The Best of Tárrega

Works performed by Giulio Tampalini

Fransisco Tárrega was born on November 21, 1852 in Villareal, Spain. An accident marked his childhood when, apparently, he fell into a ditch in the carelessness of the girl who was taking care of him, and his sight was damaged. His father, fearing that he would be blind, moved to Castellón to attend music classes and earn a living as a musician.
He entered the Madrid Conservatory in 1874, where he studied composition with Emilio Arrieta. At the end of 1870 he taught guitar (Emilio Pujol and Miguel Llobet were his students) and gave concerts regularly. Virtuous of his instrument, he was known as the Sarasate of the guitar. In 1880 he gave recitals in Paris and London.
During the winter of 1880, he replaced his friend and guitarist Luis de Soria at a concert in Novelda (Alicante), the city where he met his future wife, María Rizo. Tárrega passed away on December 15, 1909 from a stroke in Barcelona, ​​Spain.

Apart from his original works for guitar, which include Memories of the Alhambra, Tear, Capricho Árabe, Variaciones sobre la Jota Aragonesa and Danza Mora, he arranged pieces by other authors for this instrument, such as some by Ludwig van Beethoven, Frédéric Chopin, Felix Mendelssohn and the famous Spanish Serenade by the Spanish Joaquín Malats.
Like others of his Spanish contemporaries, his friend Isaac Albéniz, for example, Tárrega was interested in combining the romantic tendency that prevailed in classical music with the Spanish popular elements. The well-known contemporary guitarist Angelo Gilardino wrote that the 9 preludes of Tárrega are «... the deepest musical thought of Tárrega in a concentrated way».
He is considered the creator of the foundations of the classical guitar technique of the 20th century and of the growing interest in the guitar as a recital instrument.

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