Concierto de Aranjuez
Encyclopedia
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
for classical guitar and orchestra by the Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo
Joaquín Rodrigo
Joaquín Rodrigo Vidre, 1st Marquis of the Gardens of Aranjuez , commonly known as Joaquín Rodrigo, was a composer of classical music and a virtuoso pianist. Despite being nearly blind from an early age, he achieved great success...
. Written in 1939, it is probably Rodrigo's best-known work, and its success established his reputation as one of the most significant Spanish composers of the twentieth century.
Inspiration
Palacio Real de Aranjuez
The Royal Palace of Aranjuez is a residence of the King of Spain, located in the town of Aranjuez, Community of Madrid, Spain. The palace is open to the public as one of the Spanish royal sites....
, the spring resort palace and gardens built by Philip II
Philip II of Spain
Philip II was King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and, while married to Mary I, King of England and Ireland. He was lord of the Seventeen Provinces from 1556 until 1581, holding various titles for the individual territories such as duke or count....
in the last half of the 16th century and rebuilt in the middle of the 18th century by Ferdinand VI
Ferdinand VI of Spain
Ferdinand VI , called the Learnt, was King of Spain from 9 July 1746 until his death. He was the fourth son of the previous monarch Philip V and his first wife Maria Luisa of Savoy...
. The work attempts to transport the listener to another place and time through the evocation of the sounds of nature.
According to the composer, the first movement is "animated by a rhythmic spirit and vigour without either of the two themes... interrupting its relentless pace"; the second movement "represents a dialogue between guitar and solo instruments (cor anglais
Cor anglais
The cor anglais , or English horn , is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family....
, bassoon
Bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
, oboe
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
, horn
Horn (instrument)
The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
etc.)"; and the last movement "recalls a courtly dance in which the combination of double and triple time maintains a taut tempo right to the closing bar." He described the concerto itself as capturing "the fragrance of magnolias, the singing of birds, and the gushing of fountains" in the gardens of Aranjuez.
Rodrigo and his wife Victoria stayed silent for many years about the inspiration for the second movement, and thus the popular belief grew that it was inspired by the bombing of Guernica
Bombing of Guernica
The bombing of Guernica was an aerial attack on the Basque town of Guernica, Spain, causing widespread destruction and civilian deaths, during the Spanish Civil War...
in 1937. In her autobiography, Victoria eventually declared that it was both an evocation of the happy days of their honeymoon and a response to Rodrigo's devastation at the miscarriage of their first pregnancy. It was composed in 1939 in Paris.
Rodrigo dedicated the Concierto de Aranjuez to Regino Sainz de la Maza
Regino Sainz de la Maza
Regino Sainz de la Maza y Ruiz was a Spanish classical guitarist.At age ten, he got his first guitar and started his musical studies with Santiago Landache , José Nicolás Quesada , and Eugenio Rodríguez Pascual...
.
Rodrigo, blind
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
since age three, was a pianist. He did not play the guitar, yet he still managed to capture the spirit of the guitar in Spain.
Composition
Composed in early 1939, in Paris, amid the tensions of the impending warWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, it was the first work Rodrigo had written for guitar and orchestra. The instrumentation is unusual: rarely does the guitar face the forces of a full orchestra. Instead, the guitar is never overwhelmed, remaining the solo instrument throughout.
Movements
This concerto is in three movements, Allegro con spirito, Adagio and Allegro gentile.The second movement, the best-known of the three, is marked by its slow pace and quiet melody, introduced by the English horn, with a soft accompaniment by the guitar and strings. A feeling of quiet regret permeates the piece. Ornamentation is added gradually to the melody in the beginning. An off-tonic trill in the guitar creates the first seeds of tension in the piece; they grow and take hold, but relax back to the melody periodically. Eventually, a climactic build-up starts. This breaks back into the main melody, molto appassionato, voiced by the strings with accompaniment from the woodwinds. The piece finally resolves to a calm arpeggio from the guitar, though it is the strings in the background rather than the guitar’s final note that resolve the piece.
The third movement is in mixed metre
Metre (music)
Meter or metre is a term that music has inherited from the rhythmic element of poetry where it means the number of lines in a verse, the number of syllables in each line and the arrangement of those syllables as long or short, accented or unaccented...
, alternating between 2/4 and 3/4.
