Met Museum Features Mattias

July 31, 2021 marks the 124th birthday of luthier Ignacio Fleta (1897–1977), who is honored today on the social media channels of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Featured by The Met is a recording I’m fortunate to have made on an early Fleta guitar (No. 50, spruce top, from 1953), from the Museum’s collection.

I chose to record the song “Come, Heavy Sleep” by John Dowland (1563–1626), in the setting by Benjamin Britten (1913–1976). The recording was made in 2013, during the Benjamin Britten Centennial.

The recording is featured on The Met’s website and YouTube channel, and as an online feature of the Museum’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History essay, “The Spanish Guitar.” 

In 1966, my first teacher Erik Möllerström was introduced to Ignacio Fleta, by his teacher Eduardo Sainz de la Maza (1903–1982), and received a guitar (No. 577, cedar top, from 1971) in January 1972. In 2010, that guitar was passed down to me, and I named it “Erik,” after my teacher. 

By having played both guitars, from disparate parts of Fleta’s production, it’s been fascinating to learn how much Fleta developed as a luthier throughout his life. He began his career by making historical and bowed instruments, and later shifted to making guitars. Fleta’s golden age, from the mid-1960’s to the early 1970’s, is characterized by grand, rich and complex guitars with tops made of cedar, a material he was first to master in this field. Fleta’s many contemporary champions included guitarist Andrés Segovia.