Classical Guitar Music – The Anonymous Romance

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The Anonymous Romance is a piece of music that gets under people’s skins. It’s one of those pieces that when you hear it the first time, you feel like you could listen to it over and over. The work has an interesting history in that there are many classical guitar enthusiasts who have a strong opinion on who wrote it. It has been known for many years in Brazil as Romance de Amor, by Antonio Rovira. Some people believe it was composed by Francisco Tarrega, a pioneer classical guitar player and composer. Other people think it was written by Narcisco Yepes a famous classical guitarist of the twentieth century. Yepes arranged and played Anonymous Romance for the 1952 movie Jeux Interdit, (Forbidden Games). Although the movie credits don’t actually say he wrote it, Yepes’ widow is among many who think he did. This is in spite of the fact that the same piece was used ten years before in the Tyrone Power movie, Blood And Sand.

Whoever wrote it, it is Yepes’ arrangement that is usually played, so here he is playing it on his famous ten-string classical guitar: