View source for Francisco Tárrega

{{Short description|Spanish composer and classical guitarist (1852–1909)}}
{{More footnotes needed|date=December 2015}}
{{Infobox person
| image               = Francisco tarrega retrato.jpg
| caption             = 
| birth_name          = Francisco de Asís Tárrega y Eixea
| birth_date          = {{Birth date|1852|11|21|df=y}}
| birth_place         = [[Villarreal]], Spain
| death_date          = {{death date and age|1909|12|15|1852|11|21|df=y}}
| death_place         = [[Barcelona]], Spain
| years_active        = 1874–1909
| occupation          = {{hlist|Composer|guitarist}}
}}
'''Francisco de Asís Tárrega y Eixea''' (21 November 1852{{spaced ndash}}15 December 1909) was a Spanish [[composer]] and [[classical guitar]]ist of the [[Romantic music|late Romantic]] period.<ref>{{Cite web |date=10 May 2018 |title=FRANCISCO DE ASIS TARREGA EIXEA 1852-1909 |publisher=[[Universitat Jaume I]] |website=bibliotecavirtualsenior.es |url=https://bibliotecavirtualsenior.es/investigacion/francisco-de-asis-tarrega-eixea-1852-1909/ |access-date=29 April 2023}}</ref> He is known for such pieces as ''[[Capricho árabe (Tárrega)|Capricho Árabe]]'' and ''[[Recuerdos de la Alhambra]]''.

==Biography==
Tárrega was born on 21 November 1852, in [[Villarreal]], [[Province of Castellón]], Spain.{{sfn|Heck|2001}} It is said that Francisco's father played [[flamenco]] and several other music styles on his guitar; when his father was away working as a watchman at the Convent of San Pascual, Francisco would take his father's guitar and attempt to make the beautiful sounds he had heard. Francisco's nickname as a child was "Quiquet".

As a child, he ran away from his nanny and fell into an irrigation channel and injured his eyes. Fearing that his son might lose his sight completely, his father moved the family to [[Castellón de la Plana]] to attend music classes because as a musician he would be able to earn a living, even if blind. Both his first music teachers, Eugeni Ruiz and Manuel González, were blind.

In 1862, concert guitarist [[Julián Arcas]], on tour in Castellón, heard the young Tárrega 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 quite popular throughout Europe. However, Tárrega had to stop his lessons shortly after, when Arcas left for a concert tour abroad. Although Tárrega was only ten years old, he ran away and tried to start a musical career on his own by playing in coffee houses and restaurants in Barcelona. He was soon found and brought back to his father, who had to make great sacrifices to advance his son's musical education.

Three years later, in 1865, he ran away again, this time to [[Valencia]] where he joined a [[Romani people|Romani]] family. His father looked for him and brought him back home once more, but he 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 Royal 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 de 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]], [[Miguel Llobet]], and [[Daniel Fortea]] 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, which he played in addition to works of other composers.

During the winter of 1880, Tárrega replaced his friend Luis de Soria, in a concert in [[Novelda]], [[Alicante]]. After the concert, an important man in town asked him to listen to his daughter, María José Rizo, who was learning to play guitar. Soon they were engaged.

In 1881, Tárrega played in the Opera Theatre in [[Lyon]] and then the [[Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe|Paris Odeon]], in the bicentenary of the death of [[Pedro Calderón de la Barca]]. He also played in London, where 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 musician 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 (Tárrega)|Lágrima]]'' (teardrop). After playing in London he returned to Novelda for his wedding. At Christmas 1882, Tárrega married María José Rizo.

[[File:Francisco Tárrega full.jpg|thumb|left|180px|Tárrega pictured {{circa|1900}}]]
To enlarge his guitar repertory and to make use of his considerable knowledge of keyboard music, he soon began transcribing piano works of [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]], [[Frédéric Chopin|Chopin]], [[Felix Mendelssohn|Mendelssohn]] and others. Tárrega and his wife moved to Madrid, gaining their living by teaching privately and playing concerts, but after the death of an infant daughter during the winter, Maria Josefa de los Angeles Tárrega Rizo, they settled permanently in Barcelona in 1885. Among his friends in Barcelona were [[Isaac Albéniz]], [[Enrique Granados]], [[Joaquín Turina]] and [[Pablo Casals|Pau Casals]].

