigned 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 a
thin 0.2mm diameter wire through it when we examined the guitar again in October 2004.
Above: a small point (as it were), perhaps, but nevertheless in my view calls into question Batov's powers
of observation: I did not record the small hole with the broken-out edges nor the pinprick on the front of
the pegbox (both at the top end of the pegbox) on the original drawing because I felt back then as I still
do that it was a later intervention, carelessly made by somebody other than Dias, after it had left his
workshop; that's why I didn't record it on my drawings back in 1976.
It is worth reiterating that this was my first drawing for a Museum; it provoked a lively discussion
amongst colleagues and led to my noting later alterations, marking-out lines and toolmarks on
subsequent drawings as anybody familiar with my drawings of the 6-course lute by Magno dieffopruchar
and the Colichon bass viol will know. It is wholly unworthy for Batov to seek to denigrate my 1976
drawings on the basis of something so insignificant.
Pegholes
His claim, that the two holes (ie the central hole and the first one on the treble side) that show
signs of break-out result from the re-reaming of the holes for a later guitar set-up, shows how
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faulty is his logic, because if the 11th hole which he claims is original was already there,
nobody would have touched it, as it would not be necessary in a 5-course set-up (its most
recent incarnation); he can't have it both ways he can't use any speculative later re-reaming
of the holes to justify his claim that the 11th hole was there from the beginning.
The pegbox holes are also clearly seen in the images posted here to be very neatly made, in
contrast to the central hole near the nut (with the exception of the ragged edge of the first
peghole on the treble side, which may have been damaged by the same careless person who
made the central hole, or it may be the result of careless use, or 'wear and tear'). I am of the
opinion that Dias only drilled 10 pegholes, for the simple reason that he was building this
instrument as a 5-course guitar, not a 6-course vihuela, by the evidence presented by the
(unaltered) neck width and the design of the decoration which carefully loops around the 10
pegholes.
The Dias pegbox
It is quite obvious that Belchior Dias designed this little guitar's pegbox to be in visual as well
as physical balance with its neck and body; had he set out to make a 6-course vihuela, his
obvious mastery of design and workmanship would surely have incorporated into the pegbox
ample room for an extra course (and obviously incorporated a 6th course into the inlay designs
on the front of the pegbox). Had a 6-course instrument been what he made, then it is quite
clear from these images that the proportions would be quite different from what we see today,
and the looping decoration would have encompassed the 6th course; Batov appears to have
altered these proportions and dimensions for what he calls his 'complete copy' in order to try
and mislead from the clear evidence presented by the guitar itself (and revealed in the images
here) to try and somehow 'corroborate' his claim that the Dias was originally built as a vihuela.
I may have taken him more seriously had he properly and exactly copied the dimensions and
layout of the original instrument's neck and pegbox after all, they are all there on my 1976
drawings, which he of course used to make his 'copy' . . .
And wouldn't a vihuela by Dias be a wonderful discovery ? Thereagain, as we comment
elsewhere on this website, we are of the opinion that the Paris 'Chambure' instrument is from
the same workshop or school as Dias; anybody who has examined the number of old
instruments that we have could not fail to observe the obvious similarities in design and
constructional details between the Dias guitar and E0748; they are so similarly executed as to
lead to the strong suspicion that they are very likely to be from the same workshop, perhaps
even the same hands.
Of course I welcome serious discussion about the Dias guitar, and in the images Batov has
posted of his 'complete copy' it is clear that he has produced a neatly-made instrument;
however, I and many other experts am concerned that he has posted false and misleading
comments on his website, merely in order to try and persuade people that the Dias guitar is a
vihuela. There is of course no reason why he or anybody else should not make a vihuela based
upon the Dias guitar, but it is wrong to do what he has done, and on flimsy evidence try and
convince the public that he has discovered the instrument to be a vihuela; it is not, and I think
that deep down he knows that.
Batov sums up his rather rambling and tenuous comments thus: "As the evidence given above
