The Luthiers

Les Luthiers is an Argentine humorous-musical group, very popular in their country and in other Spanish-speaking countries. The ensemble uses music as a fundamental element of its performances, frequently incorporating informal instruments created from everyday materials. From this characteristic comes its name, luthier, a French word that designates the creator, adjuster and manager of the repair of stringed musical instruments.

The group is currently made up of two of its historical members: Jorge Maronna (founder of the group together with Rabinovich, Mundstock and Masana, in 1967) and Carlos López Puccio (who joined the group in 1971). They were joined, as of 2015, by Horacio "Tato" Turano and Martín O'Connor, who replaced Daniel Rabinovich, initially due to the worsening of his illness and, finally, due to his death. At the end of 2017, Carlos Núñez Cortés voluntarily withdrew from the group, alleging an interview: "This is a personal decision that has to do with my wishes for a well-deserved rest after 50 years of uninterrupted work on stage, but I will continue to be linked to the group since Les Luthiers has been a large part of my life And I hope it continues to be." Mundstock passed away in 2020.

Gerardo Masana founded the group on September 4, 1967 in the city of Buenos Aires, during a boom period for university choirs in Argentina, with some members of the classical university choir I Musicisti. In its early years they were a foursome (Masana, Maronna, Mundstock and Rabinovich). With the incorporation of Carlos Núñez Cortés, they formed a quintet, to later become a septet when Carlos López Puccio and Ernesto Acher joined in 1971; they became a sextet after Masana's death in 1973 and a quintet when Ernesto Acher left in 1986. Precisely, the longest-lasting formation of Les Luthiers was the quintet, with Carlos López Puccio, Carlos Núñez Cortés, Jorge Maronna, Marcos Mundstock and Daniel Rabinovich, which remained unchanged for 29 years until Rabinovich's death in 2015. Likewise, since 2000 the work of Horacio Turano was added and in 2012 Martín O'Connor as substitute Luthiers every time one of the members of the starting quintet had to be absent due to force majeure. The last Luthier to join the team was the theater and television actor Roberto Antier, who, although he had already been tested in 2010, only in 2015 managed to join as substitute Luthier, to finally have his great debut in 2019 in the play Gran Reserva, where he replaced Marcos Mundstock, who was affected by paralysis in one leg.

They have received numerous awards throughout their career, including a special mention at the Konex Awards, the special Latin Grammy Award for Musical Excellence (United States, 2011), and the Order of Isabel la Católica for their trajectory (Spain, 2007). They have been declared illustrious citizens of Buenos Aires and illustrious visitors to many cities in Latin America. In 2012 the Kingdom of Spain granted them Spanish citizenship by naturalization letter, a special concession to people of particular merit. In 2017 they won the Princess of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities, coinciding with their 50-year career.

In January 2023 they announced their final farewell, after 55 years of experience.[1]

Members

Part of "I Musicisti" during an essay: Carlos Núñez Cortés, Marcos Mundstock, Daniel Durán and Gerardo Masana (1965), Buenos Aires, Argentina

First formation (1967-1969)

• Gerardo Masana: founder, luthier, ropes, winds, voice and metal.
• Marcos Mundstock: presentation, winds, voice.
• Jorge Maronna: strings, voice.
• Daniel Rabinovich: guitar, winds, Latin, alt-pipe, bass-pipe, percussions, voice.

Second formation (1969-1971)

• Gerardo Masana: founder, luthier, ropes, winds, voice and metal.
• Marcos Mundstock: presentation, winds, voice.
• Jorge Maronna: strings, voice.
• Carlos Núñez Cortés: keyboards, winds, voice.
• Daniel Rabinovich: guitar, winds, Latin, alt-pipe, bass-pipe, percussions, voice.

