Narciso Yepes speaks on Forbidden Games Romance

In a radio interview (Spanish with English subtitles) from 1982, maestro Narciso Yepes explains how he composed the Forbidden Games Romance, a.k.a. Romance anonimo, Jeux Interdits, Romance de Amor... This post should help settle the debate so that credit can go where credit is due. The following is a partial list of current pretenders of authorship, excerpted from Classicl Guitar Forum:

A search of ASCAP (authors' society) for the title term "Romance" turns up 927 results, among which are these writer's credits:

"Romance":
Jack Marshall (Chris Parkening arrangement)

"Romance Anonimo":
Carlos Arturo Himmer Perez
Narciso Barroso Vilanova
Roberto Millar
Jose Aquil Rodriguez
George Kroy
J. J. Auriol
Ramon Campos
Antoine Contreras
Santiago Lorente Correoso

"Romance D Amour":
John Charles Fiddy
Gerhard Narholz
Kevin James Peek

"Romance D'Espangne": (sic)
Alfred Paul Harz

"Romance de Amor":
Oswaldo Bezerra
Odorico Goes
Humberto Lage
Antonio Rovira
Juan Maglio
Joseph P De Blasi
Charo Rasten (the guitarist Charo??)
David Mark Baldwin
Vicente Gomez
Abe Tuvin (in same credits with Vicente Gomez, probably for orchestration or lyrics)

"Romance Espagnole"
Ward Lamar Swingle (of the Swingle Singers?)

"Romance Espanola"
Ralph Paulsen

"Romance for Guitar"
Arunabha Shana
Mark Louis Francis

"Romance Guitar Plus"
Russ M Landau

"Romance Pour Guitare"
Andrew Richard Feriante

"Romanze"
Trevor Duncan
Willy Burkhard

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Narciso
• Yepes
• composed
• Forbidden
• Games
• Romance
• jeux
• interdits
• de
• Amor
• Rene
• Clement
• guitar
• classical
• classique

[drewdavis58]

LOL! Hey all you conspiracy theorists, tell me how the poor 7-year-old from Lorca got wind of Rubira's Estudio from South America! When you're done, you can dream up an explanation of why Yepes would lie this late in his career about authorship.

So, Simon; Is the author of the cylinder's "Estudio" Rubira? But you said "first published in 1913" whereas you say the cylinder is from 1897-1903. Explanation?

Tell me you didn't create your channel to troll my vid with your anti-Yepes agenda!

[ggirino]

For those who understand Spanish, here is an excellent article:

guitarra (dot) artelinkado (dot) com (slash) guitarra (slash) romance-anonimo (dot) php

Also very interesting is the discussion that follows:

guitarra (dot) artelinkado (dot) com (slash) foros (slash) showthread (dot) php?t=103

[drewdavis58]

@ggirino What a pity that Santiago Alvarez was unaware of the existence of the radio interview heard in this video: It would be very interesting to see how he would try to dismiss it. How unfortunate that Yepes left the door open to the kind of speculation and disinformation that is evident in Alvarez's article.

Alvarez claims there is evidence to suggest that the romance existed before Yepes but rightly concludes that the evidence in question is not solid.

Fact is, nothing solid exists.

[SimonElright1]

The work was already published before Yepes was even born. And yes: I do mean PUBLISHED... (not some odd manuscript)!!

It was first published as "Estudio para Guitarra" de Rovira by J.A. MEDINA e HIJO in Argentina in 1913; or with complete certainty before 1925. It also appears in the method of Mascaro Reissig (published in Montevideo in 1919), on page 14, with the title "Conocido por Estudio de Rovira". And it appears in the method of Osvaldo Soares (published in 1929 in Brazil).

[SimonElright1]

Jack Silver from the Doremi record label, has just recently confirmed that the work "Estudio para guitarra" on one of the cylinders (from the "Viuda de Aramburo" label) featuring guitarists Luis and Ramon Ramirez, made in Madrid sometime between 1897-1901 is none other than... "Romance"!

[kengounited]

No matter who holds the authorship of this piece, the best variation of this is definitely Nguyen The An's: watch?v=APuurr1xKpQ&feature=re­lated

[SimonElright1]

Details can be found (amongst other sources, including the original mentioned publications) in Francisco Herrera's "Enciclopedia de la Guitarra" and the writing of Isaías Sávio in "Violão e Mestres" (June 1966, São Paulo, Brazil).

[RVrock66]

@naive505 the movie is called "Forbidden Games", "Juegos prohibidos" in Spanish and "Jeux interdits" in french...this movie is sad and cute with this song wonderful "romance anonimo"....

[naive505]

What movie Narciso talking about?