"The Incredible Life of Joaquín Rodrigo"
By HRJ
Joaquín Rodrigo (1901-1999) composed one of the most fascinating works for guitar and orchestra in history: the Concierto de Aranjuezwhich will be performed during our Summer Season 2022 under the direction of Carlos Miguel Prieto and the soloist participation of guitarist Pablo Sainz Villegas.
We take this opportunity to offer you an essay that revolves around several enigmas about the music and life of Joaquín Rodrigo:
At what age did he lose his sight? How was his love story with Victoria Kamhi? Why did he sue Miles Davis? Is it true that he almost died in the 1981 earthquake in Mexico City? What is there to know about his beautiful Concierto de Aranjuez?
"What was Joaquín Rodrigo's childhood like?"
Joaquín Rodrigo went blind at the age of three due to a poorly treated diphtheria. Listening to clocks was a childhood fascination, although he became obsessed by the sound of the organ ("no musical instrument invented by man can reflect, neither near nor far, like the organ the yearning for infinity, the constant pang of escaping beyond time and age," he would later declare). He was a smiling child who dreamed of driving a streetcar. He liked to write lists. For example, he wrote one about things he was afraid of: "thieves, ghosts and big animals".
"What was Joaquín Rodrigo's life like in France?"
Joaquín Rodrigo arrived in Paris in 1926 (he was 25 years old) accompanied by a guide: Rafael Ibañez, a boy who guided him through the streets and theaters. In France, Spanish composers were well regarded thanks to Albéniz, Turina, Granados and Falla.
Paul Dukas, the leading Parisian authority on composition, listened to Joaquín Rodrigo's music and appreciated his courage in the use of dissonance. He especially liked the Preludio del gallo mañanero (Prelude to the morning rooster) (1926) for piano, in which each hand plays in a different key (the right, in white keys, is the rooster; the left, in black keys, the hen).
"What was the story behind the romance between Joaquín Rodrigo and pianist Victoria Kamhi?"
The Prelude to the morning cockerel (1926) also interested the Turkish pianist Victoria Kamhi. Joaquín Rodrigo fell in love with her ("spring has crystallized, it has been symbolized in a sweet girl who, to finish off her miseries, adores music and the careless wandering along the flowery paths, her hair and thoughts in the wind"). Victoria was also interested in Joaquín Rodrigo and they started dating. But then she had doubts about having a blind boyfriend ("the boy who had filled my thoughts for so many months could not see me!)
Heartbroken, Joaquín Rodrigo wrote the Siciliana for cello and piano (1929). (After a stormy exchange of letters, they eventually married (January 19, 1933) and settled in Valencia. They did not have much money. They adopted a little bird, which they named Petrouchka, after Stravinski's ballet. She gets tired of having little money ("Don't think I don't need you, but look, if it's to suffer like last year, I'd rather be far away from you"). He composes her the dramatic Canticle to the wife with a text by St. John of the Cross.
They reconciled and in 1940 they settled permanently in Villalar Street, very close to the Puerta de Alcalá. There Joaquín Rodrigo composed Aranjuez (concerto for guitar and orchestra) as a suggestion of past times (birds, attitudes, sounds, faces, trees, perspectives). Victoria became pregnant and gave birth to a girl, who was baptized Cecilia Amadea because she was born on the same day as Mozart: January 27th.
Joaquín Rodrigo asked, "How are your eyes?" and the nurse replied, "Blue, beautiful!".
"What should I know about Joaquín Rodrigo's 'Concierto de Aranjuez'?"
In this regard, Juan Arturo Brennan comments:
"Aranjuez is a city located about forty kilometers south of Madrid, in the fertile valley formed by the confluence of the Tagus and Jarama rivers. Relatively new, the city was built in the mid-eighteenth century, and boasts several royal residences. Among them, the Palace, which houses innumerable treasures, and the Casita del Labrador, built by Charles IV, who abdicated the throne in 1808, precisely in Aranjuez. Asparagus and strawberries, canned food, thoroughbred horses, chemical, metallic and textile products make up the modern dynamics of Aranjuez. But it was not these elements, but its parks, fountains and gardens, that inspired Rodrigo to compose his concerto. Parks, fountains and gardens that existed only in his imagination, and that the composer never saw: the blindness he suffered from the age of three prevented him from knowing them fully.
Thus, through evocation of non-sensory origin, Joaquín Rodrigo achieved in this concert the most Spanish of Spanish music, a tonal painting of rare beauty and balance. The Concierto de Aranjuez was premiered in Barcelona on November 9, 1940 by guitarist Regino Sainz de la Maza (who had commissioned Rodrigo to write it) and immediately became very popular. Years later, Rodrigo himself made a version of the work for harp and orchestra, dedicating it to Nicanor Zabaleta, the great Spanish harpist".
