Los Ympossibles (for guitar quartet or guitar ensemble)

Santiago de Murzia (1673-1739) was one of the most important guitarists and composers of the Spanish Baroque, along with Gaspar Sanz, Francisco de Guerau, Antonio de Santa Cruz and others.

Los Ympossibles is a piece for baroque guitar called “Spanish guitar” in the XVII th and XVIII th centuries, extracted from the Codex Saldivar nº4. This book contains Santiago de Murzia’s manuscript, which was found in a bookstore in León de Guanajuato, Mexico, in 1943 by the renowned Mexican musicologist Dr. Gabriel Saldívar y Silva (1909-1980). It’s a work composed in the form of variations (diferencias) on a XVIth century ostinato bass, known in Spain as “Guardame las vacas” which that would be known in Europe as “Romanesca”.

The work for vihuela of the Spanish Renaissance composer Luys de Narváez “Guardame las Vacas” is a common repertoire piece of many guitarists. It is for this reason that I wanted to incorporate to this version of Los Ympossibles, as a tribute, two variations (diferencias) of this magnificent piece, the 6th and the 7th variations.