{"id":4675,"date":"2016-08-02T10:32:09","date_gmt":"2016-08-02T17:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/?p=4675"},"modified":"2021-04-29T11:20:55","modified_gmt":"2021-04-29T18:20:55","slug":"the-collector-sheldon-urlik-turned-his-obsession-with-spanish-guitars-into-a-beautiful-and-important-bookcd-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/the-collector-sheldon-urlik-turned-his-obsession-with-spanish-guitars-into-a-beautiful-and-important-bookcd-project\/","title":{"rendered":"The Collector: Sheldon Urlik Turned His Obsession with Spanish Guitars Into a Beautiful and Important Book\/CD Project"},"content":{"rendered":"
From the Summer 2016 issue of Classical Guitar<\/em> | BY BLAIR JACKSON<\/h6>\n

If you\u2019ve never heard of Sheldon Urlik, or the impressive private collection of classical and flamenco guitars housed in his Utah home, don\u2019t worry\u2014Urlik keeps a low-profile and his collection is not open for public viewing. However, if you\u2019re interested in seeing what these guitars look like and hearing how they sound, and are fascinated by the most minute imaginable details of these instruments, you\u2019re in luck. Urlik recently published the truly spectacular revised second edition of his long-sold-out 1997 book A Collection of Fine Spanish Guitars from Torres to the Presen<\/strong>t<\/em><\/a>, adding a number of guitars he acquired in the interim and also an audio component: Three CDs, featuring 76 of the 82 guitars in the book with two discs devoted to classical guitars, and the third to flamenco instruments, all presented, like the book, in mostly chronological order. So, not only is the book an invaluable resource about Spanish-style guitars; it also showcases much of the traditional repertoire, heavy on interpretations of Bach, Fernando Sor, and Francisco T\u00e1rrega (among many others) on the classical side.<\/p>\n

The only biographical information you\u2019ll find about Urlik in the book itself is one sentence on the jacket flap that describes him simply as \u201can amateur classical guitarist who has expressed his passion for the instrument by assembling and cataloguing one of the world\u2019s most important collections of Spanish guitars.\u201d When I reach him by phone at his home, he speaks about himself only reluctantly; he\u2019d much rather talk about his guitars and his book.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll keep the biography brief. Urlik grew up in Los Angeles and attended UCLA, graduating with an engineering degree. \u201cRather than engineering, though, I went into the Air Force and became a fighter pilot, and after five years in the Air Force, I went into the electrical signage supply business, and that\u2019s what I did until I retired in 2003.\u201d Evidently his business was very successful.<\/p>\n

Ulrik didn\u2019t start playing the guitar until he was 40. \u201cKind of a late start, I guess, but I really enjoyed it and kept at it. Still, I\u2019ve never been anything more than a serious amateur.\u201d The first high-quality guitar he acquired was a Jos\u00e9 Ramirez 1A that his wife bought him after he\u2019d been taking lessons for a couple of years.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne day I was in San Francisco and went into a shop called Guitar Solo, and I noticed they had two guitars on the wall that said \u2018Not For Sale,\u2019 and that really interested me. It was a [Hermann] Hauser I and a [Ignacio] Fleta, and the salesperson explained that they were valuable and on display just to attract customers. He said, \u2018I do have another guitar in the back that is for sale,\u2019 and he brought out a 1932 Hauser I. Fortunately, it was in good condition, because I was too inexperienced to buy a guitar needing repairs. So I bought it, and that was my first real collectible guitar.<\/p>\n

\"Classical<\/p>\n

Two pages from\u00a0A Collection of Fine Spanish Guitars from Torres to the Present<\/em>, and author\/collector Sheldon Urlik<\/h6>\n

\u201cOne pivotal evening in 1991, the young broker Tim Miklaucic [who went on to found Guitar Salon International] called at my home to show me three superb instruments, thinking maybe I would buy one. By the end of that night I was the owner of a 1922 Enrique Garcia, a 1969 Daniel Friederich, and a 1980 Jose Romanillos. I had a collection. Tim and a few other dealers\u2014Dan Zeff, R.E. Brun\u00e9, and Bruce Banister come to mind\u2014in time, earned my confidence by their square dealing and surprising access to many important guitars. Their acumen was a factor in the collection\u2019s growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I was starting to think about collecting, I bought a book called The Guitar: From the Renaissance to Rock<\/em><\/a> [by Tom and Mary Anne Evans], that talked a lot about historic classical guitars and also had a time-spectrum breakdown for classical guitars. One of the spectra was \u2018From Torres to the Present.\u2019 Of course, there are centuries of guitars before [Antonio de] Torres, but that would have been a whole different genre of instruments. From Torres to the present seemed feasible [to collect]. It\u2019s not a thousand guitars; more like a hundred.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I used that book as my guide: If the book had a [Francisco] Simplicio in it, I knew I should get a Simplicio. I knew I should get a Santos Hernandez. For better or worse, when I get interested in something, I really get involved,\u201d he says, adding, \u201cThe \u201990s were a very good time for somebody building up a collection. There was something of a worldwide recession going on and a lot of guitars came out of the closets in foreign countries to be turned into dollars, and fortunately I was in a position where I could complete the sales. As time went by, too, I learned more and more and I became even more discriminating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through the years, he managed to\u00a0acquire guitars by most of the essential luthiers since Torres, including generations of the Ramirez and Hauser families, Enrique Sanfeliu, Domingo Esteso, Robert Bouchet, Marcelo Barbero, Hernandez y Aguado, and many others, up to modern masters of the style such as Greg Smallman and the late Thomas Humphrey.<\/p>\n

