Guitar World

Wherever I have played my guitar, the most requested and recognised  piece has always been Recuerdos de la Alhambra by Tarrega. It is easy to understand why. The rippling tremolo melody on the guitar is a classic evocation of the water running from the fountains, which can be found everywhere outside the great Alhambra Palace, which is built on a hill overlooking the beautiful city of Granada, Spain.

The last time I played it in public I was asked for a recommendation of a recording of this piece, not too easy because it is one of the guitar’s most coveted works, and there have been many fine recordings.

                                      Vocal Qualities

I find it interesting to listen to the different “accents” in recordings. As I mentioned in a previous post, the guitar has vocal qualities, many times reflecting the idiom, even the artistic personality of the player.

Examples below, listen to a brief extract of some recordings of the opening section…

Andres Segovia      John Williams          Karin Schaupp

I find the  Segovia version the most “Spanish” sounding, or idiomatic. Although John Williams has seamless tremolo, I doubt his is more like a classical interpretation, as opposed to an evocation, which this piece is intended to be. Note also Segovia’s heavy accentuation in the bass. The Karin Schaupp is my prefered rendition, overall.

Here is Pepe Romero playing the whole piece, you bear in mind though the background in this video is San Fransisco!

 It was this Segovia recording which inspired Julian Bream to take up the classical guitar in the first place, after his Father brought home the record. Bream states in his My Life In Music DVD, “the piece was very beautiful too, but it was the sound, more than anything which I found so inspiring”…

In the days of Segovia recordings they used a ribbon microphone, which made the sound so mellifluous, according to Bream. Interesting to note that, even in these high tech days, in terms of sound  asthetics, we can still glean quality    from the early years of sound recording.

                                       Origin of Recuerdos De La Alhambra.

“Recuerdos”, as it is often referred to by guitarists, is also known as Improvisacion, A Granada! Cantiga Arabe, Estudio de Tremolo. The principle theme was conceived by Tarrega after visiting the Palace in the late afternoon, setting sun with his student Conception Gomez, better known as Dona Concha, then 35 years old, who had inherited a great fortune after the death of her husband. The first manuscript was inscribed by Tarrega to Concha, translating;

“Since I can’t offer you a gift of greater value on the day of your saint, accept this, my poor little poetic note, an impression of what my soul felt before the great marvel of the Alhambra we admired together in Granada”. It is dated December 8 1899, Malega.

Original manuscript

                                            Appreciation

Recuerdos is probably the most famous example of guitar tremolo. Though there have been many refinements of tremolo technique over the years, most notably by Agustin Barrios and more recently Stepan Rak’s expanding of the technique, in my experience no piece for guitar expresses itself better than this one, it’s evergreen qualities and lush tonalities make it a perennial classic, requested and loved by guitarists and audiences alike.

Someone later asked the great Spanish composer Manuel De Falla his opinion of the point where the guitar can be taken seriously, as a concert instrument. Falla replied that to recognise all the beauty and great emotion capable of being contained within a guitar, it was only necassary to cite one example; Recuerdos de la Alhambra by Fransisco Tarrega.

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