Yepes was born into a family of humble origin in
Lorca,
Region of Murcia. His father gave him his first guitar when he was four years old, and took the boy five miles on a donkey to and from lessons three days a week. Yepes took his first lessons from Jesús Guevara, in Lorca. Later his family moved to
Valencia when the
Spanish Civil War started in 1936. When he was 13, he was accepted to study at the Conservatorio de Valencia with the pianist and composer
Vicente Asencio. Here he followed courses in harmony, composition, and performance. Yepes is credited by many with developing the A-M-I technique of playing notes with the ring (
Anular), middle (
Medio), and index (
Indice) fingers of the right hand. Guitar teachers traditionally taught their students to play by alternating the index and middle fingers, or I-M. However, since Yepes studied under teachers who were
not guitarists, they pushed him to expand on the traditional technique. According to Yepes, Asencio "was a pianist who loathed the guitar because a guitarist couldn't play scales very fast and very
legato, as on a piano or a violin. 'If you can't play like that,' he told me, 'you must take up another instrument.'" Through practice and improvement in his technique, Yepes could match Asencio's piano scales on the guitar. "'So,' he [Asencio] said, 'it's possible on the guitar. Now play that fast in thirds, then in chromatic thirds.'" Allan Kozinn observed that, "Thanks to Mr. Asencio's goading, Mr. Yepes learned "to play music the way
I want, not the way the
guitar wants." Similarly, the composer, violinist, and pianist
George Enescu would also push Yepes to improve his technique, which also allowed him to play with greater speed. On 16 December 1947 he made his Madrid début, performing
Joaquín Rodrigo's
Concierto de Aranjuez with
Ataúlfo Argenta conducting the
Spanish National Orchestra. The overwhelming success of this performance brought him renown from critics and public alike. Soon afterwards, he began to tour with Argenta, visiting Switzerland, Italy, Germany, and France. During this time he was largely responsible for the growing popularity of the
Concierto de Aranjuez, and made two early recordings, both with Argenta – one in mono with the Madrid Chamber Orchestra (released between 1953 and 1955), and the second in stereo with the
Orquesta Nacional de España (recorded in 1957 and released in 1959). In 1950, after performing in Paris, he spent a year studying interpretation under the violinist
George Enescu, and the pianist
Walter Gieseking. He also studied informally with
Nadia Boulanger. This was followed by a long period in Italy where he profited from contact with artists of every kind. On 18 May 1951, as he leant on the parapet of a bridge in Paris and watched the
Seine flow by, Yepes unexpectedly heard a voice inside him ask, "What are you doing?" He had been a nonbeliever for 25 years, perfectly content that there was no God or transcendence or afterlife. But that
existential question, which he understood as God's call, changed everything for him. He became a devout Catholic, which he remained for the rest of his life. In 1952 a work ("
Romance"), Yepes claims to have written when he was a young boy, became the theme to the film
Forbidden Games (
Jeux interdits) by
René Clément. Despite Yepes's claims of composing it, the piece ("
Romance") has often been attributed to other authors; indeed published versions exist from before Yepes was even born, and the earliest known recording of the work dates from a
cylinder from around 1900. In the credits of the film
Jeux Interdits, however, "Romance" is credited as "Traditional: arranged – Narciso Yepes." Yepes also performed other pieces for the
Forbidden Games soundtrack. His later credits as film composer include the soundtracks to ''
La Fille aux yeux d'or (1961) and La viuda del capitán Estrada
(1991). He also starred as a musician in the 1967 film version of El amor brujo''. In Paris he met Maria Szumlakowska, a young Polish philosophy student, the daughter of Marian Szumlakowski, the Ambassador of Poland in Spain from 1935 to 1944. They married in 1958 and had two sons, Juan de la Cruz (deceased), Ignacio Yepes, an orchestral conductor and
flautist, and one daughter, Ana Yepes, a dancer and choreographer. In 1964, Yepes performed the
Concierto de Aranjuez with the
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, premièring the
ten-string guitar, which he invented in collaboration with the renowned guitar maker
José Ramírez III. The instrument made it possible to transcribe works originally written for baroque
lute without deleterious
transposition of the bass notes. However, the main reason for the invention of this instrument was the addition of string
resonators tuned to C, B, A, F#, which resulted in the first guitar with truly chromatic string
resonance – similar to that of the piano with its sustain/pedal mechanism. After 1964, Yepes used the
ten-string guitar exclusively, touring all six inhabited continents, performing in recitals as well as with the world's leading orchestras, giving an average of 130 performances each year. He recorded the
Concierto de Aranjuez for the first time with the
ten-string guitar in 1969 with
Odón Alonso conducting the
Orquesta Sinfonica R.T.V. Española. Apart from being a consummate musician, Yepes was also a significant scholar. His research into forgotten manuscripts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries resulted in the rediscovery of numerous works for guitar or lute. He was also the first person to record the complete lute works of Bach on
period instruments (14-course
baroque lute). In addition, through his patient and intensive study of his instrument, Narciso Yepes developed a revolutionary technique and previously unsuspected resources and possibilities. He was granted many official honours including the gold medal for Distinction in Arts, conferred by King
Juan Carlos I; membership in the academy of "
Alfonso X el Sabio" and an Honorary Doctorate from the
University of Murcia. In 1986 he was awarded the
Premio Nacional de Música of Spain, and he was elected unanimously to the
Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. In the 1980s, Yepes formed
Trio Yepes with his son Ignacio Yepes on flute and recorder and his daughter Ana dancing to her own choreography. After 1993, Narciso Yepes limited his public appearances due to illness. He gave his last concert on 1 March 1996 in
Santander (Spain). He died in
Murcia in 1997, after a long battle with
lymphoma. == Press quotes ==