Asked about what he considers the jewel\u00a0of the collection, Urlik doesn\u2019t hesitate: \u201cThe 1888 rosewood-bodied Torres owned by T\u00e1rrega. To me, that is the most collectible, precious guitar there is. It has the perfect provenance and was constructed by the most revered guitar maker. Plus, it is a magnificent-sounding instrument, and in very good condition. It\u2019s analogous to Niccolo Paganini\u2019s Stradivari\u2014though not nearly as valuable\u2014in the violin world.<\/p>\n

\"1888<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/4-A.-Torres-1888-Capricho-Arabe-Francisco-Tarrega-2.m4a<\/a><\/audio>\n

Hear T\u00e1rrega’s 1888 Torres guitar played by Kenton Youngstrom, from the book’s bonus CDs. (Capricio Arabe<\/em>, by T\u00e1rrega)<\/h6>\n

\u201cThat great guitar can really transport you,\u201d he continues. \u201cI\u2019ve had guitarists come here and when they played that guitar, some of them got lightheaded! One virtuoso player was here and he started playing pieces by T\u00e1rrega on it and he kept commenting, \u2018At last, I know how to play T\u00e1rrega!\u2019 It\u2019s really something special.\u201d<\/p>\n

Urlik says he had an overriding purpose in putting together the second edition of\u00a0A Collection of Fine Spanish Guitars from Torres to the Present<\/em><\/a>: to thoroughly document this unsurpassed collection of \u201cmodern\u201d Spanish-style guitars. Not surprisingly, he devotes more space to the 1888 Torres than any other guitar in the book\u2014outlining its entire history and noting every restoration measure used on it\u2014but all the guitars are covered in extreme technical depth, with the dimensions of every part of the instrument, charts of wood thickness on many different parts of the instrument, bracing diagrams, and detailed color photos showing the full guitar front and back, the rosette, and the interior label. Urlik\u2019s text is mostly given over to descriptions of wood types, bracing, and rosettes, along with anecdotes, insights, and light biographical information about the makers; it is more catalog than history book, though there\u2019s plenty of\u00a0history, too.<\/p>\n

The idea to include music played on the guitars for the second edition came from the outstanding Cuban guitarist Rene Izquierdo: \u201cHe came to see the collection,\u201d Urlik says, \u201cand like everyone who loves the guitar, he was overwhelmed. He said, \u2018If you write another book, I\u2019ll record all these guitars, no charge,\u2019 And that got me thinking that documentation must include the voices of the collection. In the end, it turned out Rene couldn\u2019t do the project because he had so many conflicts in his schedule. He wouldn\u2019t have been able to do it for a year and a half. So I contacted my former teacher, Kenton Youngstrom, a consummate guitarist who can play it all. He realized that he\u2019d be leaving a legacy if the book was well received, and I gave him the right to use the recorded files for his own commercial purposes. The task was not easy, either. He had to play 55 pieces in two days, calibrating his hand to new guitars for every track. But he did a great job, obviously.\u201d The noted flamenco player, scholar, and luthier Richard Brun\u00e9 played the 21 flamenco pieces. Both\u00a0guitarists, mindful of the book\u2019s budget and out of friendship with Urlik, recorded gratis.<\/p>\n

Urlik has slowed his acquisition of guitars by this point, believing he has most of what he needs. Also there is this reality: \u201cGuitars have become much, much more expensive. It\u2019s mentally hard for me to buy guitars today, because my memory still is locked in an old price schedule. Prices are probably three to ten times what they were in the \u201990s.\u201d<\/p>\n

I closed by asking Urlik how new guitars sound to him compared to the older classics. \u201cMy book discusses quality of sound and longevity a lot. They can be very equivalent in quality, if they\u2019re really fine, quality instruments. But I could turn the question around and ask: \u2018Isn\u2019t it surprising that the old masters made guitars that can still sound as beautiful as the new masters\u2019, with all their better tools and broader selection of materials now?\u2019 You can play surprisingly many of the old masters\u2019 guitars\u2014the old Santos, the old Torres, etc.\u2014and you can successfully compare that sound with the best of more modern guitars, whatever their age or material, or their builders\u2019 approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

This story originally appeared the Summer 2016 issue<\/a><\/span> <\/strong>of <\/em>Classical Guitar magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Classical<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Summer 2016 issue of Classical Guitar | BY BLAIR JACKSON If you\u2019ve never heard of Sheldon Urlik, or the impressive private collection of classical and flamenco guitars housed in his Utah home, don\u2019t worry\u2014Urlik keeps a low-profile and his collection is not open for public viewing. However, if you\u2019re interested in seeing what these guitars look like and hearing how they sound, and are fascinated by the most minute imaginable details of these instruments, you\u2019re in luck. Urlik […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4681,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[247],"class_list":["post-4675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-summer-2016-issue"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Classical-Guitar-Magazine-Sheldon-Urlik-A-Collection-of-Fine-Spanish-Guitars-from-Torres-to-the-Present.jpg?fit=1250%2C667&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4675"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16157,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4675\/revisions\/16157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}