Gran Vals

Gran Vals by Francisco Tárrega (1902). A fusion of romantic and Spanish folk styles. It has a notable carnival-carousel-waltz thing going on that lends itself to collapsing the swing. Tárrega was a trained pianist and sourced a lot of his inspiration from Chopin. In a postmodern sense, there is numerous quotations from Chopin’s ’The Grande valse brillante ’ - with such a similar title, he unashamedly tributes his inspiration. Today, it’s best known as the Nokia ringtone. In 1993 Anssi Vanjoki, then-executive vice president of Nokia, brought the whole Gran Vals to Lauri Kivinen (then-head of corporate communications) and together they selected the excerpt that became “Nokia tune“.