Tango in D, Op. 165, No. 2, is a composition by Isaac Albéniz. It was originally written for piano, as part of the suite España, Op. 165 (1890).
Isaac Albéniz (1860–1909) began his musical life as a piano prodigy in Barcelona at the age of four, and it is as a prolific composer of solo works for the pianoforte that we celebrate him most.
The piano suite Iberia, is generally considered to be his masterpiece; and España, which contains the "Tango," his most popular individual work.
Iberia is a collection of twelve musical scenes of Spanish life, principally Andalusian, written in the years from 1906 to 1909. Its brilliant and complex character is suffused with the rhythms and harmonies of Spanish popular music, to which Albéniz turned for inspiration in the last years of his life.
España, an earlier work first published in 1890, is made up of six piano pieces that subtly reflect the influences of the piano literature of the nineteenth-century salon and — like Iberia — the harmony and style of impressionism, which Albéniz himself helped to create. Both works reveal characteristics of the highly individualized piano technique Albéniz developed from early childhood and perfected under the tutelage of Liszt.
Since the Tango has been transcribed for classical guitar by Miguel Llobet, it has become one of the most important works of the classical guitar repertoire. It has been played and recorded by guitarists such as Julian Bream and John Williams and many others. A slow, romantic piece, it is played in the key of D major. Norman Lloyd says of the piece, "The most famous tango in concert music is Isaac Albeniz' little Tango in D." Carl Van Vechten has said, "The Tango in D is striking, and crosses some pretty styles, despite its brevity."
This performance was played by José Manuel Gómez Álvarez at his home studio on May 20th 2018 on a Yamaha digital piano Arius YDP-181, synthesized by the same device, and the audio signal recorded and encoded into MP3 using a computer running Audacity edition software.