Today in 1901 was the birthday of Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo. Apparently he was a pianist, but the only music I've heard of his is written for the guitar. His most famous work is the Concierto de Aranjuez, for solo guitar and orchestra. I've never purchased a recording of it, yet I think I've heard it about 10 or 15 times on the radio alone. My brother also got a copy of the sheet music and we've played through a lot of it (me playing the orchestra part on the piano), but it is so incredibly difficult, we kind of fizzled out before getting too far. Listen to excerpts from movements 1, 2, and 3, taken from here. It's a superb piece of music in many ways. Hummable melodies, striking harmonies, catchy rhythms, impressively difficult guitar passages... and the list goes on. Probably the best classical guitar concerto ever written (although I don't know many).
Apparently Rodrigo was blind since the age of 3. Pretty amazing to be such an accomplished composer and musician in spite of not having vision. Though I suppose being deaf from the age of the 3 would probably be worse. He lived to a ripe old age of 97, leaving this world just 8 years ago.
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1 comment:
Good post.
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