Romance (song)

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Romance Anonimo (Annonymous Romance) is a Spanish traditional piece for guitar. The style of the piece is that of the Parlour music of the late XIX century in Spain, having two parts: the first being minor key and the second movement being in the major key. Its true authorship remains a mystery, although it has been attributed to Antonio Rubira, David del Castillo, Francisco Tárrega, Fernando Sor, Daniel Fortea, Miguel Llobet, and Vicente Gómez, among others. It is also known as Estudio en Mi de Rubira (Study in E by Rubira), Spanish Romance, Romance de España, Romance of the Guitar, Romanza and Romance d'Amour among others. ^[1]

[edit] Origin

Narciso Yepes ^[2] interpreted and is listed as the author of the song in René Clément's 1952 film Jeux interdits (Forbidden Games). The popularity of the film gave the song worldwide fame. Yepes currenty has the copywright of this composition in Spain although previous recordings and manuscripts of this song exist. Newer publications show Yepes as the arranger and being of Annonymous authorship.

Vicente Gomez^[3][4]. published it and performed it in the Hollywood movie Blood and Sand (1941 film) with Tyrone Power and Rita Hayworth, also attributing authorship of the song to himself.

There is evidence to suggest that XIX century Spanish guitarist Antonio Rubira used it as an excersise to teach his students and took it to South America while visitng Argentina between 1881 and 1884. Publishing company Ricordi of Argentina currently publishes the piece and attributes authorship to Antonio Rubira^[5]. According to Matanya Ophee the first publication of the song was in 1900 and was attributed to Rubira. ^[1]

The earliest manuscripts of the song documented so far, are an unsigned version from the late XIX century, which shows a note at the bottom stating "Melodia de Sor" (Sor's melody) arguaby attributing the piece to Fernando Sor, though the style is vastly different from Sor's work; and another also from the latter XIX century, attibuting authorship to Antonio Rubira.

A Ukranian folk song Nich Yaka Misyachna (Beautiful Moonlight) ^[6] could also be a precursor of the song. Although some correlation can be made between Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (especially the arpeggio), the Romance song and the Ucranian folk song, little can be explained as to why the folk song has enjoyed such success through Eastern Europe and Russia, while being vastly different from the Spanish song and its different arrangements.

My Chemical Romance included this song at their first album I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. It is also the only instrumental song by the band.

[edit] Bibliography

• Herrera, Francisco, Enciclopedia de la Guitarra (Spanish), Piles, Editorial de Música / Valencia, 2004. ISBN 978-84-95026-80-4

[edit] References

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