Yradier Sheet Music and Biography
Sebastián Yradier (born Iradier on 20 January 1809) is one of the very few Basque composers. Yradier sheet music featured on our site includes his habanera ‘La Paloma’. This is possibly one of the most popular Spanish songs of all time and is certainly his most popular piece.
If you aren’t familiar with the name you will definitely know the song once you’ve listened to it. ‘La Paloma’ along with ‘Yesterday’ by The Beatles is one of the most recorded songs in music history. It goes to prove this song’s popularity.
Career
Yradier’s career began in 1827 after winning a competition, he became an organist at the church of San Juan in Salvatierra (Agurain). He remained there until 1833.
Between 1839 and 1851 he became an Instructor at the Madrid Conservatory.
A French publisher encouraged Iradier to change his name to become more internationally acceptable and so he became Yradier.
Using Madrid and Paris as his base Yradier travelled quite extensively reaching as far as Cuba which proved to be a very worthwhile visit. It was here that he came upon habanera (genre of Cuban popular dance music of the 19th century). and provided him with the inspiration to write the famous ‘La Paloma’.
Georges Bizet adapted one of Yradier’s songs ‘El arreglito’ in his opera Carmen. Believing it was a folk song he renamed it ‘L’amour est un oiseau rebelle’. It also became known as ‘Habanera‘. On discovering Yradier as the source of the song Bizet made the necessary revisions.
Yradier died on 6 December 1865 at the age of fifty-six.
Yradier Sheet Music Downloads and Further Reading
On music-scores.com we have nearly twenty arrangements of Yradier sheet music in PDF format for you to download.
Read more about this composer on Classic Cat and Wikipedia.
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