Premiere
| Date | 9 November 1940 |
| Guitarist | Regino Sainz de la Maza Regino Sainz de la Maza Regino Sainz de la Maza y Ruiz was a Spanish classical guitarist.At age ten, he got his first guitar and started his musical studies with Santiago Landache , José Nicolás Quesada , and Eugenio Rodríguez Pascual... |
| Orchestra | Orquesta Filarmónica de Barcelona |
| Conductor | César Mendoza Lasalle |
| Venue | Palau de la Música Catalana Palau de la Música Catalana The Palau de la Música Catalana is a concert hall in Barcelona. Designed in the Catalan modernista style by the architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner, it was built between 1905 and 1908 for the Orfeó Català, a choral society founded in 1891 that was a leading force in the Catalan cultural movement... , Barcelona |
On 11 December 1940 the concerto received its first performance in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
, at the Teatro Español de Madrid conducted by Jesús Arámbarri
Jesús Arámbarri
Jesús Arámbarri Gárate was a Spanish classical music conductor and composer native to the Basque Country.Jesús Arámbarri has been classed among the cultural treasures of the region, with Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga, Jesús Guridi, Luís de Pablo, Maurice Ravel, and Pablo de Sarasate...
, with the same soloist, de la Maza.
Interpretations
A number of musicians have since reinterpreted the work, usually the second movement, perhaps most famously jazz legend Miles DavisMiles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
in the company of arranger Gil Evans
Gil Evans
Gil Evans was a jazz pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader, active in the United States...
. On the album Sketches of Spain
Sketches of Spain
Sketches of Spain is an album by Miles Davis, recorded between November 1959 and March 1960 at the Columbia 30th Street Studio in New York City....
(1960), Davis says: "That melody is so strong that the softer you play it, the stronger it gets, and the stronger you play it, the weaker it gets." Violinist Ikuko Kawai
Ikuko Kawai
, born January 19, 1968 in Takamatsu, is a classically trained Japanese violinist and composer.She has performed internationally, including invitational appearances with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and renowned conductor Chung Myung-Whun...
's version, "Aranjuez", is an upbeat, faster update to the work. Clarinettist Jean-Christian Michel
Jean-Christian Michel
Jean-Christian Michel is a composer and clarinetist. His compositions are influenced by jazz and by the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.Michel has received 3 diamond discs, 7 platinum discs and 10 golden discs. He is a "Full Member" of the SACEM...
's transcription of "Aranjuez" has sold some 1,500,000 copies.
Guitarist Buckethead
Buckethead
Brian Carroll , better known by his stage name Buckethead, is a guitarist and multi instrumentalist who has worked within several genres of music. He has released 34 studio albums, four special releases and one EP. He has performed on over 50 more albums by other artists...
covered "Sketches of Spain" on his album Electric Tears as a tribute to Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
. Bassist Buster Williams
Buster Williams
Charles Anthony Williams is an American jazz bassist.-Biography:Williams has gained prestige among jazz musicians as a solid supportive player. Since the early 1960s, he has made subtle swing, a precise rhythm and superb technique the landmark of his playing...
performs a solo bass transcription of the second movement of Concierto de Aranjuez on his album Griot Liberté (2006).
Until asked to perform and interpret Concierto de Aranjuez in 1991, the Spanish flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucía
Paco de Lucía
Paco de Lucía, born Francisco Sánchez Gómez , is a Spanish virtuoso flamenco guitarist and composer. He is considered by many to be one of the finest guitarists in the world and the greatest guitarist of the flamenco genre...
was not proficient at reading musical notation
Musical notation
Music notation or musical notation is any system that represents aurally perceived music, through the use of written symbols.-History:...
. De Lucía claimed in Paco de Lucía-Light and Shade: A Portrait that he gave greater emphasis to rhythmical accuracy in his interpretation of the Concierto at the expense of the perfect tone preferred by classical guitarists. Joaquín Rodrigo
Joaquín Rodrigo
Joaquín Rodrigo Vidre, 1st Marquis of the Gardens of Aranjuez , commonly known as Joaquín Rodrigo, was a composer of classical music and a virtuoso pianist. Despite being nearly blind from an early age, he achieved great success...
later declared that no one had ever played his composition in such a brilliant manner.
The legendary jazz pianist Chick Corea
Chick Corea
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, and composer.Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis' band in the 1960s, he participated in the birth of the electric jazz fusion movement. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever...
used the beginning of the second movement as an introduction to his hit composition Spain
Spain (composition)
Spain is an instrumental jazz fusion composition by jazz pianist and composer Chick Corea. It is probably Corea's most prominent piece, and some would consider it a modern jazz standard....
. Al Jarreau
Al Jarreau
Alwin "Al" Lopez Jarreau is a seven-time Grammy Award winning jazz singer.- Background :Jarreau was born in Milwaukee, the fifth of six children. His web site refers to Reservoir, Inc., the name of the street where he lived. His father was a Seventh-Day Adventist Church minister and singer, and...
used the same intro in his arrangement of Spain as a vocalese
Vocalese
Vocalese is a style or genre of jazz singing wherein lyrics are written for melodies that were originally part of an all-instrumental composition or improvisation. Whereas scat singing uses improvised nonsense syllables, such as "bap ba dee dot bwee dee" in solos, vocalese uses lyrics, either...