suggests, the Belchior Dias 1581 instrument was most probably made with 6 courses of strings
and therefore should be more appropriately named a vihuela rather than a guitar". Does it,
Sasha ? ". . . was most probably made with 6 courses of strings" ? I beg to differ, on the basis
of the images shown above, and a greater knowledge of these matters; the unambiguous
photographic evidence presented here would not appear to support that contention, would it ?
Pegbox design and peghole spacings
Regarding guitar peghole spacings, Batov makes further false claims: in an attempt to prove
his claim that the extra hole of the Dias guitar's pegbox is original, he said: "Although it might
have been added to the already existing 10 holes at a later stage of the instrument's life, the
peg head itself seems to have been designed with the view to allow an extra space for the
housing of this additional peg: the distance between the back of the nut and the first two pegs
on both the left and right sides of it is even slightly more (28mm) than the average amount for
a 'full size' guitar (c. 25mm). One of the most striking comparisons here is with the peg head
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layout of the above mentioned c.1590 guitar, in which case this distance amounts to only
19mm".
What does Batov mean by "average amount for a 'full size guitar' " ? He's already defeated his
own argument by admitting by default that the Dias pegbox is smaller than those of other
guitars (perforce its pegholes will of course be nearer to the nut) so just what is this 'average'
he's trying to claim ? Batov tries to give the impression that he has looked at a reasonable
number of late 16th and 17th Century guitars; if so, then he might have noticed that there is no
such thing as an 'average', it not only varies from maker to maker, for example: the first pegs
of the 1680 Stradivari guitar are 21mm from the nut, those on the 1700 Stradivari are 36mm
(and that variation is on guitars made by the same illustrious maker) but guitars of this period
exhibit a great range of peg spacings. So, an 'average' ? Looking at other guitars' first pegs'
distances from the nut, the 1602 Choco are 33mm, the Checchucci of 1623 are 25mm, the 1641
Voboam are 29mm, the Sellas in the Ashmolean are 27mm (whoops! there's that average!). I
could go on and on . . .
The ridiculous claim Batov makes that: " Here again, as in case with the Belchior Dias 1581
instrument, there is a noticeable lengthening of the peghead in the area above the nut, so as to
allow for the central peg to be positioned at the same distance (as that in-between the rest of
the pegs) from the two pegs above" is, quite simply, nonsense; the pegbox of the Dias guitar is
the smallest of any surviving guitar, at 142mm long, and there is no 'lengthening of the
peghead in the area above the nut', the two original pegholes nearest the nut are placed
already quite close to it, as the images above show.
This statement deserves clarification: firstly, the pegbox of the Dias guitar is by far the
smallest pegbox of any surviving 5-course guitar, and it is quite obvious that it was
deliberately made that short to keep it in visual as well as physical balance (being made mostly
from ebony) with the rest of the instrument: remember that the Dias is a small instrument,
with an overall length of 778mm. There is no space to add a peg, it should be clear even to an
idiot that Dias never intended an extra hole in his original design, otherwise the pegbox would
have been made commensurately longer; the ex-Robert Spencer guitar (now owned by Frank
Koonce, in the US) which Batov refers to has a pegbox which also is fitted with 10 pegholes,
and this is longer than the Dias pegbox at 162mm; the Dias pegbox is 142mm long. So, ". . .
the peg head itself seems to have been designed with the view to allow an extra space for the
housing of an additional peg"?
I don't think so. I also measured and photographed this guitar when it was in the possession
of Robert back in 1976, at his invitation, when he learned that I was working on the Dias
drawings.
I invite the reader to refer to the image above, which shows the pegbox face; this shows that
Dias carefully designed his pegbox to allow for its original 5 courses and along with the other
images of the Dias presented here, it shows that Dias did not make that hole, as Batov
misleadingly claims.
The outline of the Dias guitar's body (plantila)
This is one of the most ridiculous claims that Batov makes: "Although the original outline of
the body was changed, mainly due to the increase of body width in order to accomodate a
wider span of strings". This one takes the cake, for several reasons: firstly, if the body was
widened to accomodate 'a wider span of strings', why wasn't the neck or even fingerboard also
