A Light In The Darkness The Music And Life Of Joaqu N Rodrigo

A musical biography that reveals Joaquín Rodrigo as a composer of unique vision.

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.

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.

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.

The Poetry and Music of Joaquín Sabina: An Angel with Black Wings is a thoroughly researched exploration of the life, music, and song lyrics of the celebrated Spanish singer-songwriter Joaquín Sabina. Often called "the Spanish Dylan," Sabina has established his own highly poetic space over the course of his forty-plus years as a recording artist. Using selected song lyrics from his fifteen studio and three major live albums, Daniel J. Nappo analyzes Sabina's use of antithesis, simile, metaphor, synesthesia, rhyme, and other rhetorical and poetic devices. Nappo also devotes a chapter to Sabina's ability as a narrator and concludes the book with a comparison of Sabina's best work with that of the American singer-songwriter and Nobel laureate, Bob Dylan.

The last of the Spanish Romantics, composer, conductor, and impresario Federico Moreno Torroba (1891-1982) left his mark on virtually every aspect of Spanish musical culture during a career which spanned six decades, and saw tremendous political and cultural upheavals. Federico Moreno Torroba: A Musical Life in Three Acts explores not only his life and work, but also the relationship of his music to the cultural milieu in which he moved.