Third formation (1971-1973)

• Gerardo Masana (falls on November 23, 1973)
• Marcos Mundstock (abandona temporarily in 1971)
• Jorge Maronna: strings, voice.
• Carlos López Puccio: Latin, keyboards, percussions, voice
• Carlos Núñez Cortés: keyboards, winds, voice.
• Ernesto Acher: winds, keyboards, voice (first intake as an alternate for Marcos Mundstock as an anchor, and then continue as a fixed member).
• Daniel Rabinovich: guitar, winds, Latin, alt-pipe, bass-pipe, percussions, voice.

Fourth formation (1973-1986)

• Marcos Mundstock
• Jorge Maronna: Pigs, voice
• Carlos López Puccio: Latin, keyboards, percussions, voice
• Carlos Núñez Cortés: Teclados, winds, voice
• Ernesto Acher (leaved the group at the end of September 1986)
• Daniel Rabinovich: guitar, winds, Latin, alt-pipe, bass-pipe, percussions, voice.

Fifth formation (1986-2015)

• Marcos Mundstock
• Jorge Maronna
• Carlos López Puccio
• Carlos Núñez Cortés
• Daniel Rabinovich (during the 2015 season a sick leave was taken. He died on August 21, 2015).

Sixth formation (2015-2017)

• Marcos Mundstock
• Jorge Maronna
• Carlos López Puccio
• Carlos Núñez Cortés (retired on September 24, 2017, following the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the group)
• Turkish Time "Tato"
• Martin O'Connor

Seventh formation (2017-2019)

• Marcos Mundstock
• Jorge Maronna
• Carlos López Puccio
• Turkish Time "Tato"
• Martin O'Connor
• Thomas Mayer Wolf

Eighth formation (2019-2023)

• Jorge Maronna
• Carlos López Puccio
• Turkish Time "Tato"
• Martin O'Connor
• Thomas Mayer Wolf
• Roberto Antier (in replacement of Marcos Mundstock, who died on April 22, 2020)

Timeline

The Beginnings

During the 1960s, almost all faculties within Argentine universities had their own musical choir. Some of its components adopted the habit of meeting outside rehearsals in order to have a lot of fun preparing musical jokes that they would later represent themselves at the inter-choral festivals that took place throughout the course, as an intermission in a humorous tone.

Gerardo Masana, author of the Cantatata Laxaton and one of the founders of the group.

In September 1965, the VI Festival of University Choirs took place in the city of San Miguel de Tucumán, located in the northwest of the Argentine Republic. A group of young university students presented a comedy music show that they had been preparing for a long time and where, in addition to the show itself, they presented as a preview an orchestral set of completely new instruments, invented and built by themselves with simple materials. Thus they represented the parody of a concert. The ensemble was made up of a soloist, a small choir and the aforementioned unconventional musical instruments.

The central work of the show was called Cantata Modatón. Its author was Gerardo Masana, a choir member of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Buenos Aires, who was also the inventor of almost all the unconventional instruments —which I would call "informal instruments"— together with the luthier and musician from Buenos Aires, Carlos Iraldi. The music of this piece was inspired by the St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244, by Johann Sebastian Bach, as a way of parodying the style of Baroque cantatas, while the lyrics were taken from the prospectus. of a well-known laxative marketed in those years. Later the title of the work was changed to Cantata Laxatón, to avoid problems with the laboratory that produced the laxative. The presentation was a resounding success and both the attendees and the critics in newspapers and magazines music spoke of originality, humor and rigor in the exhibition.

Shortly after these events, the young people were surprised by the offer of a contract to repeat the Tucumán show in a famous avant-garde theater in Buenos Aires. They introduced themselves under the stage name I Musicisti, and again achieved great success. Later they were called by the Di Tella Institute of Arts, the most prestigious center for theatrical, musical and plastic studies in the city, recognized worldwide. It was said of this institute that it was the "temple of the artistic avant-garde". The show they staged here was called IMYLOH, short for I Musicisti and Historical Operas. Again they were a great success.

Artistic development

Carlos Núñez Cortés.