"I write my music by means of a little machine in Braille system. The keys bring into play a stylus that leaves on a thick paper, the so-called grain paper, some highlights that have a precise value for reading. Each key marks a letter in relief, and each letter corresponds to a musical note (...) it is written quite quickly, perhaps as fast as if it were written with a pen on ordinary ruled paper, as those who have eyes and see with them do. The bad thing is the transcription, because it is really painful. Once I have written what I have composed with my little machine, I have to translate it and dictate it to a copyist and that takes time and consumes energy...".
Fragment of an interview given by Joaquín Rodrigo on April 24, 1956 to the newspaper Informaciones.
"Who will be the guitarist for *The Concierto de Aranjuez* with the Minería Symphony Orchestra?"
Spanish guitarist Pablo Sáinz Villegas, who has been a soloist with the world's leading orchestras (New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony, Boston Symphony and Danish National Symphony) under the baton of conductors such as Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Carlos Kalmar, Juanjo Mena and Alondra de la Parra, with whom he recorded the Concierto del sur by Manuel M. Ponce on the album Mi alma mexicana (2010; Sony Classical). Ponce in the album Mi alma mexicana (2010; Sony Classical).
He has been awarded more than 30 international prizes, including the Andrés Segovia and the Ojo Crítico prize, awarded by Radio Nacional de España. His engagements for the rest of the year include performances with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Orchestre National de Lyon, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Seville Symphony, and recitals at the Aspen Festival and the Kennedy Center in Washington.
Plácido Domingo defined him as "the master of the Spanish guitar". In the 2020-2021 season he will perform Joaquín Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kirill Petrenko.
He is the founder of the project "The Legacy of Music Without Borders", which aims to bring music to children and young people living in marginalized communities.
"What was the nature of the conflict between Joaquín Rodrigo and Miles Davis?"
Around 1960 Joaquín Rodrigo was furious with Miles Davis for having made a jazz version of the Concierto de Aranjuez. He sued him in every court in the world and lost every trial except in France, where he succeeded in banning the Miles Davis record from being sold for a few months.
"What were the last few years of Joaquín Rodrigo's life like?"
At the age of 70, Joaquín Rodrigo travels to Hollywood for a performance of his Madrigal Concerto (1966) for two guitars and orchestra; then to Houston at the invitation of NASA (the astronauts who landed on the Moon carried the Concierto de Aranjuez in their spacecraft and in gratitude he composes for them the symphonic poem In Search of the Beyond).
He visited Mexico with his wife (March 1981) at the invitation of Rodolfo Halffter (president of the Mexican Composers' Association) to attend the premiere of Una fantasíaa work Rodrigo wrote for cellist Carlos Prieto. They have dinner with President López Portillo. They stay at the Sheraton María Isabel Hotel. 17th floor.
One night they hear creaking and heavy things falling. From the upstairs window Victoria sees thick black smoke and fire coming out. Two waitresses help them escape. Against all the rules, they take the elevator. They go out to Reforma. Joaquín is in his underwear and silk robe. Three people suffocate to death. They lose letters, rings, ties, dresses, chains, photos, diplomas, flowers and a basket of tropical fruit. The passports and silver they bought in Taxco remain intact. Victoria is awarded the Gold Medal of Mexico City for her "courage and serenity in the face of danger".
Joaquín composes two concerts (1982): For a party for guitar and orchestra; As a divertimento for cellist Julian Lloyd Weber. They are invited to Israel and decline. Joaquin is too tired.
They celebrate their golden wedding anniversary. Victoria definitively interrupts the writing of her memoirs.
Joaquín no longer sleeps. His manic-depressive attacks intensify. He stops answering people whose voice he doesn't know. He is overwhelmed by the idea of having no identity. In a panic, he wonders aloud, "Who am I? Playing the piano calms him down. The Joaquín Rodrigo Festival in London (1986) revives him: two weeks of concerts dedicated solely to his music. His daughter Cecilia Amadea leaves Brussels. She settles in Madrid to take care of him.
Turns 90 (1991). He has a great-grandson. Sits him on his knee every morning. King Juan Carlos names him Marquis of the Gardens of Aranjuez. He is awarded the Prince of Asturias (1996) for dignifying the guitar as a concert instrument.
Victoria dies at 95 (July 21, 1997). Rodrigo is kept in the dark about her death. He asks "What about Victoria? At night he shouts for her. Little by little he stops insisting and dies on July 6, 1999 after two years of not hearing his wife's voice.
His epitaph reads: "My glass is small but I drink from my glass".
He even wrote a zarzuela: El hijo fingido (1964), based on two comedies by Lope de Vega (De cuando acá nos vino! y Los ramilletes de Madrid), whose overture contains all the airs that will set the mood of the opera: flowers (the winds take the leaves off), war (trumpets in fanfare; drums beating); madrileñas (flirtatious: the violins reveal it), revelry (at times all the instruments adopt popular lines and shout "dance!"), and a love that first goes wrong (the cello represents Angela's suffering) and then comes true (a wedding march so exalted that it borders on the scandalous).