.
A major performance of the Concierto, which stands strongly with Miles Davis's Sketches rendition, is that by Jim Hall
Jim Hall (musician)
James Stanley Hall is an American jazz guitarist.-Biography:Educated at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Hall moved to Los Angeles where he began to attract national, and then international, attention in the late 1950s...
on his 1975 album, Concierto
Concierto
Concierto is an album by Jim Hall sextet featuring Paul Desmond, Chet Baker, Ron Carter, Steve Gadd and Roland Hanna, produced by Creed Taylor and recorded at Van Gelder Studios April 16 and 23, 1975...
(also featuring Chet Baker
Chet Baker
Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker, Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and singer.Though his music earned him a large following , Baker's popularity was due in part to his "matinee idol-beauty" and "well-publicized drug habit."He died in 1988 in Amsterdam, the...
, Paul Desmond
Paul Desmond
Paul Desmond , born Paul Emil Breitenfeld, was a jazz alto saxophonist and composer born in San Francisco, best known for the work he did in the Dave Brubeck Quartet and for penning that group's greatest hit, "Take Five"...
, Ron Carter
Ron Carter
Ron Carter is an American jazz double-bassist. His appearances on over 2,500 albums make him one of the most-recorded bassists in jazz history, along with Milt Hinton, Ray Brown and Leroy Vinnegar. Carter is also an acclaimed cellist who has recorded numerous times on that...
, Steve Gadd
Steve Gadd
Steve Gadd is an American session and studio drummer, notable for his work with popular musicians from a wide range of genres.-Biography:...
, and Roland Hanna
Roland Hanna
Roland Hanna was an American Jazz pianist.Hanna studied classical piano as a boy, but was strongly interested in jazz. This increased after his time in military service.He studied at Eastman School of Music and Juilliard School...
). Hall's strong lyricism and outstanding sense of tone particularly giving the piece (performed in full and running to over 19 minutes) an understated power. The Concierto is, in many ways, the centrepiece of the album, which is often regarded as Jim Hall's peak.
The piece also featured in the film Brassed Off
Brassed Off
Brassed Off is a 1996 British film written and directed by Mark Herman. The film, a British-American co-production made between Channel Four Films, Miramax Films and Prominent Films, is about the troubles faced by a colliery brass band, following the closure of their pit...
, with Ewan McGregor
Ewan McGregor
Ewan Gordon McGregor is a Scottish actor. He has had success in mainstream, indie, and art house films. McGregor is perhaps best known for his roles as heroin addict Mark Renton in the drama Trainspotting , young Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy , and poet Christian in the...
, and was played by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band
Grimethorpe Colliery Band
The Grimethorpe Colliery Band is a brass band, based in Grimethorpe, South Yorkshire, England. It was formed in 1917, as a leisure activity for the workers at the colliery, by members of the disbanded Cudworth Colliery Band...
. In that film, it is sometimes referred to as the 'Concierto d'Orangejuice.' This is a familiar name in the brass band
Brass band
A brass band is a musical ensemble generally consisting entirely of brass instruments, most often with a percussion section. Ensembles that include brass and woodwind instruments can in certain traditions also be termed brass bands , but are usually more correctly termed military bands, concert...
community (although it is often shortened to 'Orange Juice'); the arrangement they refer to was created by Kevin Bolton.
The Modern Jazz Quartet has several recordings of the Concierto, one with Laurindo Almeida, another on the Last Concert CD and In Memoriam CD. Jim Roberts of Orlando FL, has two recordings, one with his trio and another with his Saxtet, both very listenable arrangements.
A version entitled "Rodrigo's Guitar Concerto de Aranjuez (Theme from 2nd movement)" was released by The Shadows
The Shadows
The Shadows are a British pop group with a total of 69 UK hit-charted singles: 35 as 'The Shadows' and 34 as 'Cliff Richard and the Shadows', from the 1950s to the 2000s. Cliff Richard in casual conversation with the British rock press frequently refers to the Shadows by their nickname: 'The Shads'...
in 1979.
A version of the Adagio was released as a single entitled "Rodrigo's Guitar Concerto" by Geoff Love
Geoff Love
Geoff Love was a British easy-listening, and disco orchestra leader. He was born in the industrial town of Todmorden in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His father was a mixed race American-born guitarist and dancer, and his mother an actress. As a child, Love began to learn to play the violin but...
, (under the name of Manuel & the Music of the Mountains) in 1976. This reached No. 3 in the British singles chart.
