Turina, Joaquin

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Turina, Joaquin

La Procession du Rocio for orchestra

SKU: 4297 Category:

20,00 

Joaquín Turina – La procesión del Rocío Preface

9. Dezember 1882 in Sevilla; † 14. Januar 1949 in Madrid

Compared by Claude Debussy to “a luminous fresco”, Joaquín Turina’s La procesión del Rocío is not just a delightful and vibrant short symphonic poem, but also one of the first international successes of Spanish music in the modern era. It is also a reminder that such successes were often surrounded by complex discussions and debates, inside and outside Spain, about how Spanish composers should express their identity in their music in a way that Spaniards could identify as authentic, while at the same time being appealing to international audiences.

Such debates were at its peak when twenty-two year old Turina moved to Madrid from his natal Seville in 1902 to pursue his ambition of becoming a pianist and composer. (He had previously started medicine studies that he never completed in his native town). In Madrid, Turina’s teachers soon advised him to continue his stud- ies in Paris. Indeed, in these days budding Spanish composers had very few professional opportunities other than writing zarzuela (Spanish-language light opera) – at the turn of the century an enormously popular and lucrative genre, which, however, was lacking the prestige and social appreciation that composers attributed to opera and symphonic and chamber music. Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, and following nationalist schools of music elsewhere in the world, Spanish composers had repeatedly attempted to create an operatic and symphonic repertoire that not only reflected what they saw as their national identity, but that could also speak to international audiences with the same success as others. Many of these attempts failed: although several Spanish-language operas were written (Turina himself completed one during his time in Madrid), those which managed to be premiered were only given a short performance run and were rarely performed again, so that a repertoire was never really established. Symphony and chamber concerts, on the other hand, remained the province of a cultivated minority throughout the nineteenth century. By the time Turina travelled to Paris, however, a ray of hope had appeared in form of two Catalan composer-pianists, Enrique Granados and Isaac Albéniz. Granados and Albéniz had gained international success since the 1880s mostly with their piano music, in which they put in practice the teachings of composer and musicologist Felipe Pedrell, who claimed that the new Spanish school of music should be founded on the detailed study of Spanish traditional and early music. …

 

Read full English and German preface > HERE

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