Composed 1954; 23 minutes
Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo’s music travels well beyond the Aranjuez of his earliest concerto, the Concierto de Aranjuez of 1939. His long journey (he was 98 when he died) took him through 170 compositions in many genres, 11 of which are concertos. After writing his earliest concerto for Segovia in 1939, Rodrigo wrote concertos for piano, violin, cello and harp before again turning to guitar. The new concerto again came at the request of Segovia and the two spent time during the summer of 1951 “exchanging ideas.” The Fantasía para un gentilhombre was premièred in 1958 by the dedicatee and San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.
Like Albéniz, Falla and Turina before him, the young Rodrigo had traveled North when studying, to the French capital where he became a favorite pupil of Paul Dukas. Paris had the effect of making them all committed nationalists. Rodrigo confirmed the trend when he said, "I became even more Spanish than I was before." Still, such typically French characteristics as clarity of texture and form recur in his music, often combined with the piquancy of Spanish dance rhythms. Blind since the age of three, Rodrigo composed using braille and the assistance of Victoria Kamhi, his pianist-wife of many years. He wrote and lectured widely in addition to holding the Manuel de Falla Chair of Music at Complutense University, Madrid and working at Spanish Radio.
Rodrigo’s Spanish roots run deep. Fantasía para un gentilhombre (Fantasia for a Gentleman) draws on six dances by the 17th century Spanish baroque guitarist, Gaspar Sanz, themselves based on even older, traditional melodies. Rodrigo remains faithful to the spirit of the originals – or ‘neocasticista’, (“faithful to a tradition”), to use the composer’s description of the process – while adding color and spice to the harmonies and a twist to the melodic line. In the first movement, a graceful villano dance is followed by a contrapuntal ricercar. In the second, the longest movement of the concerto, a darkly evocative Españoleta frames a more active fanfare, titled ‘Fanfare for the Cavalry of Naples,’ and employing the wooden part of the bow of the string instruments adds to the military atmosphere. The short and lively Danza de las hachas (Hatchet Dance) leads to the final movement, Canario, based on an exuberant traditional folk dance from the Canary Islands reworked initially by Sanz and then by Rodrigo.