JOAQUÍN RODRIGO
Born in Sagunto, Spain, 1901
Died in Madrid, 1999
Concierto de Aranjuez
Aranjuez is a bustling town straddling the river Tagus about 50 kilometers south of Madrid. An ancient community, Aranjuez boasts one of Spain’s oldest bullrings as well as a bountiful garden attached to its sumptuous Royal Palace, one of the official residences of the royal family. It was these gardens that inspired the Concierto de Aranjuez, not only Joaquín Rodrigo’s most famous composition but one of the best-known orchestral works of the 20th century.
In three movements (Allegro con spirito, Adagio, and Allegro gentile), the concerto records “the fragrance of magnolias, the singing of birds, and the gushing of fountains,” to quote Rodrigo himself. The extraordinary pathos of the second movement, however, has led many to look beyond the gardens for meaning — a search seemingly vindicated by Rodrigo’s wife Victoria, who wrote in her autobiography that the Adagio reflected the couple’s grief over a miscarried pregnancy. The version of the concerto heard today is for the soloist alone, without orchestral backing or major deviations from the original guitar part. It is a rare opportunity to hear with perfect clarity, as though for the first time, the virtuosic solo part of this familiar work.
J.S. BACH
Born in Eisenach, Germany, 1685
Died in Leipzig, 1750
Violin Partita No. 3 in E Major, BWV 1006 (trans. Despalj)
The Violin Partita No. 3 is the last of a set of six multi-movement works for solo violin composed by J.S. Bach sometime before 1720. (Like “suite,” “partita” is a term for a collection of dances, usually composed for a single instrument). These ingenious pieces have long inspired instrumentalists of all kinds — including Bach himself, who reportedly performed them on keyboard with many harmonic additions and elaborations.
Guitarists have been especially eager to make them their own, for their instrument is well suited to the dense counterpoint and arpeggiated harmonies of the original scores. Partita No. 3’s expansive prelude unfolds in near perpetual motion, with every measure (save a handful) divided into even 16th notes. The second movement, Loure, is a slow and ceremonious dance, while the following Gavotte en Rondeau gracefully alternates a recurring major-mode theme with minor-mode digressions. Two Menuets and a Bourré fill out the inner movements, leaving a swift Gigue to bring the Partita No. 3 — and Bach’s entire set of six suites for violin — to an exhilarating conclusion.
MANUEL PONCE
Born in Fresnillo, Mexico,1882
Died in Mexico City, 1948
Sonatina meridional
Many of Manuel Ponce’s works for guitar are pastiches of earlier styles: the Sonata clásica, Sonata romántica, Suite antigua (cheekily attributed by Ponce to Alessandro Scarlatti), the Suite in A minor (even more cheekily attributed to Leopold Weiss). The Sonatina meridional, however, takes inspiration from Andalusian music the Mexican composer heard while living in Europe in the 1920s and ’30s. It was composed at the request of his good friend, guitarist Andrés Segovia, who wanted a work of “purely Spanish character.”
The sonatina’s three movements (Campo, Copla, and Fiesta) are richly evocative of flamenco and folksong; they are also tinged with the modern harmonies that Ponce had studied with Paul Dukas in Paris at the École Normale de Musique. The innovative work was a triumph. As Segovia wrote to the composer from Geneva in 1932: “If you could see how splendidly the Sonatina has turned out!!! … I tried the [Copla and Fiesta] in the concert here, and afterwards there wasn’t a musician in the hall who didn’t talk of it to me with enthusiasm.”
DOMENICO SCARLATTI
Born in Naples, 1685
Died in Madrid, 1757
Sonata in A Major, K. 322
Sonata in E Major, K. 380
Sonata in D Minor K. 213
Sonata in D Minor K. 1
Domenico Scarlatti hailed from the Kingdom of Naples, then ruled by the Spanish Crown. His father, Alessandro Scarlatti, had been one of the leading composers of opera and cantata in Italy during the late 17th century. Unlike his father, Domenico largely devoted himself to instrumental music, and to the sonata in particular. He composed over 500 sonatas for harpsichord and pianoforte, most in binary form and pulsing with attractive melodies and intricate ornamentation. Strains of Iberian folk music can also be heard throughout these pieces. From 1729 until his death, Scarlatti lived and worked in Spain (first in Seville and then Madrid) and it is there that he composed most of his sonatas. The strumming of guitar he heard in the city streets could not help but shade his musical imagination, and it is not hard to understand why modern guitarists have so enthusiastically made these sonatas their own. The four on today’s program represent well the breadth and diversity of Scarlatti’s instrumental oeuvre.
FEDERICO MORENO TORROBA
Born in Madrid, 1891
Died in Madrid, 1982
Sonatina
Suite Castellana
Born into a family of musicians, Federico Moreno-Torroba learned keyboard from his father, an organist based in Madrid. As a composer, Torroba quickly turned his attention to the zarzuela, the preeminent Spanish lyric-dramatic genre. But he also composed for the classical guitar, a somewhat unusual choice for a serious composer of the era who never learned to play the instrument himself. He nevertheless possessed a deep love for the guitar, as well as a thorough understanding of its many idiosyncrasies. (His friends Maria Angélica Funes and Andrés Segovia could provide guidance when necessary, too.) The Sonatina, composed in 1965 and dedicated to Segovia, reveals Torroba’s complete mastery of guitaristic rhythm, timbre, and mood. Energetic Allegretto and Allegro movements frame a beautiful Andante of uncommon tenderness.
The Suite Castellana (“Spanish Suite”) contains the earliest guitar music composed by Torroba. It is also the first major composition by a non-guitarist written for Andrés Segovia, thus inaugurating one of the great collections of 20th-century guitar music. The first movement, Fandanguillo, is modeled on the fandango, a quick triple-meter dance with origins in Spanish and Portuguese folk music. (Some of the first composed fandangos in classical music appear in
the keyboard sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti.) Here, sections of dance alternate with more song-like textures. Arada, the second movement, is based on a genre of work song traditionally heard when plowing fields. Its melody is one of Torroba’s finest and features harmonies more cosmopolitan than one might expect to find in a traditional arada. The suite concludes with a fast danza in 3/8 meter. A brief middle section, labeled “Lento espressivo,” gives the listener (and performer!) a chance to catch their breath before the danza barrels ahead to its lively conclusion.
BARRIOS MANGORÉ
Born in San Juan Bautista, Paraguay, 1885
Died in San Salvador, El Salvador, 1944
La Catedral
Barrios Mangoré is best known for his virtuosic dances in the style of the folk music of his native Paraguay, but he drew inspiration from the Baroque as well — a little from Scarlatti but a great deal from Bach. No piece of his better captures the emotional intensity of that era than La Catedral (The Cathedral). The work’s three movements form an evocative triptych: the Saudade, a crystalline prelude as mournful as a desperate prayer; the mysterious Andante religioso, whose sonorous chords recall the ringing of church bells; and the feverish Allegro solemne, a virtuosic showpiece featuring the same kind of perpetual motion heard earlier in this program in the Prelude from Bach’s Partita No. 3.