Paul Fischer Press Articles
a selection of articles of the life and work of Paul Fischer - Luthier
CHIPPING NORTON THEATRE
Guitars, yes. But not (quite) as we know them....
Two new and unique instruments, played in public for the first time by John Mills.
Music By Bach, Schubert, Sor, Giuliani, Pujol, Aguado, Piazzola.
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John will play the only replica of the beautiful, sweetly musical and really rather sexy instrument that Shelley gave
to the fascinating Jane Williams, about whom he said pretty much the same things, but in verse. Jane played it and sang
for him beneath Italian stars until, just three months later, Shelley drowned, shipwrecked in a thunderstorm and the music
stopped. A luthier's label is an instrument's birth certificate. The label in Shelley's guitar, now a mute treasure in
the Bodleian Library, tells us it was born in Ferdinando Bottaris' Pisa workshop in 1816. The presentation of this
re-creation, by Julian Roach in the Chipping Norton workshop of Paul Fischer (with lots of his help), therefore comes as a
Two Hundredth Birthday party. You are invited to hear Music from Shelley's world and with it something of the rebel poet's
strange journey through that world - and even stranger departure from it.
While Shelley's guitar was much like many a guitar of its time, the second is like no other, of this or any time. It is,
says Paul Fischer, the last that he will make. It brings his catalogue to a well-rounded twelve hundred, the output of a
lifetime that has made him the undisputed doyen of English luthiers. You could call it a fantasia of a guitar that tells the
history of the instrument, with accents drawn from the lute, the viol and the baroque guitar, combined with techniques
and unique methods that Paul has evolved over decades. Unfamiliar to the eye, it may be, but the characteristic warmth of its
sound is familiar enough to the ear. It is Paul's farewell to the art and craft that he has practised and adorned for sixty years.
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Julian Roach
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A double - and doubly unique - musical celebration.
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| Guitar No 1200 & copy of Shelley's Guitar |
Click here for press release.
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Orfeo Magazine (No 11 - Spring 2018) - Paul Fischer, David Rubio's Successor |
Guitarre Aktuell (April 2015), Interview by Siegfried Hogenmüller, |
InBusiness (Oxford Times July/August 2009) - The Wood & the Wire by Chris Hogan |
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Classical Guitar Magazine (February 1998), Paul Fischer Interview by Therese Wassily Saba, |
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Classical Guitar Magazine (November 1986), Paul Fischer Leading Luthier by Colin Cooper, |
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Internationally acclaimed guitarist, Xuefei Yang. |
The highly gifted guitarist Xuefei Yang with Elias String Quartet. |