Joaquín Rodrigo

Rodrigo was born in Sagunto in 1901 and lost his sight completely at the age of three after diphtheria. He studied in Paris under Paul Dukas at the École Normale de Musique. From 1947 he was a professor of music history in Madrid, holding the Manuel de Falla Chair of Music at the Complutense University. He is best known for his guitar music, and it is said that he raised the Spanish guitar to the dignity of a universal concert instrument.

The Concierto de Aranjuez was written in Paris in 1939 for the guitarist Regino Sainz de la Maza and first played at the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona on 9 November 1940. Gramophone calls its aesthetic neoclassical and nationalist, and its title refers to the gardens of the Royal Palace of Aranjuez. The first movement, Allegro con spirito, and the last, Allegro gentile, are in D major; the middle Adagio is in B minor. The first movement has a flamenco-like hemiola rhythm, in which groups of two and three beats alternate, and Rodrigo said that neither of its two themes interrupts its relentless pace. In the Adagio the cor anglais sings the slow melody over guitar and strings, and the guitar answers it, including in two cadenzas. The finale recalls a courtly dance and combines double and triple time. The Adagio was popularly linked to the bombing of Guernica, but Rodrigo's wife later said it reflected their honeymoon happiness and his grief over a miscarriage.