This is part two of the flavoring the classical guitar series. In this part I take a look at the wide variety of guitar music that spans countries and regions. In part 1 I took a look at the major movements of classical music such as baroque, classical, romantic etc.

Spanish Guitar

To start out this article I really want to take a look at the spectacular contribution that the Spanish Composers and performers have made to the body of work. And when we are talking about Spanish Guitar we are really talking about spicing things up with flavors particularly when it comes to Flamenco.

First, here are a few pieces that you can listen to:

• Spanish Romance - - Evocative and haunting piece. Challenging in that it is played all over the fretboard but played andante so reasonably easy to master.
• Adelita by Francisco Tarrega - This is a wonderfully haunting piece and one of my favorites. It has some nice sliding around on the fretboard. If you are a beginner classical/spanish guitarist you might want to add this to your repertoire. It is not too hard to play and sounds great. This is an excellent piece to learn if you are a beginner. It sounds great and is not too hard to learn.
• Leyenda - This is the first 30 seconds from this awesome Spanish piece. This piece simply rocks. The spanish guitar just blows me away! This piece is rather fast and it is more for the intermediate player.

Sheet Music

• Here is a jpg image of Tarrega's Adelita You can download it and print it up.
• Another wonderfully spanish piece is Spanish Dance #1 Minuetto by Granados
• And here is Leyenda (aka Asturias) This piece just has a wonderful sound to it, making great use of bass and treble in a beautiful contrapunction.
• Another Tarrega Piece which is very famous Recuerdos de la Alhambra

The Italian masters of Guitar

Toward the end of the Classical Period and into the Romantic Period the Classical Guitar saw a birth in new directions in Italy. We saw the growth of the composer performer that often toured and performed solo all across Europe. Three of these Italian masters were Matteo Carcassi, Ferdinando Carulli and Mauro Giuliani. It was during this time that the guitar repertoire and instruction really solidified and there were some great instructional books published including the Carcassi Method which is still in use today.

Here are two easy pieces by Matteo Carcassi: Piece from the Carcassi Method (mp3 982 kb)This is a moody piece.Piece in A Minor (Prelude) (mp3 580 kb) - from the Carcassi Method. This is an easy piece but it has a great A minor haunting sound to it.

Sheet Music

• Here is an easy carcassi piece called Etude #1
• A little more challenging is Carcassi's Etude #3
• An easy Waltz by Carulli Opus 241 #1
• Andante by Carulli Opus 241#5
• Guilian's Opus 50#1 (Andantino)

France

France came into the Classical guitar world around the time of the Romantic period and a great example of this is Napoleon Coste.

• Napoleon Coste 25 Etudes Opus 38
• Napoleon Coste Rossini Variations