| Jean Larrivee earned his reputation
as one of North America's top luthiers back in the late '60s ... initially
building concert level classical guitars exclusively. While studying
classical guitar, Jean met world renown guitar builder Edgar Monch
who invited Jean to visit his shop and the rest as they say, is history.
The career of the guitar builder Edgar Mönch
began in the nineteen forties in Munich, in his native Germany. He emigrated
to Canada in 1965 with his whole family, including his nephew and later
apprentice Kolya Panhuyzen, and opened a workshop in Toronto. But he didn’t
stay long, as he re-emigrated to Freiburg in Germany in the early seventies,
where he continued his work until his death in 1977, aged seventy.
After being apprenticed to Marcelo Barbero for
a short period, Mönch´s career got off to an auspicious start
and his reputation grew apace. In 1952, Albert Augustine was already importing
his guitars into the United States. Demand for instruments built by Edgar
Mönch was strong, and this was reflected in the high prices paid for
them. Prices that were unmatched in the fifties except by those of instruments
made by Hermann Hauser II and the legendary Brazilian luthier José
Yacopi.
The most famous players, past or present, of Edgar
Mönch´s instruments are Andres Segovia and Julian Bream. Bream
recorded his classic ´Guitar Concertos´ for RCA in 1960 with
a 1959 Mönch.
Jean-Claude Larrivee has continued this tradition
of precision made classical guitar building at the concert level,
with his LS-30 model, featuring a Master Grade Western Red
cedar top, premium East Indian rosewood back and sides, traditional
mosaic soundhole rosette, 66 cm scale length and delicate Monch-inspired
fan bracing!
| Thanks to Bruce
West for the bio material on Edgar Monch |
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