Ana Vidović plays Una limosna por el amor de Dios by Agustín Barrios Mangoré. The title means "An alms, for the love of God", and the piece is one of the great tremolo works of the guitar repertoire.
About the Piece
Barrios spent his last years in El Salvador, where he had accepted a teaching post at the National Conservatory, and he died in San Salvador in August 1944. Una limosna belongs to that final period, and its other names point the same way. It is also known as El último trémolo and El último canto, the last tremolo and the last song. It is one of his works with a religious inspiration.
The story usually told about it is a simple one. A beggar is said to have stood near Barrios's house and repeated the same plea for alms day after day, and the composer turned the sound of that request into music. Whether every detail is true, the piece itself carries the image of a melody of quiet insistence over a bass that keeps returning, as if knocking at a door.
The melody is played in tremolo. The ring, middle and index fingers repeat each melody note in quick succession, so that the guitar seems to sustain a single long line, while the thumb plays the bass and the harmony underneath. Because the tremolo has to stay even from the first bar to the last, the piece is also a test of endurance for the right hand. Our guide to the tremolo technique explains how it works, and Ana Vidović shows her own approach in our tremolo tutorial.
About Agustín Barrios
Barrios, born in Paraguay in 1885, was one of the first guitarists to make recordings and a composer whose music ranges from South American dances to works in open admiration of Bach. Our portrait of Agustín Barrios follows his life, and our Barrios repertoire guide introduces his best-known pieces, among them La Catedral.
About Ana Vidović
Ana Vidović is from Karlovac near Zagreb. She began playing at five, became the youngest student at the National Musical Academy in Zagreb at thirteen, studying with Istvan Romer, and graduated from the Peabody Conservatory. She has won first prizes in Bath, Rome and Spain and appeared at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Musikverein in Vienna. Tremolo pieces are close to her heart, and you can also hear her in Recuerdos de la Alhambra.
Watch the Performance
Find more works in our overview of famous classical guitar pieces.