modified ? Secondly, how does he propose that the body was widened ? I wonder just how
nave this guy really is: if you push out the width of the ribs of one of these instruments with
its soundboard off (let's for one moment pretend that no stresses are applied to the rest of the
structure) the neck comes forwards. By just how much, exactly, does Batov think the outline
was widened, in his fantasy world of alteration to a 6-course vihuela ? By the amount needed
to accomodate one single course (let's say around 12mm) ? Where does he think that would
put the action of the strings ? Examination of the original Dias guitar reveals that the neck is
back from the datum of the body at the nut (probably explaining the replaced part of the
fingerboard inlay near the belly as I comment on the original drawing and notes) . . . Mr Bean
was never this funny or entertaining.
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Quoting from the Romanillos & Winspear Dictionary 'The Vihuela de Mano
and The Spanish Guitar'
Batov refers several times on his website and in emails attempting to defend his position
regarding the Dias guitar to a book by Jos Romanillos Vega and his wife Marion Harris
Winspear, 'The Vihuela de Mano and The Spanish Guitar, A Dictionary of the makers of plucked
and bowed musical instruments of Spain (1200-2002). This book which is referred to by its
authors as a 'Dictionary' on page XI was published by The Sanguino Press, Guijosa,
Guadalajara, Spain in 2002. It contains several inventories of the workshops and properties of
instrument makers, and these make fascinating reading.
However, I note that Batov although applauding this book elsewhere on his website has
used a quote from an earlier article in Classical Guitar magazine by Mr Romanillos dating back
to March 1987, where he says: "The surviving instrument by the Portuguese Belchior Dias is a
typical example of the type of vihuela that was being made in Madrid by members of the craft
guild".
In the context of the other quotes on his website, and by saying that: "The credit, however,
has to be given to Jos Romanillos who in one of his articles made repeated references to the
Belchior Dias instrument as a possible vihuela" (Batov then goes on to make the quote above)
it is clear that he is trying to use this earlier 1987 quote to try and prop-up his own opinions.
What Batov neglects to quote from Romanillos' recent book is the following passage, which
presumably reflects Romanillos' current thinking: "No vaulted vihuela de mano or five-course
Spanish guitar has come to light although Belchior Dias' five-course vaulted and fluted guitar
made in Lisbon in 1581 can be taken to represent an instrument made in the Spanish style"
(page XX of the Prologue). I presume that Batov who reportedly spent a fair amount of time
reading from this book during his presentation to The Lute Society in January 2004 has read
this sentence (I missed this talk, being away in Vienna at the time, as I am every year in
January). Or is he simply trying to pass the buck, by giving Romanillos the 'credit' ?
I wonder why Batov does not also quote this sentence, on page XIX of the Prologue: "This
particular technique of making the sides with two ribs can be seen in the five-course guitar
with a vaulted and fluted back made by Belchior Dias in Lisbon in 1581". So, Romanillos
accepts that the Dias instrument is a guitar; I wonder why Batov did not repeat these two
remarks, since they are rather prominent in the text of part I of the Prologue (pages XV - XXI).
It is curious that he relies on an old quote in an attempt to lend credibility to his views, and
elsewhere profusely praises the Romanillos & Winspear dictionary, yet seems strangely unable
to find the quote mentioned above from their book, along with this one, from page XX: "No
vaulted vihuela de mano or five-course Spanish guitar has come to light although Belchior
Dias' five-couurse vaulted and fluted guitar made in Lisbon in 1581, can be taken to represent
an instrument made in the Spanish style". It would appear that Romanillos considers the Dias
to be a guitar, I wonder why Batov is so coy about quoting this ?
This dictionary which costs over 100 (I've seen it advertised for $200 + postage on some
websites) is probably not accesible for many people, its distribution and availability are
limited; I wonder how many people reading Batov's website and wondering about it, have been
able to check its contents for themselves, and contrast the impression he gives of its contents
with what is actually written ? Jos Romanillos and his wife Marian Winspear have done us all
a great service by doing the research in the archives; it is a matter of regret that Batov has
merely selectively quoted their work to try and support his own spurious claims about a very
important surviving early guitar.
The Victoria & Albert Museum Guitar 12/3

