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20 Nov 00 - 09:21 AM (#343912) Subject: OBIT: David Rubio:Obituary From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler Not heard of him before but as he's worked both sides of the pond this may be of interest (from today's Guardian Online)
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David Rubio Eminent instrument maker inspired by a lifelong passion for guitars by Douglas Hollick Guardian Monday November 20, 2000 David Rubio, who has died aged 65, was an instrument maker of guitars, lutes, harpsichords, violins, violas and cellos, and was particularly associated with the early music movement. Born in Kensington, west London, he was educated at Whittingham College, Brighton, and then studied medicine at Trinity College, Dublin, but gave it up because of colour blindness. He briefly spent some time working in his stepfather's delicatessen shops, but this did not work out and he turned to his other passion, the guitar. Self-taught - he had spent time playing in London coffee bars - he went off to Spain and for three years worked as a flamenco guitarist, playing with traditional singers and dancers. It was there that he became known by the name "Rubio" after his red beard. He was invited to go with the Rafael de Cordoba ballet company on a tour of New York. But when they left, he stayed on. It was there he met his wife, Nest, while playing at the restaurant El Gitano. It was also in New York that he started to make and repair guitars based on what he had learned "while shooting the breeze at the back of guitar-makers' shops in Spain". Everything in his life involved precision - careers guidance had come up with the suggestion that he become a surgical instrument maker - and his business soon took off. A stroke of good fortune occurred when Julian Bream brought him a lute for repair, and was much impressed when he saw the one finished flamenco guitar David had made. This connection led to an invitation from Bream for David to set up a workshop at Bream's home in Semley, Wiltshire. David and Nest left New York in 1967. The space at Semley, however, was unsuitable. They had to look elsewhere and, in 1968, bought a derelict Tudor farmhouse in the Oxfordshire village of Duns Tew. David had already developed an interest in making copies of earlier string instruments, such as lutes, theorbos and baroque guitars, so it was a natural progression to move into harpsichord making as well. At that time, the early music scene was burgeoning, and there was much demand for good copies of historical instruments. In the 1970s top players, including Howard Schott, David Lumsden, Trevor Pinnock and Gustav Leonhardt, were among his customers. He was associated with making baroque violins as well as harpsichords, and latterly many modern violin-family instruments, including a number of complete "quartets". This was after a move to Cambridge in 1979, which also coincided with a period of intense research into the techniques of makers such as Stradivari, Amati and Guarneri, which he pursued in collaboration with scientists at Cambridge University. On one visit to his house and workshop, David showed me, with an almost boyish enthusiasm, electron microscope pictures of the structure of violin varnish, and explained to me his machine for checking the vibrations of a violin soundboard. This delight in all aspects of his work was typical, and also infectious: many of the earlier workers at Duns Tew went on to set up workshops of their own. A year ago, at David's request, I finished his last harpsichord, an instrument originally made in the late 1980s but never completed. At the time he was already very ill with cancer, and it was fitting that, in February, Cambridge University conferred on him an honorary master's degree. The day after the degree ceremony, a concert was held in his honour on the newly finished last harpsichord, which David and his brother Peter Cohen have given on loan to the university's music faculty. I was playing another of his harpsichords in a concert at Trinity College, Cambridge, on the day he died. David also leaves a collection of teddy bears, among whom a bear named Spencer was the first and most famous. Spencer, who became almost as well known as David in the music world, owned a cello - made to scale by David - along with an immaculate case and bow. David's bears sat on his workbenches overseeing the making of the thousand or so superb musical instruments that will be his greatest legacy. He is survived by Nest, and his daughter, Benita, from an earlier marriage.
• David Rubio, instrument maker, born December 17 1934; died October 21 2000 |