Rodrigo: Soleriana / Zarabanda Lejana Y Villancico

Description

Joaquín Rodrigo (1901-1999)Cinco piezas infantiles • Soleriana • Zarabanda lejanaJoaquín Rodrigo was born at Sagunto, Valencia, on 22nd November 1901, the son of a business-man, the youngest of ten children. Diphtheria left him blind from the age of four, and this would mark his inclination to cultivate his inner world and then dedicate himself completely to music. In 1906 the family moved to Valencia, where Rodrigo had his first musical instruction in the Blind College. It was hearing Verdi’s Rigoletto that convinced him of his vocation as a composer. From 1917 to 1922 he attended composition classes given by Francisco Antich at the Valencia Conservatory. His first works were written in 1922 and two years later his orchestral Juglares was performed. It was at this time that he came into contact with the group of avant-garde composers in Madrid, a stage that came to an end when in 1925 he failed to win the Premio Nacional de Música, moving then to Paris, where he came to know Dukas. In the 1930s there followed his marriage in 1933 to the Turkish pianist Victoria Kamhi, the separation of his wife, recorded in his Cántico de la esposa (Song of the Wife), and the meeting in Paris of the two (1935). During the Spanish Civil War his Concierto de Aranjuez was performed, with the guitarist Regino Sáinz de la Maza as soloist, his definitive achievement as a composer. There followed works that would form the principal basis of his compositions: the Concierto heroico for piano (1943), the Concierto de estío (Concerto of Summer) for violin and orchestra (1944), the Ausencias de Dulcinea (Absences of Dulcinea) for bass, four sopranos and orchestra (1948) and the Concierto in modo galante (Concerto in Galant Style) for cello (1949). During the years of General Franco’s dictatorship Rodrigo’s work represented Spanish music abroad, at least until the entry on the scene of the innovative Generation of 51. The performance in San Francisco in 1958 of the Fantasía para un gentilhombre (Fantasia for a Gentleman) by its dedicatee, the guitarist Andrés Segovia, would mark the culmination of his international reputation. In those years he also turned his attention to music for the theatre in two scores, the ballet Pavana real (Royal Pavane) of 1955, on the life of Luis de Milán, and the zarzuela, based on Lope de Vega, El hijo fingido (The Pretended Son) (1955-1960), performed in 1964 and given a new production at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid in 2001, to mark the composer’s centenary. 1964 was also the year in which he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Salamanca, an important recognition by academic authorities of his creative work. In the following years he composed less and the incursion of the avant-garde relegated him to a secondary position; ironically some important commissions came to him from abroad, such as the symphonic poem A la busca del