The Dutch Harp Festival in 2012 will welcome a whole array of different performances, but the programming will be particularly themed around three composers: Marius Flothuis, Claude Debussy and Joaquín Rodrigo. A work by each of these composers in turn will be featured in the three stages of the harp competition. As the week progresses, the events of the festival surrounding the competition will pay homage to each composer. In preparation for all of this, I thought it would be a good idea to already start thinking about who these people were and what their significance is to us now. This month features a special article on our blog about Joaquín Rodrigo, whose masterwork Concierto de Aranjuez will be celebrated in the grand finale of the competition.
Joaquín Rodrigo is a well-known composer – not just within the harp world – and is particularly appreciated in the Netherlands. I’ve known about Rodrigo since I was a kid. I had a recording of his Concierto Serenata for harp that I sometimes would listen to as I was going to bed, and I remember there was one part in the first movement that I loved so much I would rewind the disc and listen to it over and over. As I became more serious about harp, I knew that there were three concertos for harp by Rodrigo – the two previously mentioned and also Sones en la Giralda. I could have told you he was Spanish too, but that was about the extent of my knowledge. For example, I didn’t know until just recently that he was blind from the age of 3! That year, there was an epidemic of Diphtheria in his home town, and he was one of the few children lucky enough to survive. It is amazing to think that he did all his composing without being able to see. In fact, he attributes his decision to pursue music to his blindness, since the condition made him more attuned to his inner world. As I explore, I appreciate more and more what an admirable man he was, and I learn how much more of his music there is to discover.
Joaquín Rodrigo lived to be nearly 100 years old; from 1901 to 1999, his lifetime spanned quite literally the entire 20th century. A prolific composer, he produced 170 works of different instrumentations and genres. He played the piano, but he also composed extensively for the guitar, one of the most prominent instruments in the Spanish musical tradition. His music is said to capture the eternal essence of Spain, and he did this with unshakable authenticity. Despite the radical musical trends witnessed in the course of the 20th century, which attempted to break from the past – serialism, electronic music, etc. – and despite the pressure by leading composers and musicologists to push far beyond the limits of what audiences actually wanted to hear, Rodrigo was more interested in serving as a continuation of his country’s tradition. His own voice remained unaffected by criticisms, in response to which he is quoted as having said, “My cup may be small, but I drink from my own cup.” Judging by the impressive list of honors bestowed on him, such as the title of “Marqués de los jardines de Aranjuez” and the Prince of Asturias Prize, this approach did not fail to earn respect. He is now regarded as one of the most significant composers of Spanish music in the 20th century. Aside from the works we are familiar with as harpists, you may also want to discover some of his other gems: Soleriana Suite, 5 piezas infantiles and Sonata a la española.
His Concierto de Aranjuez was composed originally for guitar in 1939. It takes its name from the magnificent palace and gardens of Aranjuez – a small town fifty kilometers south of Madrid – once the spring resort of the Spanish royalty. The idea to write the concerto was conceived the summer before, over lunch with guitarist Regino Sainz de la Maza, who also gave its premier performance in Madrid. Rodrigo was living in Paris at the time. Following in the footsteps of his compatriots, de Falla, Albéniz and Turina, he had made the pilgrimage to this thriving cultural heart of Europe in 1927, where he studied at the École Normale de Musique with Paul Dukas. It was also in Paris that he met his wife, Victoria Kamhi, a pianist from Turkey, who would give up her aspiration of a performance career to devote herself entirely to him. She became his eyes; she would read to him and describe their visual landscape to him in colorful detail. The couple encountered serious financial hardships while abroad, during the Spanish Civil War, when Rodrigo lost the scholarship that he had been depending on. During this time, and just as he was composing the Concierto de Aranjuez, Victoria became pregnant with their first child, but suffered a miscarriage. The sadness and anger at the loss of his child and a hint of fear at possibly losing his wife can be heard in the soulful and reflective second movement. It is this movement that has inspired numerous arrangements and creative interpretations by leaders of popular culture: jazz trumpeter Miles Davis and Gil Evans in the album “Sketches of Spain”, pianist Chick Corea in “Spain”, and more recently Jim Hall and Carlos Santana. The version for harp, however, was done by the composer himself, at the request of harpist Nicanor Zabaleta, in 1974. It could even be said that the Concierto de Aranjuez was meant to one day find its expression through the harp, because in the program notes of the concerto’s premier, Rodrigo wrote that he envisioned the piece for an “imaginary instrument which might be said to possess the wings of the harp, the heart of the grand piano and the soul of the guitar.”
In my research on Joaquín Rodrigo, I uncovered many beautifully-written and informative sources. Far from being a comprehensive study, this brief article is meant only to inspire your interest, providing just a hint of what information is out there. For further exploration into the life of Joaquin Rodrigo, the best place to start is the official website of the Ediciones Joaquín Rodrigo and the Victoria and Joaquín Rodrigo Foundation. A beautiful tribute to Joaquín Rodrigo, written by Pablo Zinger, appeared in the Arts section of the New York Times at the time of the composer’s death, in 1999: “A Composer Who Found Strength in an Inner Vision.” You may also want to check out the documentary “Shadows and Light; Joaquín Rodrigo at 90”, directed by Larry Weinstein and produced by Rhomus Media. There are also several significant books which may be of interest. His wife, Victoria Kamhi, wrote an autobiography entitled “Hand in Hand With Joaquín Rodrigo; My Life at the Maestro’s Side”. Guitarist Graham Wade is one of the leading authorities on Rodrigo and has published several books, including “Joaquín Rodrigo – A Life in Music: Traveling to Aranjuez (1901-1939)”. Both of these books and others can be found in the online shop of the Ediciones Joaquín Rodrigo.
From what I found, there are two major recordings of the Concierto de Aranjuez in its version for harp and orchestra:
“Rodrigo: Complete Orchestral Music, Vol. 9”, Naxos, 2002. Gwyneth Wentink and the Asturias Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Maximiano Valdes.“Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez”, Naïve. Isabelle Moretti and the Royal Seville Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Edmon Colomer.
There is also a very interesting version of the piece for harp and organ:
“Harp and Organ Recital”, K and K Verlagsanstalt, 2007. Olja Kaiser, harp, with Ulrike Northoff, organ.
In the tribute article cited above, Pablo Zinger wrote of the Concierto de Aranjuez: “The work’s formidable commercial success does not in any case detract from its beauty, fine craftsmanship, superb melodies and wise instrumentation, which made it a perfect vehicle for the guitar at a time when that instrument was not considered a worthy classical vehicle.” It could be said that the concerto’s transcription for harp, alongside Rodrigo’s other works for harp, does a similar service for our instrument. Since the underlying mission of the Dutch Harp Festival is to promote the harp as an instrument worthy of respect, granting Joaquín Rodrigo this place of honor on next year’s programme seemed a natural choice.