{{multiple image
|align = 
|total_width = 350
|image1 = Vicente Castell Retrato de Tarrega 1904.jpg
|image2 = Francisco tarrega.JPG
|footer = (Left): Portrait by [[Vicente Castell]] (1904); (right): Monument to Tarrega in Castellón, Spain
}}
Francisco Tárrega and María José (María Josefa) Rizo had three more children: Paquito (Francisco), Maria Rosatia (María Rosalia) (best known as Marieta) and Concepción. On a concert tour in Valencia shortly afterward, Tárrega met the wealthy Concepción Gómez de Jacoby, who became a valuable patron to him. She allowed him and his family the use of part of her house outside Barcelona. Later she took him to [[Granada]], which later inspired the guitarist to write ''[[Recuerdos de la Alhambra]]'', which he first dedicated to Concepción in 1899 with the title "A Granada." He later dedicated a revised published version of this piece to Alfred Cottin, the French guitarist he had met in Paris while participating in a concert on a visit accompanied and almost certainly sponsored by Gómez de Jacoby.

From the later 1880s up to 1903, Tárrega continued composing and traveling, but limited his concerts to Spain. In 1900, Tárrega visited [[Algiers]], where he was said to have heard a repetitive rhythm played on an Arabian drum and the following morning composed ''Danza Mora'' based on that rhythm. In about 1902, he cut his fingernails and created a sound that would become typical of those guitarists later associated with his school. The following year he went on tour to Italy, performing in Rome, Naples, and Milan.

In January 1906, he was afflicted with paralysis on his right side, and though he would eventually return to performing, he never completely recovered. He finished his last work, ''[[Oremus (Tárrega)|Oremus]]'', on 2 December 1909. He died in Barcelona thirteen days later, on 15 December, at the age of 57.

==Musical style and influence==
{{Listen|type=music|filename=Recuerdos de la Alhambra.ogg|title="Recuerdos de la Alhambra"|description=Performed by Carlo Alberto Boni}}
Tárrega composed music in the [[Romantic music|Romantic]] style of 19th-century European masters. His conservatory training and familiarity with contemporary classical genres and techniques are apparent in his compositions and transcriptions; these are more sophisticated than those of Spanish guitarist-composers of the previous generation and his contemporaries, e.g., Magín Alegre, Tomás Damas, Julián Arcas, José Viñas, and José Ferrer.

A [[virtuoso]] on his instrument, he was known as the "[[Pablo de Sarasate|Sarasate]] of the guitar," although Tárrega preferred small intimate performances over the concert stage.

Tárrega is considered to have laid the foundations for 20th-century classical guitar and for increasing interest in the guitar as a recital instrument. One of his late students, [[Josefina Robledo Gallego]], promoted Tárrega's style on her concert tours to South America and is credited with "becoming the main disseminator of the Tàrrega school in Brazil."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Nogales Barrios |first=Silvia |title=Las Musas / ‘Josefina Robledo: El inicio’ |url=https://www.ritmo.es/actualidad/opinion-lasmusas-josefina-robledo-el-inicio-por-silvia-nogales-barrios |access-date=2024-10-14 |website=Revista Ritmo |language=es-ES}}</ref>

The [[Francisco Tárrega International Guitar Competition]] has been held annually since 1967 in [[Benicàssim]], Spain, which aims to promote his works and support emerging guitar talent.<ref name="Benicàssim 2025">{{cite web |title=LVIII Certamen Internacional de guitarra Francisco Tárrega |url=https://cultura.benicassim.es/evento/lviii-certamen-internacional-de-guitarra-francisco-tarrega/ |publisher=Ajuntament de Benicàssim |accessdate=26 October 2025|language=Spanish}}</ref>

== Compositions ==
{{See also|List of compositions by Francisco Tárrega}}
[[File:Tarrega music1.jpg|thumb|150px|Sheet music of Tárrega compositions]]
Although only 19 original compositions were published in his lifetime, Francisco Tárrega composed approximately 80 original pieces and 120 transcriptions – mostly for his own use and that of his students. Most of his later published works were edited by others, and often altered. His favored genres were [[character piece]]s (several with Spanish, Moorish and Arabic allusions) including preludes, etudes, caprices, serenades, and dances.

He transcribed many works from the piano (he was a capable keyboard player), violin and the operatic repertory. As with several of his Spanish contemporaries, such as his friend [[Isaac Albéniz]], he had an interest in combining the prevailing Romantic style in classical music with [[Spanish folk music|Spanish folk]] elements, and transcribed several of Albéniz's piano pieces. 