In 1967, different internal discussions about the compensation for each musician led to the division of I Musicisti. The main members of the group, Gerardo Masana, Marcos Mundstock, Jorge Maronna and Daniel Rabinovich continued their separate careers under the definitive name of Les Luthiers, later Carlos Núñez Cortés joined while I Musicisti They soon became shipwrecked, running out of instruments and main writers. Almost at the same time, the musical compositions of Les Luthiers began to be heard on the soundtracks of some theater plays and in short films such as Kidnapped Little Angel , by Leal Rey.

The group continued to present their show in theaters and café-concerts. In 1970 the quintet hired Carlos López Puccio, from Rosario, as violinist, and in 1971 Ernesto Acher, first to replace Marcos Mundstock and later to form part of the group's staff. From this period are the following shows:

• Les Luthiers tell the opera (1967)
• Snow White and the Seven Capital Sins (1969)
• Dear Countess (1969)
• Opus Pi (1971)

Television also called on them to contribute their art along with comedians and highly prestigious artists in the cycle entitled We are all bad people and in the cycle Los mejores, where they already performed in exclusive recitals. It was a time of triumphant seasons in the city of Buenos Aires and in Mar del Plata.

On November 23, 1973, the group was left without a member, the founder of the group, Gerardo Masana, who died of leukemia at the age of 36. Masana spent his last years dedicated entirely to the group, but the lack of his leadership made a dent in the relationship of the members, for which they decided to take Institutional Therapy with the psychoanalyst Fernando Ulloa; the therapy would extend for the next 17 years.

After nine years of performing in their country, they began international tours. Since 1977 they have organized a new show every two or three years. The first tours took place in Uruguay, Venezuela and later it would be the turn of Spain. In the late 1970s, their tours took the group to Mexico City, including a performance at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in that city.

In 1985 they obtained the Special Mention of the Konex Awards for their enormous contribution to Argentine popular music, one of the highest awards given by the Konex Foundation.

The year 1986 marked a before and after in the history of the group. One of the reasons was the unforgettable performance that took place at the mythical Teatro Colón in the city of Buenos Aires and his arrival in Colombia also at its famous Teatro Colón. On August 28, 1986, due to internal differences, Ernesto Acher would leave the sextet. Since then, the members of the group became five, until 2015, when the replacement Luthiers joined more regularly.

In 1994, due to heart problems of Daniel Rabinovich, the Argentine comedian Horacio Fontova joined the group, until Daniel Rabinovich recovered.

The shows have maintained a format since 1970: each one is divided into comic plays. As a short introduction, before each piece, Marcos Mundstock usually reads a presentation where the work is described, or gives reviews of the author's life, and after this presentation the musical group appears on stage and interprets the theme. But four of his most recent shows, Los Mastropiero Awards (2005), Lutherapia (2008), the anthology Viejos Hazmerreíres (2014) and More setbacks by Mastropiero (2022), have strayed from this scheme. In them, the performed works are developed within the framework of a particular common thread: an awards ceremony, a psychoanalytic therapy session, the broadcast of a radio program and a television interview; respectively.

Three books related to this group have been written. The first of them written in 1991 by the Colombian journalist Daniel Samper Pizano, entitled Les Luthiers de la L a la S; the second book, published in 2004, was written by Sebastián Masana, son of the founder of the group, Gerardo Masana, and is entitled Gerardo Masana and the foundation of Les Luthiers; and the last one was written by one of the group's members, Carlos Núñez Cortés, and is entitled Mastropiero's Games , in which he makes an exhaustive analysis of the different forms of humor used by them.

In 2007, in celebration of their 40th anniversary, the legislature of the city of Buenos Aires unanimously declared them Distinguished Citizens. In addition, the Spanish government awarded Les Luthiers the number commendation of the Order of Isabel la Católica, the highest decoration that the Spanish nation grants to foreigners, which confers on musicians the treatment of Most Illustrious Gentlemen.

On November 18, 2007, Les Luthiers celebrated its 40th anniversary with a recital entitled Forty years of trajectory, with free admission, at Parque San Benito, located at the intersection from Figueroa Alcorta and La Pampa avenues, in the Federal Capital. On that occasion, Les Luthiers was able to gather more than 120,000 spectators.

