Preludio de Torre Quebrada / Prelude of the Broken Tower

For Guitar


Commentary
Videos
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Commentary

This work was commissioned by the Alhambra Guitars Foundation with the aim of encouraging the contestants taking part in the 2026 Alhambra International Guitar Competition to prepare it for their participation in the event.
The piece forms part of a cycle of works that began in 2017 with Prelude of Lindaraja for piano and continues with this Prelude of the Broken Tower for guitar. The cycle remains open to possible future works for solo instrument, all of them centred on the Alhambra of Granada as their unifying theme.
The Broken Tower is one of the three towers (the other two being the Homage Tower and the Adarguero Tower) located along the eastern wall of the Alcazaba. Built in the fourteenth century under the reign of Yusuf I as an extension of an earlier Zirid-period tower, it was inhabited after the Reconquest by various squires of the Alhambra garrison, who successively added numerous architectural elements to it. During the eighteenth century it also formed part of the prison established in the Homage Tower. The tower has a rectangular plan and is completely solid up to the height of the wall, above which rise two storeys and a battlemented terrace with merlons. The arches on the façade, designed to reduce the weight of the structure, were used to store rounded stones that served as ammunition for the artillery.
The foundations of the original tower were unable to bear the excessive weight of the successive additions made over the centuries. In 1835, part of the upper section collapsed, resulting in the formation of a large crack that has ever since given the building its name: the Broken Tower.
This allegorical point of departure —the idea of a solid structure that, at a certain moment, loses part of its integrity through the "burden" of the past, as successive historical periods accumulate additions upon it— inspires a short musical work in which the contemporary melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic language governing most of the composition gradually yields, fractures, and allows an unexpected tonal gesture of a markedly traditional character to emerge through a metaphorical fissure. This passage serves as the coda to a work which, despite its initial metronome marking, may be performed with complete freedom of tempo.
Prelude of the Broken Tower was composed in Madrid between May and June 2025 and is dedicated to José Luis Ruiz del Puerto, who initiated and made possible the commission. It was premiered by guitarist Julia Trintschuk on 17 June 2026 at the Auditori Joan Plaça of the Botanical Garden of the University of Valencia, as part of the opening concert of the 17th Alhambra International Guitar Competition. The prize for the best performance of the work was awarded to the Japanese guitarist Io Yamada.
The score was published in 2026 by Editorial Piles (Valencia) as part of the Alhambra Collection: Contemporary Spanish Music for Guitar.

Videos

((Two very different performances of the Prelude of the Broken Tower)

Presentation. Opening Concert of the 17th Alhambra International Guitar Competition. Auditori Joan Plaça, Botanical Garden of the University of Valencia, 17 June 2026

I. Julia Trintschuk Opening Concert of the 17th Alhambra International Guitar Competition. Auditori Joan Plaça, Botanical Garden of the University of Valencia, 17 June 2026

II. Io Yamada Winner of the Prize for the Best Performance of the Commissioned Work of the 17th Alhambra International Guitar Competition. CaixaForum Auditorium, Valencia, 19 June 2026

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(Score without watermarks available at Editorial Piles )