Overview
Introduction
Recuerdos de la Alhambra (Memories of the Alhambra) is a classical guitar piece composed in 1896 in Granada by Spanish composer and guitarist Francisco Tárrega. It uses the classical guitar tremolo technique often performed by advanced players.
Recuerdos de la Alhambra means Memories of the Alhambra. The Alhambra is a palace and fortress complex in Granada, Spain.
Performance notes
The piece showcases the challenging guitar technique known as tremolo, wherein a single melody note is plucked consecutively by the ring, middle and index fingers in such rapid succession that the result is an illusion of one long sustained note. The thumb plays an arpeggio-pattern accompaniment simultaneously. Many who have heard the piece but not seen it performed mistake it for a duet.
The A-section of the piece is written in A-minor and the B-section is written in the parallel major (A-major). This device is used in other Spanish guitar songs as well, such as the anonymous Spanish Romance (also known simply as Romance or Spanish Folk Song).
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), and in the films Sideways and Margaret.
Performed and arranged by Jonathon Coudrille, it was used as the title music for the British television series Out of Town and a version performed by Pepe Romero was used as incidental music in The Sopranos episode "Luxury Lounge." Gideon Coe on BBC Radio 6Music uses this tune as a musical background at approximately the half-way point of his evening weekday show. A sung version appears in the Studio Ghibli film, When Marnie Was There.
It is also the theme used for Phillip II of Spain in the 4X strategy game Civilization VI, with the track progressing from a simple guitar arrangement to an entire orchestral performance as Spain advances through the ages.
Other arrangements
Nana Mouskouri has performed a vocal version of this piece and Sarah Brightman has performed a re-adapted vocal version of this piece, in her album Classics. Chris Freeman and John Shaw recorded a non-vocal version of Recuerdos de la Alhambra for their album, Chris Freeman and John Shaw (May 1981). Julian Bream has recorded this piece. It appears on his album The Ultimate Guitar Collection. Luiza Borac has arranged this piece for solo piano and it appears as Track 20 on her 2014 CD "Chants Nostalgiques" (Avie AV-2316).