In 2008, Daniel Rabinovich, Marcos Mundstock, Carlos Núñez Cortés, Jorge Maronna and Carlos López Puccio dubbed the voices of the pigeon characters in the Disney animated film Bolt into Spanish.

On September 7, 2012, the Spanish government granted Spanish nationality to Carlos López Puccio, Marcos Mundstock and Daniel Rabinovich.

On October 20, 2017, they were awarded the Princess of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities.

In November 2019, the Podcast called "La Hora de la Nostalgia" begins to launch episodes where they tell, with great detail and archival material, the history of the group. Mr. Carlos Núñez Cortés participates in the episodes.

Johann Sebastian Mastropiero

Les Luthiers repeatedly presented a prototypical character as the axis of their sketches or even some of their shows: Johann Sebastian Mastropiero. There is a certain habituality on the part of the group in the creation of characters, such as the popular music composer «Manuel Darío», the maharishi «Salí Baba», the bossa nova composer «Dorival Lampada» (Lampiño) and the pastor «Warren Sánchez ", among others. However, the composer "Johann Sebastian Mastropiero" has the largest number of appearances in the entire repertoire.

This character emerged in the early 1960s in a manuscript that Marcos Mundstock dictated to Horacio López in a bar. At that time he was called "Freddy Mastropiero" According to Gerardo Masana, the name "Freddy" gave the character a certain "mafia tone." In 1966 Jorge Maronna reinstated the character, renaming him "Johann Sebastian Masana", because Masana was the composer of almost all the songs, and because of his veneration for the musician Johann Sebastian Bach. His debut as a character dates back to the work Music? Yes, of course, premiered at the Teatro de Artes y Ciencias on May 17, 1967, when the group was still performing under the name «I musicisti».

Today marks a new anniversary of the birth of the great composer ílo-yanqui Johann Sebastian Masana [...] He was born in Manhattan, son of an Italian mother and father (pause). His last words were for the instrument that had accompanied him throughout his life: "Piano, piano, I leave lontano".

Biography. In: Music? Yeah, sure. (1967).

In 1970 the character, already under the name of Johann Sebastian Mastropiero, appears for the first time as the head of a sketch in the play «Dear Countess: letter from Johann Sebastian Mastropiero to the Countess of Shortshot».

This character is characterized by a turbulent life whose plot is spun throughout each presentation made by Marcos Mundstock. Thanks to them it is known that he was born to an Italian mother and father (...); that he had a mobster twin brother named Harold Mastropiero; that despite her multiple love affairs, for a time he had a stable partner in the Countess of Shortshot, and that with her he had several children whose surnames mean the same as her mother's in different languages; that he hired a gypsy as a maid and that she left Azuceno Mastropiero as his godson; among many other hilarious situations.

Informal Instruments

Luthier is the French word for the maker of stringed instruments. The group took this name from their habit of creating instruments from unusual materials, such as cans, hoses, cardboard tubes, balloons, etc. The first builder of informal instruments was Gerardo Masana, founder of the group, and the first instrument created was the bass-pipe a vara, built with cardboard tubes found in the garbage and household items. Forty years later, an emulator of this huge rolling tube is still in use on stage.

The first informal instruments were relatively simple, such as the gom-horn (made from a hose, funnel, and trumpet mouthpiece), and some of them originated as parodies of standard instruments. This is the case of Latin and the violata, among others. Over time, he joined as "luthier de Les Luthiers" Dr. Carlos Iraldi, who investigated the construction of atypical instruments moving between technical perfection and artistic sensibility. Thus were born artifacts as singular as the mandocleta (a bicycle whose rear wheel moves the strings of a mandolin), the ferrocalíope (a steam-powered calliope that passes through railway whistles), the barrel tone bass (a double bass whose body is a giant barrel), the field organ (an organ that is worn hanging from the back, and whose air is sent by shoes-bellows) and many others.

After the death of Iraldi in 1995, the craftsman Hugo Domínguez took over, who manufactured, among others, the desatunaducha, the nomeolbídet and the enchanting alembic.

