The last luthiers

“When I started playing, it was difficult to find traditional Mallorcan instruments, because there were very few. And I wanted to play, so I began building them myself. Of course there were no teachers or schools in which to learn this trade, so I had to do it on my own, by trial and error. I made  flabiol for myself out of transparent methacrylate so as to be able to analyse how the air behaves inside the instrument. In order to see the air, I would smoke and breath the smoke out as I played”. These are the words of Guillem Horrach, a specialist flabiol builder who lives in S’Estanyol. But his words could have been spoken by any of the people who are currently contributing to keeping Mallorcan musical tradition alive by artisanally manufacturing typical instruments.

There are still only a handful of them. “Fewer than ten, and the vast majority combine this work with other professions”, explains Tomeu Bestard Massat from his workshop in Binissalem. “People who build traditional instruments were always turners or people who were good with their hands who were also fans of traditional music, and made their own instruments. Frequently, the tuning of the different instruments did not coincide, giving rise to dissonance when they played. I wanted to make more precise xeremies so I decided to learn from the best, in Galicia, which is famous for its excellent bagpipes”, he says.

Càndid Trujillo, a young instrumentalist from Palma who runs workshops in schools to bring traditional music and instruments closer to the younger generation, emphasizes that, thanks to the work of luthiers, “over recent years the quality and tuning of the instruments has improved a great deal”. As well as his outreach work, Trujillo assembles instruments built by others and manufactures smaller reed instruments.

Both Guillem and Tomeu regret the fact that they have no disciples to whom they can transmit the knowledge acquired over so many years, but they are not worried that the tradition will be lost. “Necessity works miracles. When we are no longer [...]

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