Composer Joaquín Rodrigo's music is an homage to the rich and varied cultures of Spain. His unique creations draw from influences that range from the ancient Roman conquerors of Iberia to modern Spanish poets and writers. Since 1933 the blind composer was assisted and inspired by his talented wife, pianist Victoria Kamhi, his most important collaborator and his life's partner. This book is the story of a loving marriage and a professional struggle that led to international acclaim. After the years of exile and deprivation during the Spanish Civil War and World War II, Rodrigo's work began to gain attention and praise from the musical world. Active as critic and academic, Rodrigo has also received commissions from some of the most distinguished soloists of our era.
Composer Joaquín Rodrigo's music is an homage to the rich and varied cultures of Spain. His unique creations draw from influences that range from the ancient Roman conquerors of Iberia to modern Spanish poets and writers. Since 1933 the blind composer was assisted and inspired by his talented wife, pianist Victoria Kamhi, his most important collaborator and his life's partner. This book is the story of a loving marriage and a professional struggle that led to international acclaim. After the years of exile and deprivation during the Spanish Civil War and World War II, Rodrigo's work began to gain attention and praise from the musical world. Active as critic and academic, Rodrigo has also received commissions from some of the most distinguished soloists of our era.
Presents word-for-word translation, idiomatic translations, and IPA transcriptions of all of Rodrigo's 87 songs. Gives background information on songs and information on range, length, and other relevant facts, and offers biographies of Rodrigo and his wife, and information gleaned from in-depth interviews with their only child. Includes a discography. The author is a soprano and a professor of music at Winona State University. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
A composer of singular vision. Joaquín Rodrigo (1901–1999) is best known as the composer of one of the most popular works of music in the twentieth century—the Concierto de Aranjuez for guitar and orchestra. It’s been featured in movies and television commercials and remains a staple of concert programs for orchestras around the world. Miles Davis said, “After listening to it for a couple of weeks…I couldn’t get it out of my mind,” and he used it as inspiration for his album Sketches of Spain. But as Javier Suárez-Pajares and Walter Aaron Clark reveal in this musical biography—the first complete study in English—Rodrigo’s work and influence extend far beyond that singular composition. A Light in the Darkness takes us through Rodrigo’s childhood in Valencia, the onset of blindness at the age of three, and the beginnings of his musical education. He achieved some early success in Spain as a composer before moving to Paris in 1927 to advance his studies, following in the footsteps of other eminent Spanish composers like Isaac Albéniz, Joaquín Turina, and Manuel de Falla. There he enrolled in courses with composer Paul Dukas, met the woman who would become his wife, and earned the respect and friendship of Falla, who became his champion. Along the way, Rodrigo’s musical voice developed and matured as his horizons widened. Suárez-Pajares and Clark present a definitive account of the making of Rodrigo’s celebrated guitar concerto, even as they capture the breadth of Rodrigo’s compositional output, from solo works for piano and guitar through chamber music and vocal works to concertos and orchestral pieces. As they demonstrate, Rodrigo’s music is unmistakably Spanish, but with his own unique accent. Rodrigo’s life and career spanned a period of great tumult in Spain, and he had to navigate strong, shifting political and cultural currents—before, during, and after Franco. An authoritative life of one of the twentieth century’s great musical geniuses, A Light in the Darkness becomes a stunning tale of how art gets made under even the most challenging circumstances.
A Concise History of the Classic Guitar by Graham Wade, one of the foremost international writers on the guitar, explores the history of the instrument from the 16th century to the present day. This compact assessment of five centuries of fretted instruments cover the vihuela in Spain, the history of four-course and five-course guitars, the evolution of tablature, and developments in the six-string guitar in the 19th century. the work also charts the contribution of leading composers, performers and luthiers of the 20th century, and evaluates the influence of Segovia, Llobet, Pujol, Presti, Bream, Williams, etc., among the world's famous guitarists. This book, intended for the general public and guitar students of all ages, is the first interpretative history of the classic guitar to be published in the 21st century, and will be eagerly welcomed by all lovers of the instrument.
Joaquín Rodrigo, Spain's leading composer of the second half of the twentieth century, was also a writer of considerable distinction. In addition to his 170 compositions in almost every musical form, including the world-famous Concierto de Aranjuez for guitar and orchestra, he published articles and critical reviews throughout his working life. This volume makes available Rodrigo's writings to English-speaking readers throughout the world. The generous selection reveals an outstanding critical mind, equally illuminating on the main developments in the history of classical music and its most important composers, from Bach and Mozart to Verdi and Puccini, as well as Rodrigo's contemporaries. Rodrigo’s writings also cover many aspects of the culture and music of Spain and the country's major composers, as well as being an invaluable guide to an understanding and appreciation of Rodrigo's own works. The composer's style of writing is extremely varied, by turns incisive, eloquent, poetic, or delightfully humorous. Given the worldwide fame and popularity of his music, the availability in English of a large number of the composer's many articles and critical reviews will be of the greatest interest to musicians, scholars, music critics, and music-lovers alike.
Joaquín Rodrigo: A Research and Information Guide catalogues and summarizes the musical works and related literature of Joaquín Rodrigo (1901–99), perhaps the most important Spanish composer of concert music in the second half of the twentieth century. The guide provides annotated bibliographic entries for both primary and secondary sources, detailing several guitar concertos, concertos for flute, violin, harp, cello, and piano, as well as symphonic pieces, piano solos, chamber music, and choral and stage works. Rodrigo’s reputation rests on the Concierto de Aranjuez for guitar and orchestra and its expressive middle movement, which inspired jazz arrangements by Miles Davis and Chick Corea in the 1960s and continues to appear in film scores even eighty years after its composition. A major reference tool for all those interested in the prolific Rodrigo and his music—featuring a chronology of the composer’s life and robust indices that enable researchers to easily locate sources by author, composition, or subject—Joaquín Rodrigo: A Research and Information Guide is a valuable resource for students and researchers alike.
This is an examination of the crucial formative period of Chinese attitudes toward nuclear weapons, the immediate post-Hiroshima/Nagasaki period and the Korean War. It also provides an account of US actions and attitudes during this period and China's response.
The articles and interviews in this book have all appeared at one time or another in Classical Guitar magazine, and appear here in their original form. This volume features 23 interviews with guitar greats
An “entertaining and informative” comprehensive guide to 240 classical composers and their music—from the medieval era to the modern age (Library Journal). Music, according to Aaron Copland, can thrive only if there are “gifted listeners.” But today’s listeners must choose between classical and rock, opera and rap, and the choices can seem overwhelming at times. In The Essential Canon of Classical Music, David Dubal comes to the aid of the struggling listener and provides a cultural-literacy handbook for classical music. Dubal identifies the 240 composers whose works are most important to an understanding of classical music and offers a comprehensive, chronological guide to their lives and works. He has searched beyond the traditional canon to introduce readers to little—known works by some of the most revered names in classical music—Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert—as well as to the major works of lesser-known composers. In a spirited and opinionated voice, Dubal seeks to rid us of the notion of “masterpieces” and instead to foster a new generation of master listeners. The result is an uncommon collection of the wonders classical music has to offer.