In the same text as the Dias claims, Batov announces that he has stumbled on another possible
vihuela: "One of the guitars which is on display in the Victoria and Albert museum London has
11 peg holes in its peg head. Here again, as in case (sic) with the Belchior Dias 1581
instrument, there is a noticeable lengthening of the peghead in the area above the nut, so as to
allow for the central peg to be positioned at the same distance (as that in-between the rest of
the pegs) from the two pegs above. I will give a more in-depth analysis of this important
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instrument (which may well be another surviving late 16th-early 17th century vihuela !) on
these pages in the near future".
The anonymous guitar he refers to 12/3 is not a vihuela by any stretch of the imagination,
it is quite simply and obviously a very ordinary vaulted-back guitar of the Venetian, Sellas
school that appears in many collections, both public and private, around the world; this type of
guitar was made from around 1620 onwards, long after the vihuela fell into disuse and its
repertoire ceased to be played. Its pegbox is exactly the same in layout, design and peg
placement as a large number of other 'Sellas-school' instruments, and its pegholes are not,
contrary to Batov's claims, any differently-placed than the other guitars of this type.
It is simply a typical (probably Venetian) vaulted-back 5-course guitar, nothing more, nothing
less; has it not occured to Batov that the best explanation concerning the extra hole on this
guitar is that even if it were a properly-made peghole (and it clearly is not) it was made at
a much later date, around the time that guitars of the Benedid type were built with 6 courses
for the purpose of playing guitar music ? Has he not heard of Boccherini, for example ? Has it
not occured to him that the most generous explanation is that maybe a later 6-course
enthusiast vandalised it in an ill-advised attempt at a DIY 'conversion' ? And what evidence
does he have that people were playing the vihuela repertoire at the end of the eighteenth
century, when guitars with 6 double courses were being made in Spain by the likes of Benedid
and Pags ? Or does he think we should call these vihuelas also, and thereby confuse people ?
He can't seriously be claiming that this very ordinary and typical Venetian vaulted-back guitar
the pegbox of which is identical in outline to so many others of this school of making, is
another 'lost' vihuela ?
I understand that Batov has not examined the V&A guitar 12/3 beyond pulling out the sliding
showcase in the museum gallery and photographing it from the outside; he has not measured
any instruments in the V&A, I am reliably informed, let alone this one. I on the other hand
have, and reproduce here images (taken during a recent measuring visit) of the 'extra peghole'
which, surprise, surprise has a taper of around 1 in 10 (not a known tuning peg taper,
they're usually 1 in 20 and above on historical instruments which have original, rather than
fake pegs) a taper completely different to the other 10 pegholes on this guitar.
No doubt he doesn't find anything strange about the fact that the inside of this extra hole is
very ragged and rough indeed; compare it to the adjacent pegholes, its crude and uneven
surface can be clearly seen in the images below.
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Above: close-up views of the rear of the neck/pegbox joint of the V&A guitar 12/3 which Alexander Batov
assures us " may well be another surviving late 16th-early 17th century vihuela ! ". Presumably he thinks
that the chewed-up mess that is the central hole through the v-joint indicates yet another 'conversion'
from 5 to 6 courses. No doubt the 1-in-10 taper is further evidence of a tuning peg being used in that
hole too . . .
It is very roughly made, and also leans at an angle, like the 'extra peghole' in the Dias pegbox
see images below. It's quite obvious that a peg inserted into this hole makes the guitar
impossible to play in the first position like the Dias guitar's extra 'peghole'; a peg inserted
into it leans at an angle away from the other pegs as can be seen below where I placed a
peg into the central hole, along with another for comparison of the angle it presents compared
to the adjacent, proper peghole.
Terminally for Batov's 'hypothesis', its extremely fast taper makes it impossible it ever
accomodated a tuning peg anyway; but I'm sure that isn't a problem for Batov and his myopic
'theories'. Maybe he likes to think that the taper of around 1 in 10 (which this hole measures)
is likely or even practical for a tuning peg; a suitable taper for a barrel-bung maybe, but never
a tuning peg.
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It's probably pertinent that the inlays on the rear of the pegbox and heel differ from those on
the neck of this instrument in both style and execution: Carl Engel was known to have