He is also the composer of ''Gran Vals'', an excerpt of which was used in the [[Nokia tune]], the default ringtone of [[Nokia]] phones. It appears on these phones in a variety of different styles and instrumentations; for example, phones from 2002 to 2007 include piano-based renditions, while phones released during 2008 to 2010 feature a [[Folk (music)|folk]]-inspired guitar rendition.

Violinist [[Ruggiero Ricci]] arranged Tárrega's ''[[Recuerdos de la Alhambra]]'' for solo violin and often performed it as an [[encore]].

In 2015, the Italian violist [[Marco Misciagna]] published his arrangements for solo [[viola]] of the Tango, [[Capricho árabe (Tárrega)|Capricho árabe]] and [[Recuerdos de la Alhambra]].<ref>{{cite web|access-date=19 March 2023|title=Viola Virtuosa Albéniz, Tárrega, Sor Vier Solo Transkriptionen aus Spanien|url=https://partitura-verlag.com/de/shop-de/product/viola-virtuosa/category_pathway-12|website=partitura-verlag.com|archive-date=19 March 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230319123846/https://partitura-verlag.com/de/shop-de/product/viola-virtuosa/category_pathway-12|url-status=dead}}<!-- auto-translated by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>

==Guitars==
The guitars used by Tárrega include:
{{Incomplete list|date=February 2011}}
[[File:Guitarra de Francisco Tárrega 02.jpg|thumb|150px|Tárrega's guitar, made by "Ribot y Alcañiz"]]
* Enrique Garcia, n°74 (1906) - This instrument was gifted by Tárrega to his friend Alfred Cottin, to whom he dedicated the composition Recuerdos de la Alhambra. It then became the official guitar of 'Les Amis de la Guitare', a circle of Parisian guitarists, where it was played by Django Reinhardt, among others. In 2019 Kyuhee Park recorded a video of Recuerdos de la Alhambra on this guitar. (See External Link)<ref>{{Cite web |title=Kyuhee Park {{!}} Recuerdos de la Alhambra (F. Tárrega) |website=[[YouTube]] |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7xROpDzUMk |date=30 Jan 2019 |access-date=29 April 2023}}</ref>
*[[Antonio de Torres Jurado|Torres]], FE 17 (1869) – This is the guitar that was given to 17 year old Francisco Tárrega by Torres personally after hearing him play.
*Torres, SE 49 (1883)
*Torres, SE 114 (1888); in the collection of Sheldon Urlik<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/94467669@N00/2758493038/in/set-72157606696587125/ |title=Photo of a Torres guitar used by Tárrega |work=www.flickr.com |date=April 2005 |access-date=29 April 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.luth.org/convention/2004/conv04_20.JPG |title=Photo |work=www.luth.org |access-date=4 January 2010 |archive-date=26 November 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101126084732/http://luth.org/convention/2004/conv04_20.JPG |url-status=dead }}: "Jeff Elliott (left) restored these important guitars by Gonzalez and Torres. They are owned by Shel Urlik (centre) and were played by Kenton Youngstrom (right.)" ([http://www.luth.org/convention/2004/conv-2004.htm source] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091215160527/http://www.luth.org/convention/2004/conv-2004.htm |date=15 December 2009 }})</ref>

