Francisco Tárrega, the most influential Spanish virtuoso performer of the nineteenth century, was a charismatic romantic who, with a cigarette in his mouth, mesmerized his audiences for hours with his performances. On this disc, Swedish Royal Academy member Mats Bergström expresses the ‘light and shade’ of Tárrega’s music (sans cigarette!) on a modern instrument based on an 1888 model owned by the composer himself. The Preludes, composed between 1889 and 1909, are particularly well regarded pieces, while the other works include original compositions and imaginative transcriptions.