'restored' and altered many of the instruments which subsequently found their way into the
collections of the V&A who knows what he did to this one? And who knows who was
responsible, and when the fast-tapering hole through the V-joint was made ?
'Another surviving late 16th-early 17th century vihuela ! ' as Batov tries to suggest it could be?
I don't think so.
After the Dias-is-a-vihuela nonsense, I can't wait for the promised 'in-depth analysis' of this
modest, very ordinary guitar, and yet more entertainingly-misleading claims; I am told that at
the time he published this stuff about the V&A guitar, not only had Batov never examined the
guitar out of the case, but that he had never measured anything in the V&A (but thereagain, he
didn't measure the Dias).
For the delectation of vihuela-lovers everywhere, I have posted the images below, showing
what might well be yet another true 16th Century vihuela that I had the honour to 'examine'
recently:
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Above: close-up images reveal several interesting and remarkable facts: the bridge appears to be made
from a piece of the True Cross (the instrument seems to have been yet another relic of a Saint). The
loaded gut central string (thought to date from the conversion to a vihuela) is densified by the addition of
plutonium** hence the eerie green glow it exhibits which is of course why it has survived since the
16th Century (the particular isotope used having a half-life of 10,000 years). Note also the delicate patina
of the varnish. It is thought that Bermudo himself may have played this instrument, thereby perhaps
contributing to his demise. . .
This very important instrument a very fortunate survivor from the late 16th century (and
clearly built according to the 1502 Sevilla Ordinances) may well be another surviving late
16th-early 17th century vihuela !
Note the extra peg inserted into the rear of its neck preventing play in the first position
just like the fabled 11th peg of the Dias, as discovered by Alexander Batov; this is a
wonderfully-preserved example of a four-course guitar being converted to a five-course
vihuela by the stupid insertion of an extra peg at a funny angle. It is likely that the original
fluted back was replaced for acoustical reasons (to achieve the required 'tap-tone') with one
made from a delicate plywood of cocobolo and ebony (pressed into place by the application of
hot sand, it is thought) to give that elusive (for some) extra "sustain in the sound as well as a
slight shift in overall response of the instrument towards the higher frequency range" .
Apparently, according to the sage, the "spectral colour of the sound . . . would be potentially
more 'orientated' towards the higher frequency range". Thank heavens for these words, which
are clearly a sign: the spiritual heir to the great vihuela makers of yesteryear is alive and well
and reincarnated as an incomprehensible gnome in cyberspace.
There is no label in the instrument, but its general style and proportions have suggested an
attribution to the violero amateuro stupido school. Dendrochronology has dated the
instrument's soundboard to 1995, but this is thought to have been based upon a mis-counting
of the plywood laminations (resulting in a correct dating to 1599).
(** Recent research has suggested that the substance used may have been polonium).
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A 'complete copy' ?
Finally, regarding Batov's Dias 'copy', I am intrigued that he has 'copied' the bridge from the
Vieyra guitar in the Ashmolean, Oxford. Does he not realise that it is a fake bridge, made by
Hills, the owners of the Vieyra?
When I was drawing the Stradivari and Voboam guitars held in the same collection in the early
1980's, I was granted access to W.E. Hill's records, wherein it was noted that the Vieyra had
come into their possession missing its bridge. So back in the 1930's, prior to the collection
being offered to The Ashmolean for public display, they set about making a replacement for it
based on the unique (and original) bridge on their 1641 Voboam, and copied the signature
curves that instrument's bridge has along its rear face. Anybody looking at the Vieyra bridge
can see for themselves that it is not original, it does not even line up properly with the inlaid
moustachios; at the time they did the work, Hills were not concerned with the finer points of
organology, they just wanted to display the instrument with a bridge and strings, and the
Voboam was the bridge they referred to, that of the Stradivari guitar being quite clearly
specific to that instrument. Batov has not only copied a fake bridge, but he has lifted the
soundhole decoration from the Vieyra (albeit with 3 rather than 5 lines of purfling loops) a
guitar made at least a century after the Dias, according to the dendrochronology of its
soundboard (1532-1684); the Vieyra's label is undated. Given his claimed expertise where