According to the usual classification of instruments, they can be classified as follows:

String Instruments

• Latin or Lata Violin: the resonance box is a can of preserved ham.
• Violata or viola de lata: the resonance box is a typical tin of paint, to which a nail was attached.
• Contrachitarrone da gamba: is a mixture of cello and guitar.
• Chelo legüero: a mixture of cello and lime pump. It has four strings that can be touched with arc, as if it were a shilling, and its patch percuted with a drum, as if it were a pump.
• Cellato: similar to a cello, built with a cleaning liquid.
• Mandocleta: a bicycle whose rear wheel makes a buzuki sound, sort of Greek-born mandolin.
• Lira of seat or lirodoro: a lira made with a toilet seat that has been attached a clamp of mandolin.
• Sweet guitar: a guitar built with two cans of sweet potato.
• Under a barritone: a bass whose resonance box is a barrel of wood to which the fingerboard is subject with the ropes and in which the instrumentist enters to touch it. It also has five wheels at the bottom that allow the interpreter to walk while playing.
• Nomeolbídet: an organistrum built with a bidet and a PVC pipe as a fingerboard.

Wind Instruments

• Bass-pipe to rod: it is similar to a trombone of rods, built with carton tubes. Tubes are mounted in a small cart with wheels to allow their displacement. It produces deaf and serious sounds. It has an acute version, the alt-pipe to rod, which has no wheels and its tubes are PVC instead of cardboard.
• Syliconic chromatic Tubóphone: it is similar to a fox, built with test tubes, silicone fillings at different levels to produce various notes. An earlier version was the "Chromatic Paraffin Tubóphone", filled with paraffin instead of silicone.
• chromatic paraffin tubóphone: From the family of the fox, test tubes are used, but in this case they are filled with paraffin of colors in different levels to give rise to the tones of the musical notes.
• Camera range: a kind of giant gaita built with a tractor wheel camera that feeds with air to a glamocot, a clamaneus and a melodic.
• Narguilophone: is a sweet flute inserted into a narguile, a device used to smoke.
• Charming Alambique: it is a great instrument divided into three sections, an acute formed by eleven acrylic cups, a formed by eight plastic bottles cut in its medium part and submerged in water, and a grave formed by four bottles of water of 25 liters. Three musicians are needed at the same time for their execution.
• Glamocot: is similar to a medieval chrome and produces a sound similar to that of a small fagot. It is worth mentioning your difficulty touching because the notes are in disorder. It's also part of the camera gaita.
• Field organ: it is a tube organ that the musician carries subject in the back with a backpack, allowing him to move while he is touching it.
• Pneumatic Glymphon: formed by an air pump, is similar to a Pan flute, which is tuned by a piston located at the opposite end of the blowing.
• Bocineta: is a kazoo subject to a gramophone bell (bubble) to amplify its sound.
• Natural Gom-horn: is the imitation of a trumpet, made with a garden hose and a funnel. It has two other versions: the gom-horn to pistons, which carries trumpet pistons, and the gom-horn da testa, the most well-known version, in which the end of the trumpet is subject to a helmet worn by the interpreter.
• Calephone da cassa: it is a sort of trombone built with a water heater, which was later added the pipe of a trombone of rods.
• Yerbomatófono d'amore: also called the thieve, made with a dry fruit of Sicerary lagenaria (recipient used to take the infusion of mate) cut by half. The two hemispheres are sanded and re-assembled, so a vibration occurs when blowing through a hole. The yerbomatophone is an idiosphone, a voice masker.
• Seat belt: it is a wooden stool that produces a horn sound when sitting on it. Each produces a unique sound, so you need several seat banks connected to a bellow and a horn to form a melody.
• Clamaneus: Lengue instrument connected to a tractor wheel chamber; it is similar to glamocot, it also carries a chrome emboke but it sounds a fourth more serious. It's also part of the camera gaita.
• Pneumatic Manguelodic: It is a melodic to which two large balloons are connected that supply air. The melodic is placed in a horizontal position, allowing it to be played as a piano.
• Ferrocalypse: it is a caliper whose tubes have been replaced by rail whistles driven by water vapor.
• Bolarmon: it is made up of 18 balls of basketball arranged in the form of a keyboard that when oppressed they produce different sounds by expelling the air through some tongues of accordion.

