Joaquín Rodrigo (1901-1999)
Retablo de Navidad (Christmas Carols and Songs)
Himnos de los neófitos de Qumrán (Hymns of the Neophytes of
Qumran)
Música para un códice salmantino (Music for a Salamancan
Codex)
Cántico de San Francisco de Asís (Canticle of Saint Francis
of Assisi)
Joaquín Rodrigo was born on 22nd November 1901 in Sagunto,
in the Spanish province of Valencia; he was the son of a businessman and the
youngest of ten children. A bout of diptheria left him blind from the age of
three, but as a result of this misfortune he developed a strong internal world
and ultimately decided to dedicate himself to music. In 1906 the family moved
to the city of Valencia, where Joaquín attended the local school for the blind.
There he received his first music lessons and, on hearing Verdi’s Rigoletto,
became convinced that his vocation was to be a composer. Between 1917 and 1922
he studied composition privately with Francisco Antich, a professor at the
Valencia Conservatory. His earliest compositions date from 1922 and an
orchestral work, Juglares, was first performed two years later. By then Rodrigo
had come into contact with the new wave of avant-garde composers active in
Madrid at the time, but in 1927 he decided to move to Paris, where he studied
under Dukas. He married the Turkish pianist Victoria Kamhi in 1933 — they were
separated briefly before being reunited in Paris in 1935, Rodrigo having
expressed his yearning for his wife in his Cántico de la esposa. The Concierto
de Aranjuez, the work that established his reputation as a composer, was first
performed by the guitarist Regino Sainz de la Maza after the end of the Spanish
Civil War. There followed the Concierto heroico for piano (1943), the Concierto
de estío for violin (1944), Ausencias de Dulcinea for bass, four sopranos and orchestra
(1948) and the Concerto in modo galante for cello (1949): the central works of
his catalogue. During the Franco régime, Rodrigo’s works were the sole
representatives of Spanish music abroad, at least until the appearance on the
scene of the innovation of the Generation of ’51, and his international renown
reached its height in 1958 with the première in San Francisco of Fantasía para
un gentilhombre. The guitarist Andrés Segovia, the work’s dedicatee, was the
soloist. The 1950s also saw the composition of two stage works: the ballet
Pavana real (1955), on the life of the sixteenth-century Valencian composer
Luis de Milán, and the zarzuela El hijo fingido (1955–60, after Lope de Vega).
The latter was first staged in 1964 but was then neglected until 2001 when it
was revived as part of the composer’s centenary celebrations with a production
at Madrid’s Teatro de la Zarzuela. Rodrigo was also awarded an honorary
doctorate by the University of Salamanca in 1964, a significant recognition on
the part of the academic world of his creative efforts. In subsequent years the
rise of a new generation of Spanish composers meant he was no longer in the
limelight. Ironically enough, some of his more important commissions came from
outside Spain, such as that for the symphonic poem A la busca del más allá
(1976), which came from the Houston Symphony for the bicentennial celebrations
in the United States. The flautist James Galway then commissioned a piece for
his instrument, the Concierto pastoral (1978), another in Rodrigo’s famous
series of concertos, one of which, the Concierto para una fiesta of 1982, would
be his final composition, before his death some years later on 6th July 1999 at
the age of 97.
The Retablo de Navidad dates from 1952 and is made up of two
groups of songs: the Tres villancicos, for soprano and orchestra, and the Cinco
canciones de Navidad, for soprano, bass, mixed chorus and orchestra. Rodrigo
also adapted the work into versions for voice and piano and for voice and
guitar. Most of the texts are by Victoria Kamhi, with two by Lope de Vega and
two by anonymous writers. These very simple songs clearly have their roots in
folklore, as illustrated by the changing rhythm of Pastorcito santo, in which
the repetition of the refrain adds to the desired atmosphere. This song has
frequently been performed with great depth of feeling by Victoria de los
Ángeles. Kamhi’s best lyric is probably Coplillas de Belén and Rodrigo’s
setting is very traditional in style. La espera, dedicated to Montserrat
Caballé, is the penultimate song of the Canciones de Navidad, and despite its
delicacy has a genuine sense of drama.
The Himno de los neófitos de Qumrán was first performed in
Cuenca in 1965 as part of the Religious Music celebrations during Holy Week,
under the baton of Odón Alonso. Its text is an adaptation by Victoria Kamhi of
an extract from the Dead Sea scrolls, discovered in 1947. Here Rodrigo
interprets the cosmic yearning of the words through music rich in allegorical
content, as can be seen in the nine-note scale, with occasional glimpses of
tonality, and in the writing for three sopranos to symbolize the three
archangels. The orchestral forces are reduced to a minimum, with no violins. In
1975, again within the context of Cuenca’s Holy Week celebrations and conducted
by Odón Alonso, two further Himnos were given their première, establishing the
definitive version of this work. The two later pieces are similar in character
to the first, although in the last, more dramatic hymn, the male chorus takes
on a leading rôle.
In 1953 Rodrigo was commissioned by the University of
Salamanca to compose a work to commemorate its seventh centenary. This was to
be the Música para un códice salmantino, a cantata for bass, mixed chorus and
eleven instruments setting the Oda a Salamanca by Miguel de Unamuno, who had
been rector of the University. In its pared-down expressiveness, the cantata
harks back to the Castilian Renaissance. Its première took place at the
University on 12th October 1953, conducted by Odón Alonso and with Joaquín Deus
as soloist.
The Cántico de San Francisco de Asís, for chorus and
orchestra, was written in 1982 to mark the 800th anniversary of the birth of
the saint. A relatively long work, and one of Rodrigo’s last, its text is based
on one of the last poems written by Saint Francis, and despite an undeniable
simplicity of style, the music has considerable depth. For this reason, as the
critic Enrique Franco has noted, the work falls into the tradition of so-called
Spanish musical mysticism, as defined by Henri Collet. It was first given in
London by Raymond Calcraft, its dedicatee, on 15th March 1986.
Enrique Martínez Miura
Translated by Susannah Howe
