This MarchVivo recording presents remastered excerpts from two recitals given by guitarist Ricardo Gallen at the Fundacion Juan March in 2014 and 2017. The thread linking all the works on the album is the habanera. Although it's name derives from that of the Cuban capital, this genre of song and dance had mixed European and African roots. By the late 19th century, it had travelled back from Cuba to Europe and seduced half the continent with it's sensual, swaying rhythm. Having arrived on ships that docked in the ports of Cadiz and Seville, it discovered it's close kinship with tango and was later assimilated by flamenco. The habanera captured the imagination of Spanish and French composers because of it's power to conjure an exotic vision of "otherness", as conveyed here by the intimate voice of the Spanish guitar.
