Topic: Recuerdos de la Alhambra

[eric]

[Johnm]

Thanks for posting that, Eric.  I've always wondered about that 10-string guitar that Narciso Yepes played, and for that piece by Albeniz, at least, he never went below what would be the low E string on a six-string guitar.  He seemed like he could have kept that tremolo going forever.  That's lovely playing.
All best,
Johnm

[Norfolk Slim]

Fantastic- and a piece I've not heard for years and had almost forgotten about.

I can't read the name Albeniz without searching youtube for the clip below.  Asturias was the holy grail of guitar playing for me as a youngster taking classical lessons.  It was something I always assumed I could never achieve.  I was almost certainly right although I did manage to pretty much get the first dozen or so bars some years ago. Any semblance of classical technique I once started learning is long since gone :-)

[eric]

There is a gorgeous Narciso Yepes CD called Romance D'Amour, traditional (or at traditional-based) Spanish guitar music.  Highly recommended if you (or more likely your significant other ) need a brief hiatus from country blues.  A glass of your favorite beverage, a view of the sunset and this CD will be an hour well spent.

With regard to the 10-string:  As best as I can figure out, he designed it with Ramirez to work like a harp guitar, with the upper four strings tuned C, A#, G#, F#, "...to supply sympathetic string resonance to all twelve notes of the chromatic scale, in unison with any note played on the treble strings."  It does resonate.  I do not know if he ever played those strings; I know he transcribed some lute pieces, but I have not heard them.

Critics of Yepes technique describe it as staccato when compared to Segovia, but to my blues-accustomed ears it's better described as percussive.  And there's certainly an African tinge to the Spanish tunes.

The Asturias piece is splendid.