Percussion Instruments

• Dactilophone or Touching Machine: It is a typewriter that has connected several aluminium tubes, which when pressed the keys, emit a sound similar to that of a xylophone.
• Cascarudo: is a small instrument, formed by a güiro and a yogurt container, among other elements, which produces several basic sounds. His name is because he imitated the sound of a cascarp, name given to some kind of beetle.
• Desafinaducha: Designed and built by Hugo Domínguez, it is inspired by the shower of a bathroom, in which the water when falling turns a small mill that carries small hammers that hit a metalophone. It is one of the instruments that integrate the Quartet (or Cuartito) of Baño. The effect achieved is a "twamping" which, mixed with the flow of water, produces a sweet and peculiar sound.
• OMNI (Unidentified Musical Object): is a pneumatic piston similar to a bike inflator that drives a cork plug at the end of the tube. Its effect is similar to the sound produced when decoding a bottle.
• Hammer cell phone: It is a keyboard that triggers some electromagnets that move some hammers, which hit some metal tubes that produce sounds similar to that of a bell.
• Washing tables: as its name indicates, is a tin-lined wash board, which carries a small dish, a Chinese box and a cencerro, that the interpreter percusses carrying dedales. Three are used, and each one also has a tuned horn in a different note.
• Shoephone or Zapatófono: it is formed by a mechanism of gears and handles that raise a pair of shoes, which then drop on a wooden base.
• Coconut butterfly: it is a marimba whose wooden plates are replaced by 19 hollow coconuts that sound like percuting them.

Others

• Antenor: a robot that produced different sounds and was able to move, and his face could adopt different gestures. It was controlled from chins, and by remote control, by three people at once.
• Exorcitara: it is a great frame, shaped like a harp, whose "bodys" are formed by neon light tubes. The acute part consists of eight tubes, of turquoise colour, which are articulated on the average, while the severe part is three tubes of red colour, which are fixed.

Gallery of instruments

Latin. Rape. Contrachitarrone da gamba. Bullshit. Alt-pipe a vara. Bass-pipe to rod. Syliconic chromatic Tubóphone. Yerbomatophone d'amore. Pneumatical manguelodic. Dactilophone.

The group

From left to right: Carlos Núñez Cortés, Carlos López Puccio, Jorge Maronna, Daniel Rabinovich and Marcos Mundstock.

Current members

• Carlos López Puccio, a graduate in Orchestra Directorate, director of choirs and university professor. He officially joined the group in 1971, after collaborating in it since 1969. He was born on October 9, 1946 in Rosario. Its main instrument is Latin or can violin, but it also plays other instruments such as cellato, piano, harmonic, violata, percussion (in jazz works), and in the last two decades it is often seen in synthesizers.
• Jorge Maronna, composer, arranger and guitarist. He started the medical career, which never ended. Born August 1, 1948 in Bahía Blanca. In the group sings and interprets the guitar and other string instruments (charango, contrachitarrone da gamba, etcetera). He has collaborated with Daniel Samper Pizano (author of Les Luthiers de la L a la S) in some books (like Singing under the shower, Sex put, Hearts.) and in the libretto of the Colombian series Milkwith Luis María Pescetti in the book Copyright. He is the only current member of the group that has integrated him uninterruptedly since his foundation in 1967.
• Horacio "Tato" Turano, pianist, saxophoneist, singer, arranger and composer, born in Buenos Aires on November 10, 1953. Collaborates with the group as a replacement for all its members since 2000. Official member of Les Luthiers since 2015 after the death of Daniel Rabinovich.
• Martin O'Connor, Argentine singer and actor. Born on August 2, 1966 in Buenos Aires. Official Replacement of Les Luthiers since August 2012. Official member of Les Luthiers along with "Tato" Turkish since 2015.
• Tomás Mayer-Wolf, pianist, composer, arranger and musical producer, born on December 10, 1982 in Buenos Aires. Replacer since 2015 and official member since October 2017 after the retirement of Carlos Núñez Cortés.
• Roberto Antier, an Argentine actor born on January 13, 1963 in Buenos Aires, son of Violeta Antier. He had had a first test in 2010, but finally joined Thomas Mayer-Wolf in 2015. His first presentation had him in 2019 replacing Marcos Mundstock, who was affected by a paralysis on one of his legs. Since 2020, after Mundstock's death, he is an official member.
• Santiago Otero Ramos, actor, pianist, choir director and musical director, born in Buenos Aires on 26 November 1980. It is incorporated as a replacement of the group in mid-August 2019.
• Pablo Rabinovich, multi-instrumentist musician, singer, composer, musical producer, teacher and electronic engineer born in Buenos Aires on December 27, 1984. He has no kinship with Daniel Rabinovich. It is incorporated as a replacement of the group in mid-August 2019.

