CLASSICAL MUSIC - RODRIGO: CONCIERTO DE ARANJUEZ

The internationally-acclaimed Cuban guitarist Manuel Barrueco was recorded live at the Philharmonie concert hall at the Gasteig-Kulturzentrum in Munich, giving a concert which featured a performance of Joaquín Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez with the Munich Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jean-Pierre Wallez. As an encore, Barrueco peforms Albéniz's Asturias.

In addition to his inspired interpretation of this famous piece, which people the world over regard as expressing the heart and soul of Spain, the programme also includes solo performances by Barrueco of Fernando Sor's Introduction and Variations on a Theme by Mozart Op.9, seven of Chick Corea's Children's Songs and Rodrigo's popular Invocation et Danse, a homage to Manuel de Falla.

Manuel Barrueco began playing the guitar at the age of eight, and he attended the Esteban Salas Conservatory in his native Santiago de Cuba. He emigrated with his family to the United States in 1967, later completing his advanced studies at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, where he was granted a scholarship. At the age of 22 he became the first classical guitarist to receive the Concert Artist Guild Award in 1974, attesting to the fact that before him, guitar music hadn't been universally accepted in classical music.

Barrueco's commitment to contemporary music and to the expansion of the guitar repertoire has led him to collaborations with distinguished composers such as Toru Takemitsu, Steven Stucky, and Michael Daugherty.

Joaquín Rodrigo Vidre, Marqués de los Jardines de Aranjuez, (Sagunto (Spain) 22 November 1901 – Madrid (Spain) 6 July 1999), was a composer of classical music and a virtuoso pianist. Despite being nearly blind from an early age, he achieved great success. Rodrigo's music counts among some of the most popular of the 20th century, particularly his Concierto de Aranjuez, considered one of the pinnacles of the Spanish music and guitar concerto repertoire.

He was born in Sagunto, Valencia, and almost completely lost his sight at the age of three after contracting diphtheria. He began to study solfège, piano and violin at the age of eight; harmony and composition from the age of sixteen. Although distinguished by having raised the Spanish guitar to dignity as a universal concert instrument and best known for his guitar music, he never mastered the instrument himself. He wrote his compositions in braille, which was transcribed for publication.

Rodrigo studied music under Francisco Antich in Valencia and under Paul Dukas at the École Normale de Musique in Paris. After briefly returning to Spain, he went to Paris again to study musicology, first under Maurice Emmanuel and then under André Pirro. His first published compositions date from 1940. In 1943 he received Spain's National Prize for Orchestra for Cinco piezas infantiles ("Five Children's Pieces"), based on his earlier composition of the same piece for two pianos, and premiered by Ricardo Viñes. From 1947 Rodrigo was a professor of music history, holding the Manuel de Falla Chair of Music in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, at Complutense University of Madrid.

His most famous work, Concierto de Aranjuez, was composed in 1939 in Paris, and in later life he and his wife declared that it was written as a response to the miscarriage of their first child. It is a concerto for guitar and orchestra. The central adagio movement is one of the most recognizable in 20th century classical music, featuring the interplay of guitar with English horn. This movement was later adapted by jazz trumpeter Miles Davis for his 1960 album Sketches of Spain. The Concerto was adapted by the composer himself for Harp and Orchestra and dedicated to Nicanor Zabaleta.

In 1991, Rodrigo was raised to the nobility by King Juan Carlos; he was given the title Marqués de los Jardines de Aranjuez He received the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award—Spain's highest civilian honor—in 1996. He was named Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in 1998. Rodrigo died in 1999 in Madrid at the age of 97.