A prodigiously gifted pianist turned composer, Albéniz spent his last productive years writing the ‘Iberia’ suite and pieces like ‘Asturias (Leyenda)’ that distilled flamenco rhythm and Andalusian melody into concert-hall piano writing. Guitarists — Llobet first, Segovia most famously — found his piano suites so idiomatic to the instrument's own vocabulary that they transcribed them wholesale, and those guitar versions are now more widely played than Albéniz's own piano originals.

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1886

Asturias (Leyenda)Isaac Albéniz