Lebanese female singer Fairuz
Fairuz
Nouhad Wadi Haddad , famously known as Fairuz is a Lebanese singer who is widely considered to be the most famous living singer in the Arab world and one of the best known of all time...
has also used the music of the second movement on one of her songs "Le Bairut" (To Beirut). Also the Egyptian born Greek singer Demis Roussos
Demis Roussos
Artemios Ventouris Roussos is a Greek singer and performer, best known for being the main musical partner of movie soundtrack composer Vangelis and a string of international hit records as a solo performer in the 1960s and 1970s...
used the same music for his song "Follow Me". In 1967, the French singer Richard Anthony
Richard Anthony (French singer)
Richard Anthony is a French singer, born 13 January 1938 in Cairo, Egypt, as Ricardo Btesh.-Biography:Richard's father was an industrialist, and his mother was the daughter of an English diplomat...
brought out a single named "Aranjuez Mon Amour", with lyrics by Guy Bontempelli.
Led Zeppelin's keyboardist/bassist John Paul Jones
John Paul Jones
John Paul Jones was a Scottish sailor and the United States' first well-known naval fighter in the American Revolutionary War. Although he made enemies among America's political elites, his actions in British waters during the Revolution earned him an international reputation which persists to...
incorporated parts of the music during an improvisation section of their song "No Quarter
No Quarter
No quarter is when a victor shows no clemency or mercy and refuses to spare the life in return for the unconditional surrender of a vanquished opponent.No quarter may also refer to:*"No Quarter" , a Led Zeppelin song...
" on their 1977 tour.
André Rieu
André Rieu
André Léon Marie Nicolas Rieu is a Dutch violinist, conductor, and composer best known for creating the waltz-playing Johann Strauss Orchestra.- Early life and studies :...
performed the piece accompanied by the church bells of Maastricht
Maastricht
Maastricht is situated on both sides of the Meuse river in the south-eastern part of the Netherlands, on the Belgian border and near the German border...
in a performance available on the DVD Songs From My Heart.
Dalida the Egyptian Italian singer made the Italian version of the song " Aranjuez La Tua Voce "
Rodrigo's title of nobility
On 30 December 1991, Rodrigo was raised to the Spanish nobilitySpanish nobility
Spanish nobles are persons who possess the legal status of hereditary nobility according to the laws and traditions of the Spanish monarchy. A system of titles and honours of Spain and of the former kingdoms that constitute it comprise the Spanish nobility...
by King Juan Carlos I
Juan Carlos I of Spain
Juan Carlos I |Italy]]) is the reigning King of Spain.On 22 November 1975, two days after the death of General Francisco Franco, Juan Carlos was designated king according to the law of succession promulgated by Franco. Spain had no monarch for 38 years in 1969 when Franco named Juan Carlos as the...
with the title of Marqués de los Jardines de Aranjuez
Marqués de los Jardines de Aranjuez
Marqués de los Jardines de Aranjuez is a hereditary title in the Spanish nobility. This marquisate was bestowed by King Juan Carlos on the composer and virtuoso pianist Joaquín Rodrigo on 30 December 1991. His music counts among some of the most popular of the 20th century...
(Marquis
Marquis
Marquis is a French and Scottish title of nobility. The English equivalent is Marquess, while in German, it is Markgraf.It may also refer to:Persons:...
of the Gardens of Aranjuez).
Popularity
The Adagio is likely the most famous, and most recognizable part of the piece, and used in numerous movies, television shows, and commercials. Consequently many people will have heard Concierto de Aranjuez without knowing its title or composer. Many listeners and musicians assume that the piece is much older than it is, which became a problem for Rodrigo, since performers frequently failed to pay him royalties because they assumed the piece was out of copyright.Other sources
- Preface to the Ernst EulenburgErnst Eulenburg (musical editions)Ernst Eulenburg the music publisher was established by Ernst Eulenburg in Leipzig in 1874. The firm started by publishing a series of studies by a Dresden piano teacher, and then expanded into light music and works for men's chorus, at first all non-copyright works.-Origins of the miniature...
edition of the work, EE6785 - Duarte, John W., (1997). Liner notes. Rodrigo Concierto de Aranjuez, etc. CD. EMI Classics 7243 5 56175 2 1.
- Haldeman, Philip. "Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez; Fantasia para un Gentilhombre". American Record Guide. March–April 1998: pp.182–183.
- Wade, Graham (1985). Joaquín Rodrigo and the Concierto de Aranjuez. New York: Mayflower. ISBN 0946896151
External links
- Joaquin Rodrigo website
- Barbara Heninger's program notes
- Press release of SGAE about the preference of the Japanese to the Concierto de Aranjuez (SPANISH)
- History of Aranjuez's concerto
- Commentary on the Third Movement and an Examination of the Meaning of the Concerto – by Robert Antecki
Audio
- Video of Adagio by Xuefei Yang (11.1 MB)
- Listen to the Trio Gitano recording of Adagio
- Concierto de Aranjuez Synthesizer remake by Phonic Hearing