Spain

Mompou was strongly influenced by French Impressionists composers. However, instead of simply following the impressionist tradition or joining new trends such as of Stravinsky or Schönberg, Mompou decided to start afresh (Recomençament) from the origin of music history. Mompou called this musical style Primitivism. Mompou's maternal family the Dencausse was a well-known Bell maker for many generations. The sound of the bell Mompou used to observe in his childhood made a huge impact on his aesthetic.

Song and Dance No.10 by Federico Mompou was originally written for piano in 1953 and later transcribed for guitar by the composer himself. Mompou chose two melodies from Canticles of Saint Mary by King Alfonso X of Castile. This essay includes audio samples and images of manuscripts.

Frederic Mompou's unique original work for guitar, Suite Compostelana was written in 1962 and dedicated to Andrés Segovia. Each movement evokes the essence of Santiago de Compostela — a historical Galician city in northwest Spain. The suite beautifully contains a variety of music styles and moods that conjure up images of rainy Galician city or traditional lively dance by imitating the sound of ‘la Gaita (bagpipes)’ and Mompou's distinctive bell-like chords.

María (Gavotte) is another famous piece by Francisco Tárrega. With this María, Tárrega deploys a range of techniques such as arrastres/glissandi, scales, arpeggios, slurs (hammer-ons and pull-offs), harmonics and pizzicato. Features such as the gavotte's lively rhythm combined with the flexible agogic and dynamics in the Romantic idiom result in a colorful, lyrical and entertaining atmosphere. Beautiful sounds of the Neapolitan sixth chords on bars (m.m.) 4, 39, and 45-46 evoke an Italian opera and/or works by Chopin.

Legend has it that "Una Lágrima (A Teardrop)" is Tarrega’s reaction to the death of his daughter “Conchita”. Returning home from a concert tour in Mallorca, Spain in December of 1891, Tarrega’s wife, Maria José Rizo, informed him that Conchita had passed on three days earlier.

Prelude No.2 was composed on 16 March 1896 in Barcelona and dedicated to Miguel Llobet. Often preludes were conceived by Francisco Tárrega for the benefit of his pupils, specifically to improve their artistic and expressive abilities. It has been said that some of the preludes were results of Tárrega's improvisation during the lessons. Legend has it that Tárrega was never tempted to play his preludes at recitals. Nonetheless, I feel that these preludes are actually the epitome of Tárrega's art.

Legend has it that the piece Adelita owes its name to Adela Aymerich, the allegedly illegitimate daughter of the King of Spain Alfonso XII. For Adelita, it seems that Tárrega seeks the inspiration in the kujawiak, a slow Polish folk dance by following the ideas of the stylized mazurka conceived by Chopin.

Hernández y Aguado was a historic classical guitar maker in Madrid, Spain. Santiago Manuel Hernández was born in 1895 in a village near Toledo. When he was eight, he moved to Madrid with his family. When he was 14, he began to work as an apprentice at a piano workshop. Soon after, he was allowed to work in a section where the main bodies of the piano were being constructed.

This essay is about Falla’s only guitar work, Homenaje pour Le Tombeau de Claude Debussy, his important involvement with the cultural movement in Granada, and the friendship with the poet Federico García Lorca, French composer Claude Debussy, and Ángel Barrios, the guitarist/composer of Granada.