In 1991 the famous “La Leona” of Antonio de Torres FE04 (1856) reappeared to the public eye. In an almost thriller-like endeavor a German Collector traveled to Barcelona, Spain to buy a vintage classical guitar with a suitcase full of cash money. The guitar was in extremely bad condition. Dipl. Ing. Benno Streu from Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany was one of the first to see the newly discovered treasure.

In Benno Streu’s attempt to bring the famous “lioness” back to life, he not only saved an outstanding custom acoustic guitar from falling apart, but he also discovered a couple of extremely interesting facts of the way Antonio de Torres approached classical guitar building. Custom Guitar Video met Dipl. Ing. Benno Streu in June 2005, two years before his unexpected death. Since his plans to write a book never came to fruition, we are extremely grateful that he shared some of his extensive knowledge with us.

In the first part of the Benno Streu Custom Guitar Video, we join in a conversation between Benno Streu and the classical guitar virtuoso Wulfin Lieske (www.wulfin-lieske.de) who regularly plays La Leona. Wulfin tries to find out why there is a buzzing issue with the low E-string. Even if the conversation does not lead to the problem solution, we learn about the special way the bridge is constructed on this guitar.

“The very special bridge on the La Leona of Antonio de Torres could lead to the assumption that this is the legendary “secret bridge” of Torres. The advantage of this bridge in comparison with the standard bridge of today is the extreme low energy loss of this construction, because there are no long “dead” string length and no yielding loops and knots. The disadvantage is the fixed position of the string. It is not possible to change the string action by changing the saddle height. No doubt, the flexibility of the modern bridge with saddle was one of the reasons for its preference, even for Torres.” (Benno K. Streu, Freiburg im Breisgau 1995)

The second half of this custom guitar video presents Benno Streu talking about how he restored this famous guitar.

BENNO STREU 01 | Soundboard Tuning – Custom Classical Guitar
Custom Guitar Video | BENNO STREU 01 – The SECRET BRIDGE of Torres