Having been popularized by Andrés Segovia, this piece is widely considered the quintessential "Spanish guitar" piece; that being the case, doubtless it would astonish most to learn that the work was originally written for the piano, and in London to boot!  First published in 1892 as the opening preludio of a three-movement set entitled "Chants d'Espagne," opus 232, a publisher improperly included this work as part of the unfinished "Suite Española," opus 47 — two years after the composer's death.  That error has been retained to this day.

Albeit unplayable by guitar in its native key of G minor, the original signature is, of course, perfectly suitable for piano.  I have restored the two C-sharp grace notes in measures #72 and #76, which were pretentiously naturalized in later editions.  The "forbidden" melodic interval of an augmented second clearly was intended by the composer, in order to evoke a Moorish feel to the cante jondo section; nostalgia for his homeland inspired that interval's usage in several other pieces as well.

There are MP3 files for both piano and guitar.

Disklavier & MIDI users: set your keyboard to play MIDI definition #25: Nylon Guitar.  You will love the result!