The onset of chronic Bright's disease (or nephritis, an inflammation of the kidneys) prompted Albéniz to return to warmer southern climates, and in 1905, to return to composing piano music. He abandoned his last stage effort, La morena, which was left unfinished. Just before the turn of the century, he had begun an orchestral work he called La vega but decided to release it as a piano composition. In attempting to capture an orchestral conception in piano sound, Albeniz paid particular attention to the coloristic effects of the piano, paralleling, to some extent, Debussy's early impressionist innovations.

He began composing his magnum opus, the 12-part piano suite Iberia, in 1905. It was to be a series of tone portraits of various regions of Spain, including the northern province of Navarra, which is south of the Pyrenees mountains. While he worked on the suite he also attempted an orchestration of it, but decided it was inadequate and asked his friend Enrique Fernandez Arbós to orchestrate it; the violinist/composer did make orchestral settings of four of what became final Iberia movements, plus Navarra.

Albeniz had not completed Navarra by the time he had 12 movements for Iberia, so the work's final form, as completed in 1909 (the year of the composer's death), did not include it. Albeniz turned to shorter piano projects and did some more work on Navarra, but it was left unfinished at his death.

The composer Deodat de Severac completed Navarra,and it is often performed along with the four Arbós-orchestrated movements of Iberia. (Several decades later, the Spanish composer Carlos Surinach provided orchestrations for all the rest of the movements of Iberia as well.) Navarra is a gentle piece, with a dreamy melody over a gentle jota rhythm. It imitates the texture of Spanish guitar music. Therefore, it was a natural for being transcribed as a guitar work and has frequently been recorded and performed in various guitar transcriptions. The piece also exists in various other arrangements; it remains among the most attractive and popular of descriptive Spanish piano compositions.

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