Francisco Tárrega for 5-String Banjo

Spanish virtuoso guitarist and composer Francisco Tárrega (1852 – 1909), was acknowledged as one of the most significant performers and influential guitar teachers of his day. His original pieces and transcriptions constitute some of the best didactic and concert repertoire of the Romantic period and contributed to the return of the guitar to the concert stage. In this book, multi-instrumentalist Ondřej Šárek presents 30 of Tárrega’s guitar preludes arranged for the 5-string banjo. The book also includes banjo settings of well-known Tárrega concert selections like “Gran Vals”, “Lágrima” and “Recuerdos de la Alhambra”. Most of these arrangements are in gDGBD tuning but a few require a banjo capo or “railroad spike” to raise the 5th string a whole tone. Nearly all these pieces have been adapted so bluegrass players can play them using traditional 3-finger right-hand technique, with or without fingerpicks. The only exception is “Recuerdos de la Alhambra” which requires the ring finger to play the tremolo figure. All the arrangements are written in standard notation and tablature, presenting a challenge and an opportunity to play music from the Romantic period on the 5-string banjo.