Joaquin Rodrigo
Fantasia para un gentilhombre
The music of Joaquin Rodrigo is steeped in the music and culture of his native Spain, including Baroque music of the early Spanish church as well as folk melodies and traditional Spanish folk instruments, especially the guitar. Born in Sagunto, Valencia, in 1901, Rodrigo was blinded at the age of three by diphtheria, which he said turned him early to a life of music. After winning early honors at the Conservatoire in Valencia, he studied in Paris with Paul Dukas at the École Normale de Musique, adding French influences to his style. He spent the Spanish Civil War exiled in Paris, but returned to Spain in 1939 and became the leading composer of his country. He is best known for his concerti, especially the haunting Concierto de Aranjuéz for guitar.
The Fantasia para un gentilhombre (Fantasia for a Gentleman) was written in 1954 for Andrés Segovia, the “gentleman” of the title. The thematic elements are based on short works by a 17th-century Spanish baroque guitarist, Gaspar Sanz, who wrote the first Instruction Book of Music for Spanish Guitar in 1674. The melodies compiled by Sanz were based on still older, traditional dance tunes. Rodrigo expanded on these short melodies, in some cases completing themes from the older composer’s original sketches, and said he orchestrated the work to produce a sound in the “manner of strong spices that were so popular in the victuals of the period.” Segovia premiered the work in 1958 with the San Francisco Symphony.
In the late 1970s, flutist James Galway asked Rodrigo for permission to arrange the Fantasia for flute. Rodrigo readily agreed, and also checked the score and attended the recording sessions in 1978, marking suggestions for changes. It is Galway’s arrangement that is performed here today.
The first movement, Villano y Ricercare, opens with the villano, a 17th-century dance with song popular in both Spain and Italy. The violins state the main theme and the flute elaborates, then the soloist leads the fugue of the ricare, while various sections of the ensemble follow. Throughout the interweaving of the fugal theme, the orchestration never overwhelms the flute–something we can attribute directly to Rodrigo, who was scoring for the equally delicate sound of guitar.
Españoleta y Fanfare de la Caballería de Nápoles combines the slow, lilting dance of the españoleta with a fanfare for, as the title states, the cavalry of Naples, which was under Spanish rule in Sanz’s time. The brisk fanfare includes a col legno section for the strings, where the players use the wooden side of the bow against the string.
The fast, rhythmic Danza de las Hachas is a “hatchet dance” meant to be performed with torches. Soloist and orchestra trade roles, each accompanying and then leading the dance.
The lively Canario is a folk dance from the Canary Islands in 6/8 time, in which orchestra and soloist compete in brilliant figures that grow in intensity until the flute breaks free in a virtuosic cadenza.