Ravinia_2018_Issue_6_Week

the Prelude, Fugue, and Allegro in E- at Major,

, were composed for Sylvius Leopold

Weiss or Johann Krop gans soon therea er. e

writing in both works re ects the more modern

galant style. e Lute Suite, or Partita, in C mi-

nor,

, opens with the customary

Prelu-

dio

, which is then followed by a

Fuga

LUIGI BOCCHERINI (1743–1805)

Guitar Quintet No. in D major, .

(“Fandango”)

, the Italian-born cellist and composer

Luigi Boccherini had settled in Madrid under

the patronage of the Spanish infante Don Luis.

ese years brought professional, nancial,

and personal prosperity. Boccherini married in

and began a family. rough a tragic coin-

cidence, he su ered the death of his wife and

Spanish patron in

. Not long a er, Friedrich

Wilhelm of Prussia, himself a talented cellist,

commissioned Boccherini to supply compo-

sitions to the royal library. A lavish pension

allowed the esteemed musician to live comfort-

ably in Madrid. Friedrich Wilhelm died in

and Boccherini’s whereabouts for the next sev-

eral years remain a mystery. He likely stayed in

Spain without o cial appointment, passing his

nal years in abject poverty.

Boccherini arranged several of the op.

piano

quintets for guitar quintet (guitar plus string

quartet) at the request of François de Borgia,

Marquis of Benavente. Correspondence be-

tween the composer and Ignaz Pleyel, his Pa-

risian publisher, suggested that a collection

of six guitar quintets had been nished before

the end of

and may have been performed

the following year. Literary evidence indicates

that Boccherini composed a total number of

guitar quintets, some surviving and others

lost, according to the guitar editor, scholar, and

publisher Matanya Ophee.

e guitar quintets

contain three or four movements, although the

tempo schemes vary. Boccherini’s Quintet in D

major, .

, is consciously evocative of the

Spanish countryside with its gentle

Pastorale

and

rustic peasant dance (

Allegro maestoso

) from the

String Quintet in D major, .

(op. , no. ),

and the

Fandango

dance with

Grave assai

in-

troduction from the String Quintet in D major,

(op.

, no. ).

ENRIQUE GRANADOS (1867–1916)

Two selections from

Doce danzas españolas

A native son of Catalonia, Enrique Granados

became a leading Spanish musician of his gen-

eration, a pianist and composer whose every

creation radiated with nationalistic brilliance.

He studied at the Barcelona Conservatory un-

der the tutelage of Spain’s preeminent peda-

gogues, including the pianist Joan Baptista Pujol

and composer/musicologist Felipe Pedrell. Like

many talented Spaniards, Granados gravitated

toward Paris in

. Too old for admission to

the city’s conservatory, he studied piano pri-

vately with Charles de Bériot. Two years later,

Granados returned to Barcelona and began his

career as concert artist. He founded the Ac-

ademia Granados in

for the training of

promising pianists.

Granados compiled

danzas españolas

for solo

piano over an eight-year period (

– ).

ese character pieces evoked di erent aspects

of the Spanish musical landscape so vividly that

prominent gures such as Camille Saint-Saëns

and Pablo Casals expressed their admiration.

Although Granados gave only six pieces de-

scriptive titles, the remaining Spanish dances

have acquired uno cial names over the years

indicative of their regional or dance origins.

MANUEL DE FALLA (1876–1946)

Danza del molinero

(Farruca) from

El sombrero de tres picos

e two-act pantomime

El corregidor y la molin-

era

(

e Mayor and the Miller’s Wife

) by Spanish

nationalist composer Manuel de Falla earned

the admiration of Sergei Diaghilev, impresario

of the Ballets Russes.

e pantomime received

its rst performance at the Teatro Eslava in Ma-

drid on April ,

. Joaquín Turina conducted,

and Diaghilev was among the audience.

comic tale, based on a novel by Pedro Antonio

de Alarcón that also inspired Hugo Wolf ’s four-

act opera

Der Corregidor

, centers on the mayor

(

corregidor

) of the Andalusian city of Guodix,

who is infatuated with the beautiful wife of an

ugly miller.

e miller’s wife encourages the

mayor’s seductive advances, hoping to lure him

into an embarrassing trap.

At Diagilev’s request, Falla reshaped his

Corregi-

dor

music into a ballet titled

El sombrero de tres

picos

(

e ree-Cornered Hat

e new name

refers to the three-cornered hat worn by Span-

ish magistrates, a somewhat despised emblem

of their position.

e dance version received

its rst performance in London’s Alhambra

eatre on July ,

. Falla composed a new

introduction so that the audience could admire

Pablo Picasso’s drop curtain. Not long a er, he

extracted two orchestral suites from the ballet,

the rst combining ve sections from Part One

and the second highlighting three major dances

from Part Two, including the

Danza del moline-

(Farruca), or Miller’s Dance.

JOAQUÍN RODRIGO (b. 1901)

Españoleta

from

Fantasía para un

gentilhombre

Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo seemed

destined to become a musician. His birthdate—

November —is the feast day of St. Cecilia, the

patron saint of music. When diphtheria robbed

Rodrigo of his sight at the age of , he focused

even more keenly on the world of sound. Rodri-

go pursued musical studies at the conservatory

in Valencia, then, like many aspiring Spanish

composers, traveled to Paris, enrolling in Paul

Dukas’s classes at the École Normale de Mu-

sique. Paris provided a safe haven for his per-

sonal and professional growth until a er the

Spanish Civil War ( – ).

e overwhelming success of

Concierto de

Luigi Boccherini

Enrique Granados

Joaquín Rodrigo

AUGUST 20 – AUGUST 26, 2018 | RAVINIA MAGAZINE