walking upstream…
Miguel Llobet
photo: joan vilatobà i fígols · public domain ↗Miguel Llobet
sourcesWikipedia · Siccas Guitars
Tárrega's most celebrated pupil and the crucial bridge to Segovia's generation, Llobet toured Europe and the Americas turning Catalan folk song and Isaac Albéniz's piano suites into permanent classical guitar repertoire. His arrangement of the carol ‘El Noi de la Mare’ became a standard encore that Segovia himself performed for decades after Llobet's death.
the sound in question
El Testament d'AmeliaMiguel Llobet
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Francisco Tárrega1880s–1900s · Classical Guitar / Romantic
Llobet met Tárrega in 1892 and studied with him for years in Barcelona, absorbing his technique less through formal method than by watching him play and reverse-engineering it at home. He became Tárrega's most celebrated pupil and, decades later, was the guitarist who personally encouraged and shaped the young Segovia.
listen: upstream & here
1896
Recuerdos de la AlhambraFrancisco Tárrega
El Testament d'AmeliaMiguel Llobet
listen forTárrega's own ‘Recuerdos de la Alhambra’ shows the tremolo and singing tone Llobet studied firsthand; Llobet's arrangement and performance of the Catalan carol ‘El Testament d'Amelia’ carries that same warm tone quality into folk material Tárrega never touched.
Isaac Albéniz1880s–1900s · Classical / Piano
Albéniz never wrote for guitar, but his piano suites drawing on flamenco rhythm and Andalusian color turned out so idiomatic to the instrument that Llobet transcribed them wholesale; his guitar arrangement of ‘Torre Bermeja’ became a repertoire staple in its own right, and Albéniz is said to have admired Llobet's playing enough to say so publicly.
listen: upstream & here
1886
Asturias (Leyenda)Isaac Albéniz
1886
Torre BermejaMiguel Llobet
listen forAlbéniz's piano original of ‘Asturias (Leyenda),’ with its repeated chords imitating flamenco guitar, and Llobet's own guitar arrangement of ‘Torre Bermeja’ make the same point from opposite directions — piano writing that already sounded like guitar, made literal.
Felipe Pedrell1880s–1900s · Classical / Opera / Zarzuela
At the Barcelona conservatory, Llobet studied under Felipe Pedrell, the composer and musicologist who spent his career arguing that Spanish concert music should be built from Spanish and Catalan folk material rather than imported Italian or German forms — the same nationalist conviction Pedrell instilled in Albéniz, Granados, and Falla. Llobet's guitar arrangements of Catalan folk song apply that idea to an instrument Pedrell himself never wrote for.
listen: upstream & here
1902
Ai, Tolosa i ai, ProvençaFelipe Pedrell
El Noi de la MareMiguel Llobet
listen forPedrell's opera excerpt ‘Ai, Tolosa i ai, Provença,’ built from Catalan and Occitan folk melody dressed for the opera stage, and Llobet's own arrangement of the carol ‘El Noi de la Mare’ both treat a plain, local folk tune as material worthy of the concert hall rather than the parlor.