early guitars are concerned, it seems curious to me that Batov has not attempted to refer to a
more contemporary guitar (the clearly-related Spencer/Koonce instrument, for example) for
the soundhole decoration of his 'complete copy'.
Applying the (fake) bridge and soundhole decoration from the Vieyra to his version of the Dias
guitar, apart from being just a little dubious and not sitting very well visually with the design
of the original Dias fingerboard and pegbox loop inlays which he has used on his 'copy', seems
to me as anachronistic as if somebody had claimed to have built a copy of a Louis Panormo
guitar of 1840 but had applied the block pearl inlay designs from a 1955 Gibson Les Paul to its
fingerboard. From an acoustical point of view, plastering so much inlay onto an already small
soundboard is hardly going to help it to work well, as anybody with true experiece of building
these instruments would know; I am frankly surprised that Batov has done this, since it is only
going to defeat the instrument's use as a vihuela (or a guitar for that matter) by severely
restricting the ability of the already rather small soundboard to vibrate properly.
Batov has, in my view, not just taken liberties with a clearly very important original guitar by
distorting the evidence presented by it, and by claiming it to be a vihuela, attempting to
convince the public on these matters, but has then treated this wonderful little instrument with
disrespect, altered its proportions and dimensions to suit his theories and then applied
anachronistic decoration to his 'copy' of it, lifted from a much later instrument.
A 'complete copy' ? Again, I don't think so; what he announced on the internet and on his
website as a 'complete copy' of the Dias is simply a 6-course 'vihuela' based on the Dias guitar,
with the neck significantly widened from that of the original, and the '11th peg' he contends
for moved significantly up the pegbox. The instrument that he has made is not a 'complete
copy', since he has changed those important aspects which do not support his claims; his
proposal that the Dias was originally designed and built as a vihuela (or indeed anything with 6
courses) is demonstrably false, as the text and images above demonstrate.
Conclusion
Alexander Batov has prominently posted on the homepage of his website a lengthy and
misleading text which purports to be an impartial examination of the evidence regarding the
Dias guitar, and other instruments; since he starts this text by trying to suggest that my
drawings are wrong in several respects and unreliable which in my view he has done simply to
try and present himself as an expert whilst attempting to dismiss important research work I
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have done many years ago (and as he knows full well, I continue to do) I have felt it necessary
to respond to the false and misleading claims and comments that he has posted, claims which
masquerade as informed knowledge and facts which they most certainly are not.
When I was first told about the content of his website, which opens with the rather grandiose
claim that it is "The home of the fluted back vihuela" I was amused, since Batov knows full
well that we built these instruments long before he did, and his fanciful attempt to claim for
himself such a title rings just a little bit hollow; if anybody has the 'right' to call their workshop
or website 'The home of the fluted back vihuela' it is us although we wouldn't dream of using
such a daft and exaggerated title. So he's worked out a little late in the day a method
apparently based upon the late Remy Gug's research, and made a few instruments based on
the Dias which he calls vihuelas, with double-fluted ribs, only using woods that can have the
traces of the scorching produced by the use of hot sand conveniently scraped away and
rendered less obvious (ebony & various rosewoods). That makes his website/workshop the
'Home' of the fluted-back vihuela, does it ? Some might beg to differ.
It has been further drawn to my attention that he is an avid visitor to our website, which leads
me to wonder how long after we posted our intention to build a copy of the Dias guitar, that he
got it into his head to follow suit and try and steal a march on us and produce one before we
did because it seems just a little bit of a coincidence that he announced that his 'copy' was in
progress shortly after we announced our plans to build one; to then 'launch' this instrument on
the back of a lot of spurious claims about the original Dias calls to mind and suggests a
paraphrase of one of the great Oscar Wilde's aphorisms: one act of opportunism may be
regarded as a misfortune, a second looks like carelessness.
The final sentence in Batov's opening paragraph states: "I hope this will be for the benefit of
all who have acquired the drawing as well as those who want to reconstruct an accurate
replica of the Belchior Dias instrument". The text which accompanies this rather disingenuous
