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"Romance Anónimo" (Anonymous Romance) is a piece for guitar, also known as "Estudio en Mi de Rubira" (Study in E by Rubira), "Spanish Romance", "Romance de España", "Romance of the Guitar", "Romanza" and "Romance d'Amour" among other names.

Its origins and authorship are currently in question. It is suspected of originally being a solo instrumental guitar work, from the 19th century.The Anónimo (anonymous) part of its name has been incorporated over the years due to this uncertainty. The question of authorship has probably been propagated by three main reasons: the lack of claim by its true author, the desire to avoid paying copyright fees, and the desire of publishing companies to claim the lucrative copyright of this world-famous piece.

 

The style of the piece is that of the Parlour music of the late 19th century in Spain or South America, having a closed three-part form: the first in the minor key and the second being in the major key, with the third being a restatement of the first.

Other arrangements

  • A vocal version including lyrics, which is called Forbidden Games (Jeux Interdits) (sometimes also Romance of Love) was arranged by B. Parker and Marc Lanjean; and has been performed by artists such as Miriam Makeba and Tom Jones

  • Mireille Mathieu has performed a two vocal versions; one in French (title: Amour Défendu) and one in German (title: Walzer der Liebe)

  • Swedish singer Lill Lindfors covered the piece as "Du är den ende" (Eng: "You are the only one") in 1966, with Swedish lyrics by poet Bo Setterlind

  • Ginette Reno has also performed a vocal version, titled Forbidden Games.

  • The Julio Iglesias song Quiero from the 1975 album El Amor used this song as the melody, with added lyrics.

  • American rock band My Chemical Romance included this song on their debut album I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, released 2002. It remains the only instrumental song by the band.

  • Cantopop singer, Eason Chan, included this song on his 2011 album title release, Stranger Under My Skin. It is a bilingual English and Cantonese song with lyrics by Chow Yiu-Fai. Chan also had a Cantonese song based on Fur Elise.

  • Los Niños de Sara, Alabina's French gypsy musicians, did a flamenco version called "Romance Anonimo".

  • The Buck 65 song "The Outskirts" from the 2007 album Situation uses this song as backing.

  • An electronic version of the piece was used as background music for the 1980 arcade game Phoenix.

  • A version called Romanza appears on the 2010 album Five Deadly Venoms by progressive metal band Shaolin Death Squad.

  • Mike Oldfield used a fragment of the piece in his track "Romance" on his 2005 album Light + Shade.

  • Eddie Vedder played a version as an opening for the Pearl Jam song Betterman at an August 18, 2000 concert at the Deer Creek Music Center in Indianapolis, Indiana

<-- click here to listen to a version of this song being played on guitar. It won't sound anything like my recording at first because I didn't play this intro part, I play the two parts starting at 1:09. I prefer to play them slower than they are played on this audio.

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