| Summary: | This study aims to discuss the work of Leo Brouwer for the classical guitar, focusing more specifically on his sarabande compositions. In order to provide a broad historical and theoretical context for the sarabande genre, I start by introducing ideas and concepts drawn from “topic theory”. I then discuss the different traditions of the sarabande genre, not only the European ones - French and Spanish – but also its Latin-American background (which is particularly relevant to address Leo Brouwer’s compositions). According to the state of art, Leo Brouwer has three chronologically successive compositional phases that reveal biographical data as well. The three phases are: the Pre-revolutionary years (Nationalistic phase), the Avant-garde and the “New Simplicity”. The main characteristics of each phase are being identified through sarabande examples, such as: Suite no.1. from 1955, Tarantos, Variations on the theme of Django Reinhardt and Sonata no.1. from 1990. The last chapter focuses entirely on one single piece: La Gran Sarabanda. I present a moredetailed case study of this piece, which is a more complicated sarabande written in the form of a set of variations. To conclude, Leo Brouwer’s musical style reveals its eclecticism through the use of different sarabandes, consequently his knowledge about each sarabande tradition is noticeable. As it turned out from the analysis of La Gran Sarabanda he uses the tradition to express contrast, thereby revealing an interesting stylistic spectrum. Moreover, the importance of social context in music gains underpinning in each reference.
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