Former members

• Gerardo Masana, founder of the group, composer, arranger, architect and creator of the first instruments of the group. He died of leukemia in 1973, at age 36. He played the bass-pipe and the fingerprint. He devoted his last years entirely to the group.

Ernesto Acher

• Ernesto Acher, architect, composer and arranger. He was born on October 9, 1939. When he entered the group he frequently played the piano (in the works where Carlos Núñez Cortés had a more theatrical role than musical), then he went more towards the instruments of wind, including the three gom-horns, the calephone, the clarinet, the corn, the sweet flute and the chromatic siliconic tubophone. He also played the drums, latin percussion, armonium and sang, and had several important roles in performance as the captain of The bergantine majasThe Loved King, the Nene The gallinite said eureka), Don Rodrigo, Carlitos Return) and Valentine Moral (El Macho). Following the recital of the group at the Teatro Colón in Bogotá in 1986, Ernesto Acher left Les Luthiers for reasons that were never clarified. At a meeting held in 2007 on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the group, when asked for the reason for its march, Acher replied: "Les Luthiers was a multiple marriage, and it is gentleman's not to ask a couple what happened." From his departure he co-founded a jazz group (although like Les Luthiers often raided other styles) and recorded a symphonic album, which would then lead him to be an orchestra director. He was radiated in the city of Concepción, Chile, where he also participated as a musician in several groups and performed symphonic concerts. He currently lives in Santiago de Chile.
• Daniel Rabinovich, guitarist, percussionist and folk singer, a law degree and a public scribe. He was born on November 18, 1943 in Buenos Aires. In the works he used to have performance and singing papers, but he also played guitar, drums and Latin or can violin, as well as other percussion instruments, and also keyboards. Plus he played the Bass pipe a vara (winding, tuba mixing with rod trombone). For a long time it was the scribe (notary) of Les Luthiers, until a heart attack came over. Outside he wrote two books, entitled Real stories and The silence of the end. He died in Buenos Aires on August 21, 2015, at 71.
• Carlos Núñez Cortés, doctor in Chemistry, piano concertist, composer and arranger. Born October 15, 1942 in Buenos Aires. He was the pianist of the whole, but he also played wind instruments, such as the chromatic siliconic tubóphone (originally chromatic paraffin tubófono), as well as the bread flute and the pneumatic glisophone; being the (co)creator of several informal instruments (e.g. the coconut marimba), he was also the interpreter of several of them. He also played percussions (such as the coconut marimba) and sang. On 14 September 2017, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the group, Carlos Núñez Cortés made his last representation.
• Marcos Mundstock, professional announcer and advertising editor. He was born on 25 May 1942 in the city of Santa Fe. He was the host of each work and acted in many of them. He was the only member of the group who is not a professional musician, so most of his performances were singing or talking, but occasionally playing instruments. Its main instruments were the three gom-horns, and it also played percussion or keyboard (in The Suoneran Bell). He died in Buenos Aires, April 22, 2020, at the age of 77.

