La Paloma

What you get, immediately after purchase
📄 The sheet music as a PDF, printable and readable on a tablet
🎧 The MP3 audio recording, to learn the piece by ear
✉️ A download link by email, with no account to create

This score is 2 pages long.

La Paloma is a habanera written around 1863 by the Basque composer Sebastián Iradier, after a stay in Cuba. A sailor leaves and asks that the dove which comes to his beloved's window be welcomed as if it were him. Its rhythm, a dotted eighth, a sixteenth, then two eighths, was born in Havana; it is the same rhythm that carries the habanera in Carmen, which Bizet in fact based on another song by Iradier.

On the accordion, that rhythm is the whole job: the left hand carries it steadily, without rushing, while the right hand sings the melody freely and rounds off the ends of phrases with the bellows. It is an excellent piece for learning to hold two characters at once, a rhythmic bass and a supple melody. This level 3/5 score fits on 2 pages and suits an intermediate accordionist looking for a classic of dance halls, harbour festivals and Latin music.