== Notes ==
{{reflist}}

==References==
*{{cite encyclopedia |title=Tárrega (y Eixea), Francisco |encyclopedia=[[Grove Music Online]] |date=20 January 2001 |year= |last=Heck |first=Thomas F. |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |location= |id= |doi=10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.27525 |url=https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/display/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000027525 |access-date=9 July 2024 |url-access=subscription }}
*''Diccionario biográfico–bibliográfico—histórico: crítico de guitarras (instrumentos afines), guitarristas (profesores–compositores–concertistas–lahudistas–amateurs), guitarreros (luthiers). Danzas y cantos—terminología'' by Domingo Prat (Buenos Aires: Romero y Fernández [1934]
*''Tárrega. Ensayo biográfico'' by Emilio Pujol (Lisboa: Talleres Gráficos de Ramos, Afonso & Moita, L.D.A., 1960/ Valencia: Artes Gráficas Soler. S.A., 1978).
*''Francisco Tárrega Biografía Oficial'' by Adrián Rius Espinós, published by Ayuntamiento de Vila-Real, {{ISBN|84-88331-82-7}}
*''Concepción Gómez de Jacoby: Tárrega’s Enigmatic Patron and Recuerdos de la Alhambra'' by David J. Buch (http://michaelorenz.blogspot.com/2020/11/concepcion-gomez-de-jacoby-tarregas.html)
*''Francisco Tárrega – Selección de Obras'' by Adrián Rius Espinós (includes CD with historical recordings by Josefina Robledo; [https://web.archive.org/web/20090325222455/http://guitarra.artelinkado.com/guitarra/tarrega_archivos/caprichoarabe_josefinarobledo.MP3 example:] "[[Capricho árabe (Tárrega)|Capricho árabe]]", published by Excmo. Ayuntamiento de Vila-Real and Instituto Valenciano de la Música
*[http://www.wolfmoser.de/buecher.htm Francisco Tárrega, Werden und Wirkung] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220118182329/http://www.wolfmoser.de/buecher.htm |date=2022-01-18 }} by [[:de:Wolf Moser|Wolf Moser]], published by Edition Saint-Georges. {{ISBN|3-00-012750-X}}.
*''Francisco Tárrega, Complete Guitar Works'' by Michel Beauchamp, edited by Productions d'Oz. {{ISBN|978-2-89655-079-1}}
*''Francisco Tárrega y la guitarra en Espana entre 1830 y 1960'' by Wolf Moser, published by Piles Editorial de Música S.A. {{ISBN|978-84-96814-34-9}}
*''Francisco Tárrega, Collected Guitar Works'', reprints of early editions, by Rafael Andia, Chanterelle 1001 and 1002. {{ISBN|3-89044-125-4}}

== External links ==
{{Commons category|Francisco Tárrega}}
* {{IMSLP|id=Tárrega, Francisco}}
*{{MutopiaComposer|TarregaF}}
*{{IMDb name|0850656|Francisco Tárrega}}
*[http://classicguitare.com/viewtopic.php?f=253&t=1094 Free Scores and biography]
*[http://aliso.pntic.mec.es/~jheras1/tarreng.html Complete work and biography] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150518065552/http://aliso.pntic.mec.es/~jheras1/tarreng.html |date=2015-05-18 }} (with MIDI music files, that are not at all reflective of Tárrega's performance style, but instead of sheetmusic)
*[http://www.theguitarmuseum.com/f_music.htm Tárrega / Walter Leckie Manuscripts], www.theguitarmuseum.com
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20120222194151/http://mayores.uji.es/proyectos/proyectos2006/Tarrega.pdf Francisco Tárrega] and [https://web.archive.org/web/20120222194248/http://mayores.uji.es/proyectos/proyectos2006/FranciscoTarrega.pps Música] by Carmen Copovi Llop {{in lang|es}}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20000311153855/http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Shores/8063/tarrega2.htm Photos] from Francisco Tárrega's room in the Vila-real City Museum
*[http://www.guitarreriabsas.com.ar/galeria/francisco_tarrega_monumento.jpg Monument in Vila-Real]
*{{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091027040708/http://es.geocities.com/carraben/index.2.htm |date=October 27, 2009 |title=Estudio Temático Filatélico sobre Francisco Tárrega }} by Salvador Carracedo Benet {{in lang|es}}
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7xROpDzUMk "Kyuhee Park | Recuerdos de la Alhambra (F. Tárrega)"]
{{Francisco Tárrega}}
{{Romantic music}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tarrega, Francisco}}
[[Category:1852 births]]
[[Category:1909 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century Spanish classical composers]]
[[Category:19th-century Spanish male composers]]
[[Category:19th-century guitarists]]
[[Category:19th-century Spanish male musicians]]
[[Category:20th-century Spanish classical composers]]
[[Category:20th-century Spanish male composers]]
[[Category:20th-century Spanish guitarists]]
[[Category:Blind classical musicians]]
[[Category:Spanish blind musicians]]
[[Category:Blind guitarists]]
[[Category:Composers for the classical guitar]]
[[Category:Composers from the Valencian Community]]
[[Category:People from Villarreal]]
[[Category:Spanish classical guitarists]]
[[Category:Spanish male classical composers]]
[[Category:Spanish male guitarists]]
[[Category:Spanish Romantic composers]]