Collaborators

• Roberto el Negro Fontanarrosa, the popular rosary writer was recognized as a collaborator in numerous works of the group.
• Carlos Iraldi, was the luthier who performed informal instruments until his death in 1995.
• Hugo Domínguez, current luthier of the group since 1997.
• Horacio Fontova, in 1994, replaced Daniel Rabinovich, a convalescent of a heart attack.
• Gustavo López Manzitti, official replacement of the group between 2000 and 2003. Pianist, lyric singer, arranger and composer.
• Daniel Casablanca, actor and humorist who integrates the group Los Macocos. Official Replacement of Les Luthiers during 2008.
• Marcelo Trepat, Argentine actor and singer. Official Replacement of Les Luthiers between 2009 and 2012.

Shows

I Musicians

• Music? Yeah, sure. (1966)
• Mens healthy in corpore healthy (1966)
• I Musicisti and historical operas (1967)
• I Musicisti again with the same (1968)
• I Musicisti strikes again (1973)

The Luthiers

• Les Luthiers tell the opera (1967)
• We're all bad people. (TV program, 1968)
• Snow White and the Seven Capital Sins (1969)
• Dear Countess (1969)
• Les Luthiers opus pi (1971)
• Recital '72 (1972)
• Symphonic Recital '72 (1972)
• Recital '73 (1973)
• Recital '74 (1974)
• Recital '75 (1975)
• Old failures (1976)
• Mastropiero that never (1977)
• Les Luthiers do a lot of thanks for nothing (1979)
• The classics of Les Luthiers (1980)
• Luthirías (1981)
• By humor to art (1983)
• Sweet home humor (1985)
• Symphonic Recital '86 (1986)
• Old anniversary (1987)
• The laughing of the songs (1989)
• Les Luthiers, great milestones (1992)
• Unen canto con humor (1994)
• Armonium Bromato (1996)
• Everything for you to laugh (1999)
• Do-Re-Mi-Já! (2000)
• The concerted gross (2001)
• The works of yesterday (2002)
• With Les Luthiers and Symphony (2004)
• This is Les Luthiers. (2005)
• The Mastropiero Awards (2005)
• Forty years of career (2007)
• Lutherapia (2008)
• CHIST! (2011)
• Old Hazmerirs (2014)
• Grand Reserve (Anthology) (2017)
• More pieces of Mastropiero (2022)

Discography

Studio Albums

• We sound, despite everything (1971)
• Cantatata Laxaton (1972)
• Volume 3 (1973)
• Volume 4 (1976)
• Volume 7 (1983)
• Cardoso in Gulevandia (1991)

Live Albums

• Mastropiero that never (1979)
• Les Luthiers do a lot of thanks for nothing (1981)
• Les Luthiers en vivo (2007)
• Les Luthiers more alive (2013)

Tributes

• Thank you, Mastropiero. (2007)

Collaborations

• 1998: What cost me Laura's love
• 1999: Saxon Soul 4 Winds
• 2004: Gerardo Masana and Les Luthiers Foundation
• 2004: We're all Chalchaleros.
• 2008: 40 years of Cantos Opus 4
• 2009: Old Jazz Band

Videography

• Volume 1: Mastropiero that never (1979)
• Volume 2: Les Luthiers do a lot of thanks for nothing (1980)
• Volume 3: Les Luthiers, great milestones (1995)
• Volume 4: Armonium Bromato (1998)
• Volume 5: Unen canto con humor (1999)
• Volume 6: Sweet home humor (1986)
• Volume 7: Old anniversary (1989)
• Volume 8: Everything for you to laugh (2000)
• Volume 9: The Grosso Concerto (2001)
• Volume 10: Old failures (1977)
• Volume 11: The works of yesterday (2002)
• Volume 12: Les Luthiers here! (2005)
• Volume 13: The Mastropiero Awards (2006)
• Volume 14: Lutherapia (2009)
• Volume 15: CHIST! (2013)
• Volume 16: Old laughing stock (2016)