Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol on Guitar

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was fond of Spanish motives which in 1887 inspired him for composing his famous work “Capriccio Espagnol” (literally ‘capriccio on Spanish themes’). Originally the 5-movement composition divided in 2 parts was meant for violin solo and orchestra. But the composer chose to make it purely orchestral in order to highlight the Spanish melodies.

When performed by an orchestra, the piece does sound so lively and cheerful. It was hard for me to imagine it played (and played no less beautifully) on a solo instrument. And even harder it was to imagine its sound on a guitar, solo guitar. Jorge Caballero’s guitar arrangement took me by surprise: so unexpectedly bright and melodic his arrangement turned out to be!  Below is the video of that flawless and I must say brilliant performance.

What’s Game of Thrones to You?

I’ve noticed that I start perceiving the simplest things through the prism of music. And things like movies, TV series and even animated cartoons are especially closely connected with music, for music makes a good part of their image, atmosphere and influence on the viewer.

I do not watch the Game of Thrones but I started reading the book, which lets me create even brighter scenes in my imagination. However, I could not ignore the widely recognized music theme from the series that is so loved by the millions-of-fans army around the world. The ‘mass’ is not always the right but in this case I understand why the main theme is so appealing. I got myself the piano score of Game of Thrones composed by the big film-music talent Ramin Djawadi and got down to learning to play it right away. The sheet music is not as complicated as I thought it would be and turned out to be a delicious piece to master. Now that I’ve finally practiced a decent enough performing I can realize how great the composer’s work is.

It never is easy to create the sound image of some work, and especially of a work as pretentious as Game of Thrones. Moreover, it should not be only your personal perception but the reflection of the full power of a twisted and complicated creation. The best reward for the composer’s hard work is the wide acknowledgement on the side of common watchers and fans who can relate to the theme music and say “That’s exactly what Game of Thrones sounds to me!”, as well as for musicians like me who would play the melody even out of context and be increasingly aware of its music depth and creative power.