Francisco Tárrega
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Francisco Tárrega (Francisco Tárrega y Eixea) (November 21, 1852 — December 15, 1909) was a Spanish composer, and one of the most influential guitarists the world has ever known. He is considered the father of the modern classical guitar.
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[edit] Biography
Francisco de Asís Tárrega Eixea was born on November 21, 1852, in Villarreal, Castellón, Spain. His father, Francisco Tárrega Tirado, was an usher, his mother, Antonia Eixea, died when Francisco was very young. Francisco fell into an irrigation channel in his early childhood, permanently impairing his eyesight. Partially due to this accident, the family moved to Castellón and enrolled him in music classes. Both his first music teachers, Eugeni Ruiz and Manuel Gonzalez, were blind.
In 1862, concert guitarist Julián Arcas, on tour in Castellón, heard young Francisco play and advised Tárrega's father to allow Francisco to come to Barcelona to study with him. Tárrega's father agreed, but insisted that his son take piano lessons as well. The guitar was viewed as an instrument to accompany singers, while the piano was all the rage throughout Europe. However, Tárrega had to stop his lessons shortly after when Arcas left for a concert tour abroad. Although Francisco Tárrega was only ten years old, he ran away and tried to start a musical career on his own along coffee houses and restaurants in Barcelona. He was found soon and brought back to his devoted father, who had to make great sacrifices to advance his son's musical education.
Three years later, in 1865, he ran away to Valencia where he joined a gang of gypsies. His father looked for him and brought him back home once again, but he would ran away a third time, again to Valencia. By his early teens, Tárrega was proficient on both the piano and the guitar. For a time, he played with other musicians at local engagements to earn money, but eventually he returned home to help his family.
Tárrega entered the Madrid Conservatory in 1874, under the sponsorship of a wealthy merchant named Antonio Canesa. He had brought along with him a recently-purchased guitar, made in Seville by Antonio Torres. Its superior sonic qualities inspired him both in his playing and in his view of the instrument's compositional potential. At the conservatory, Tárrega studied composition under Emilio Arrieta who convinced him to focus on guitar and abandon the idea of a career with the piano.
By the end of the 1870s, Tárrega was teaching the guitar (Emilio Pujol and Miguel Llobet were pupils of his) and giving regular concerts. Tárrega received much acclaim for his playing and began traveling to other areas of Spain to perform. By this time he was composing his first works for guitar, in addition to those of other composers. During the winter of 1880, Tárrega replaced his friend Luis de Soria, in a concert in Novelda, Alicante, there, after the concert an important man in town asked the artist to listen to his daughter, María José Rizo, who was learning to play guitar. Soon they were engaged. In 1881,Tárrega premiered in the Opera Theatre in Lyon and then the Paris Odeon, in the Second Centennial of the death of Pedro Calderón de la Barca. He also played in London, but there he liked neither the language nor the weather. There is a story about his visit to England. After a concert, some people saw that the maestro was in low spirits. "What is the matter, maestro?" they asked him. "Do you miss home? Your family, perhaps?" They advised him to capture that moment of sadness in his music. Thus he conceived the theme of one of his most memorable works, Lágrima. After playing in London he came back to Novelda for his wedding. On Christmas 1882 Tárrega married María José Rizo.
He soon began transcribing piano works of Beethoven, Chopin, Mendelssohn, and others to enlarge his guitar repertory, and, no doubt, to make use of his considerable knowledge of keyboard music. Tárrega and his wife moved to Madrid, gaining their living by teaching privately and playing concerts, but after the death of an infant daughter, Maria Josefa, they settled permanently in Barcelona in 1885. Among his friends in Barcelona were Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados, Joaquín Turina and Pablo Casals.
On a concert tour in Valencia shortly afterward, Tárrega met a wealthy widow, Conxa Martinez, who became a valuable patron to him. She allowed him and his family use of a house in Barcelona, where he would write the bulk of his most popular works. Later she took him to Granada, where the guitarist conceived the theme for his famous Recuerdos de la Alhambra, which he composed on his return and dedicated to his friend Alfred Cottin, a Frenchman who had arranged his Paris concerts. In 1900 Tárrega visited Argel, where he heard a repetitive rhythm played on an Arabian drum. The following morning he composed his famous Danza Mora based on that rhythm. From the latter 1880s up to 1903, Tárrega continued composing, but limited his concerts to Spain. In about 1902, he cut his fingernails and created a sound that would become typical of those guitarists associated with his school. The following year he went on tour in Italy, giving highly successful concerts in Rome, Naples, and Milan.
In January 1906, he was afflicted with paralysis on his right side, and though he would eventually return to the concert stage, he never completely recovered. He finished his last work, Oremus, on December 2, 1909. He died thirteen days later in Barcelona on December 15, 1909.
[edit] Musical Style
As a composer Tárrega was conservative, restricting his style to the general trends in the second half of the 19th century. A virtuoso on his instrument, he was known as the "Sarasate of the guitar".
Tárrega is considered to have laid the foundations for 20th-century classical guitar and for increasing interest in the guitar as a recital instrument. The great Andrés Segovia used much of Tárrega's work on technique and many of his compositions to take the classical guitar into concert halls of Europe. Tárrega preferred small intimate performances over the concert stage. Some believe this was because he played without nails needed for volume. Others say this was related to his childhood trauma.
[edit] Compositions
Francisco Tárrega's music and style of guitar playing became strongly influential in the twentieth century. He was central to reviving the guitar as a solo instrument in recital and concerts. His output was modest, with just 78 original scores and 120 transcriptions - mostly for his own use - of the great classical compositions. Among his most popular works for the guitar are Recuerdos de la Alhambra, Capricho Árabe and Danza Mora. Tárrega arranged pieces by others for the instrument, including works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Frédéric Chopin and Felix Mendelssohn.
He is also the composer of what has been claimed to be "probably the world's most heard tune": the Nokia ringtone Nokia tune or simply Nokia, also used in their advertising spots, is based on Tárrega's Gran Vals. His music also inspired Mike Oldfield, whose "Etude (The Killing Fields)" is based on Tárrega's tremolo piece for solo classical guitar, "Recuerdos de la Alhambra".
As with several of his Spanish contemporaries, such as his friend Isaac Albéniz, he had an interest in combining the prevailing Romantic trend in classical music with Spanish folk elements, and transcribed several of Albéniz's piano pieces (notably the fiery "Asturias (Leyenda)") for guitar. The noted contemporary guitarist and composer Angelo Gilardino has written that Tárrega's 9 Preludios are "... the deepest musical thought of Tárrega in the most concentrated form."
[edit] References
- Francisco Tárrega Biografía Oficial by Adrian Rius, published by Ayuntamiento de Vila-Real, ISBN 84-88331-82-7
- Francisco Tárrega, Werden und Wirkung by Wolf Moser, published by Edition Saint-George. ISBN unknown.
[edit] External links
- Complete work and biography
- Francisco Tárrega: biography and classical guitar sheet music
- Photo
- Tárrega / Walter Leckie Manuscripts
- Free scores for guitar
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