statement contains all of the canards which I have exposed as false here in this commentary.
That he has the hubris to make such a statement before launching into a lengthy and
ill-observed shopping-list of daft speculations and false statements would be amusing were it
not for the fact that the resulting effect is to mislead people about an important historical
guitar, and muddy the waters and cause confusion in the world of guitar and vihuela research;
that he uses a thinly-veiled attack on my own professional integrity and expertise as a
platform to launch himself as an expert and luthier who knows what he is talking about is
regrettable.
And the instrument which he has made and called a 'vihuela', and posted images of on his
website, is so far altered from the original Dias, that it is quite simply misleading and
disingenuous to refer to it as a 'complete copy' as Batov claims it to be.
An obvious question arises: if he had genuine and straightforward intentions, why didn't Batov
contact me to discuss my drawings and other matters, before publishing daft claims and
speculations on his website ? After all, he lives and works about 40 miles from me, and I am
not exactly unapproachable why does he think I agreed to do the drawings in the first place,
if not to spread knowledge and information, for the benefit of my peers and colleagues ? I
don't therefore consider that his approach in this matter should remain unchallenged, either in
terms of attempting to question my work and competence, or in terms of spreading inaccurate
statements on the internet.
The basic point at issue here is that he has attempted to create an image of himself as an
expert and careful analyst of early guitars and vihuelas something which in my opinion and
that of many other scholars and true experts, he is not where this issue is concerned by
traducing my drawings (and hence questioning my own competence) and publishing
misleading and false comments about an important historical instrument. Trying to enhance
his own standing by gainsaying the respected and acknowledged expertise of somebody who
has been working in this area for far longer than he has and has examined (and probably
restored) far more instruments than he has is presumably the motive behind his actions,
since he simultaneously seems to be engaged in puffing himself at every opportunity, both on
the internet and elsewhere.
When I drew the Dias all those years ago, it was in an honest and open spirit of wishing to add
to the organology of early plucked stringed instruments, in this case the earliest known (then
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as now) surviving guitar. Over the more than 30 years that have passed since, a large number
of colleagues and institutions around the world have contacted me and discussed the
drawings; why did he choose not to do so? I wonder why he decided instead to publish the
material on his website, avoiding an open discussion or examination of the Dias guitar with
me; I am not dead, and I don't live in a cave on South Georgia . . .
Since colleagues of mine, such as Elizabeth Wells, Jol Dugot and Antonio Corona have deplored
his attempts to mislead the public (and misquote them) and I also now find myself having to
correct his false and misleading statements about important surviving old instruments my
silence in the face of his internet postings and ridiculous claims was not an option.
To sum up, having due respect for the words of the sage: "I hope this will be for the benefit of
all who have read Alexander Batov's claims, as well as those who want an accurate account of
the Belchior Dias instrument".
23/01/2015 18:01

Ricistruzione Della Vihuela

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Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Stephen Barber & Sandi Harris, Lutemakers

2 Seven and eight course lutes

4 Ten course lutes, 9-course lutes

11 Renaissance and Baroque guitars

12 Vihuela, viola da mano

6 Eleven and Twelve course lutes

7 Thirteen course lutes

Reconstructing fluted-back vihuelas

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

A quarter of a century later . . .

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

Making the first copy of the Chambure vihuela

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

A rit of fealous jage . . .

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

. . . is identical to one of these"

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

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

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Other Constructional details misunderstood by Batov

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Strap-button hole at the top of the pegbox

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

The Victoria & Albert Museum Guitar 12/3

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

Lutes & Guitars | Student Lutes

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