Romance (song)

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 author is most probably Antonio Rubira, but it has been also attributed to David del Castillo, Francisco Tárrega, Fernando Sor, Daniel Fortea, Miguel Llobet, and Vicente Gómez, among others. The "Anonimo (Annonymous)" part of it's name has been incroporated over the years due to the uncertainty of it's authorship. The question of authorship has probably been propagated by two main reasons: the lack of righteous claim by its true author and the desire of avoiding to pay copyright fees. This beautiful piece 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. cite web
url = http://www.guitarra.artelinkado.com/guitarra/romance-anonimo.php
title = Santiago Porras Álvarez Article (in Spanish)]

Origin

Narciso Yepes cite web
url = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWYN14BcV7U
title = Narciso Yepes playing Romance Anonimo on YouTube] 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 cite web
url = http://library.csun.edu/igra/bios/gomez.html
title = Vicente Gomez Biography] cite web
url = http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0351278/
title = Vicente Gomez IMDB Biography] . 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 visiting Argentina between 1881 and 1884. Publishing company Ricordi of Argentina currently publishes the piece and attributes authorship to Antonio Rubira cite web
url = http://www.ricodrimusica.com.ar
title = Ricordi publishing company] . According to [http://www.editionsorphee.com Matanya Ophee] the first publication of the song was in 1900 and was attributed to Rubira. cite web
url = http://www.guitarra.artelinkado.com/guitarra/romance-anonimo.php
title = Santiago Porras Álvarez Article (in Spanish)]

The earliest manuscripts of the song documented so far, are from the late XIX century: one attibuting authorship to Antonio Rubira cite web
url = http://www.sobrepunto.jazztel.es/rubira02.pdf
title = XIX century manuscript attributing authorship to Antonio Rubira] ; and an unsigned version which shows a note at the bottom stating "Melodia de Sor" (Sor's melody) cite web
url = http://www.guitarra.artelinkado.com/guitarra/archivos_romance/melodia_faccsimil.jpg
title = XIX century manuscript citing "Melodia de Sor"] arguably attributing the piece to Fernando Sor, though the style is vastly different from Sor's work. A noticeable difference between the early manuscripts and the famous version of Yepes is the inverted arpeggio.

A Ukranian folk song Nich Yaka Misyachna ("Beautiful Moonlight") cite web
url = http://youtube.com/watch?v=YwV4p6mFZ_M
title = Ukranian folk song ] 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.

Bibliography

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

References