Recuerdos de la Alhambra

Recuerdos de la Alhambra (Memories of the Alhambra) is a classical guitar piece composed in 1896 by Spanish composer and guitarist Francisco Tárrega. He wrote it in Granada.

A virtuoso on his instrument, Tárrega was known as the "Sarasate of the guitar". His repertoire included many original compositions for the guitar (Capricho Árabe, Danza Mora, et al) as well as guitar arrangements of works written for other instruments by composers such as Ludwig van Beethoven, Frédéric Chopin and Felix Mendelssohn. As with his friend Isaac Albéniz and many of their Spanish contemporaries, Tárrega had an interest in combining the prevailing Romantic trend in classical music with Spanish folk elements, which he did with Recuerdos de la Alhambra and his transcriptions for guitar of several of Albeniz's piano pieces, notably the fiery Asturias (Leyenda).

Recuerdos de la Alhambra shares a title with the Spanish language translation of Washington Irving's 1832 book, Tales of the Alhambra, written during the author's four-year stay in Spain. It contains extensive examples of the tremolo technique often performed by advanced classical guitarists.

Soundtrack use

Recuerdos de la Alhambra has been used as title or incidental music several times, including the soundtrack for René Clément's Forbidden Games (as played by Narciso Yepes), for The Killing Fields (under the title Étude),...
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