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Recuerdos de la Alhambra (translation: Memories of the Alhambra) is a classical guitar piece composed in 1896 by Spanish composer and guitarist Francisco Tárrega. He wrote it in Granada. Additionally, Ruggiero Ricci created an arrangement of this piece for the violin.
A virtuoso on his instrument, Tárrega was known as the "Sarasate of the guitar." His repertoire included many original compositions for the guitar (Capricho Árabe, Danza Mora, et al.) as well as guitar arrangements of works written for other instruments by composers such as Ludwig van Beethoven, Frédéric Chopin and Felix Mendelssohn. As with his friend Isaac Albéniz and many of their Spanish contemporaries, Tárrega had an interest in combining the prevailing Romantic trend in classical music with Spanish folk elements, which he did with Recuerdos de la Alhambra and his transcriptions for guitar of several of Albeniz's piano pieces (notably the fiery Asturias (Leyenda)).
Recuerdos de la Alhambra shares a title with the Spanish language translation of Washington Irving's 1832 book "Tales of the Alhambra," written during the author's four-year stay in Spain. It contains extensive examples of the Tremolo Picking technique often performed by advanced classical guitarists.
Soundtrack use
Recuerdos de la Alhambra has been used as title or incidental music several times, including the soundtrack for both The Killing Fields (under the title "Étude") and in the film Sideways. It was used as the title music for the British television series Out of Town.
Performance notes
The piece showcases the challenging guitar technique known as 'tremolo,' where a single melody note is plucked repeatedly by the ring, middle and index fingers in such rapid succession that the result is an illusion of one long sustained tone. The thumb plays a counter-melody on the bass between melodic attacks. Many who hear this piece initially in a non-live setting can mistake it for a duet rather than a challenging solo effort.
More information
- Free sheet music for Recuerdos de la Alhambra from http://www.freestave.com (http://s141964254.websitehome.co.uk/pdf/tarrega_alhambra.pdf)
- A page with the score arranged for Bb clarinet and guitar with capo (http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/cgi-bin/show_score.pl?scoreid=122790&storeid=112913)
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