Julián Arcas was a Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 classical guitarist

Classical guitar

The classical guitar is a 6-stringed plucked string instrument from the family of instruments called chordophones...

 and composer. He was born in Almería

Almería

Almería is a city in Andalusia, Spain, on the Mediterranean Sea. It is the capital of the province of the same name.-Toponym:Tradition says that the name Almería stems from the Arabic المرية Al-Mariyya: "The Mirror", comparing it to "The Mirror of the Sea"...

 and died in Malaga

Málaga

Málaga is a city and a municipality in the Autonomous Community of Andalusia, Spain. With a population of 568,507 in 2010, it is the second most populous city of Andalusia and the sixth largest in Spain. This is the southernmost large city in Europe...

 Spain.

During the decade 1860–70 he performed all over Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

. He even performed for the Duke of Wellington

Duke of Wellington

The Dukedom of Wellington, derived from Wellington in Somerset, is a hereditary title in the senior rank of the Peerage of the United Kingdom. The first holder of the title was Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington , the noted Irish-born career British Army officer and statesman, and...

 and the Duke of Cambridge

Duke of Cambridge

Duke of Cambridge is a title which has been conferred upon members of the British royal family several times. It was first used as a designation for Charles Stuart , the eldest son of James, Duke of York , though he was never formally created Duke of Cambridge...

 in 1862. The young Francisco Tárrega

Francisco Tárrega

Francisco de Asís Tárrega y Eixea was an influential Spanish composer and guitarist of the Romantic period.-Biography:Tárrega was born on 21 November 1852, in Vila-real, Castelló, Spain...

 listened to him in 1863 in Castellón

Castellón de la Plana

Castellón de la Plana or Castelló de la Plana is the capital city of the province of Castelló, in the Valencian Community, Spain, in the east of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Costa del Azahar by the Mediterranean Sea...

 and played for him after the performance, on the request of Tárrega’s father. Arcas then invited Tárrega to study with him in Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

. Tarrega plagiarized, deliberately or not, a number of Arcas's pieces including Fantasia sobre los Motivos de La Traviata. Arcas wrote fifty two original works and transcriptioned

Transcription (music)

In music, transcription can mean notating a piece or a sound which was previously unnotated, as, for example, an improvised jazz solo. Further examples include ethnomusicological notation of oral traditions of folk music, such as Béla Bartók's and Ralph Vaughan Williams' collections of the national...

 thirty pieces for the guitar, including waltzes, variation

Variation (music)

In music, variation is a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve harmony, melody, counterpoint, rhythm, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these.-Variation form:...

s, preludes and dances. Thirty were published in Barcelona by Vidal y Roger and fifty in Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

 by Unión Musical Española.

Interest in Arcas was sparked by his teaching of Tarrega and the discovery of Tarrega's plagiarism. Recently, Arcas has become more well known due to the beauty of his music and the release of his complete works.

Through the work of the guitar maker Antonio de Torres Jurado

Antonio Torres Jurado

Antonio de Torres Jurado was a Spanish guitarist and luthier, and "the most important Spanish guitar maker of the 19th century."...

, Arcas influenced the development of the classical guitar, particularly with regard to the design of the soundboard

Sounding board

A sound board, or soundboard, is the surface of a string instrument that the strings vibrate against, usually via some sort of bridge. The resonant properties of the sound board and the interior of the instrument greatly increase loudness over the string alone.The sound board operates by the...

. Arcas's major career accomplishments include: the appointment to Honorary Master of the Conservatory of Madrid, being Knighted in the Royal Order of Charles III and Performing for Queen Elizabeth.

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