Francisco Tárrega: The Story of Capricho Árabe

By Thanh Pham

Francisco Tárrega: The Story of Capricho Árabe, is a brief look into guitarist/composer Francisco Tárrega and a study of performance practice of the piece, "Capricho Árabe". This essay uses life of the composer and historical events to shape an approach to this staple of the guitar repertoire.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thanh Pham
• Release date: Dec 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310972805

Thanh Pham

Thanh is a classical guitarist and instructor in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to his studies at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania, he also studied with Michael Bautista, Patrick Francis, Steve Lin, and Grisha Goryachev at San Jose, CA.

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Introduction

Today’s guitar repertory contains centuries of music of various forms and stories. One particular man from Spain has redefined the modern guitar as a serious solo instrument by transcribing music from piano, contributing to the development of technique, composition of music, and furthering pedagogical studies. His name, Francisco Tárrega (1852-1909), is synonymous with the Spanish guitar.¹ If one examines the music of Tárrega, different influences from Chopin to the folk music of the Iberian Peninsula utilize and require different performances of particular aspects of the music. Understanding the history also yields information to determine an appropriate affect of the piece. I believe these nuances help bring out the characteristics of and strengthen the affects of Tárrega’s pieces.

How did Tárrega perform his music? What can be learned from how Tárrega performed his music to enrich his music in performance today? Specifically, I will investigate nuances in articulation such as written and unwritten glissando and portamento. First, I reveal the life of Tárrega and some of his influences on music. Tárrega dedicated himself to teaching the practical and theoretical ideas of the guitar. Looking at the music, I determine the affect and character of the piece. Finally, I examine the pieces in detail to determine a possible performance style to bring out the affect, the attitude, of the piece in order for the listener to understand what Tárrega has experienced. Recordings of popular and influential guitarists are studied. Notably, The Complete Historical Recordings 1913-1942 by Augustín Barrios are studied due to the recordings' proximity of time to Tárrega's lifetime. The Miguel Llobet recordings are also studied for the same purpose but it is also significant that Llobet was one of Tárrega's students. While there cannot be an assumption that Llobet's or Barrios' playing would have the same exact characteristics of Tárrega's,

Reviews for Francisco Tárrega

[teamup · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

it only has a little historical reference, the rest is just a exploration with of the piece and a little comparison of other famous guitar performances. such as Pepe, Yepes, Segovia, Pujol, Etc..