555843 bk Rodrigo US 8/10/06 2:26 PM Page 5 Asturias Symphony Orchestra (OSPA) SPANISH CLASSICS The Orchestra of the Principality of Asturias was established in 1937 and gave its first official performance in 1940 Also available: under the bâton of Amalio López. In 1943 the direction of the orchestra was entrusted to Ángel Muñiz Toca, a musician who played a leading part in musical life in the Asturias and elsewhere over the course of some twenty years. For a time economic circumstances reduced the number of players, to create a chamber orchestra, but by the death of Muñiz Toca it had regained its original size, known in his honour as the Orquesta Sinfónica de Asturias “Ángel Muñiz Toca”. Later conductors included Vicente Santimoteo and Alfonso Ordieres, succeeded in 1974 by Benito Lauret. 1980 opened a new era, with the appointment of Víctor Pablo Pérez, and in 1988 it was decided to RODRIGO enlarge the orchestra, to meet the demands of new repertoire in the 1990s. The Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias made its official début in 1991 under its first Principal Conductor, Jesse Levine, and since 1994 it has been under the direction of the distinguished conductor Maximiano Valdés, winning, with its international complement Complete Orchestral of 69 players, an assured position in collaboration with leading artists both at home and abroad, as well as in the recording studio. Music • 9 8.557801 Maximiano Valdés Concierto serenata The conductor Maximiano Valdés has been closely involved with the musical life of Spain. He served as Principal Conductor of the Euskadi Symphony Orchestra, and for three seasons as Principal Guest Conductor of the Spanish National Orchestra. On various occasions he has conducted at the Liceu in Barcelona as well as the Orchestra of the Sones en la Giralda City of Barcelona, and has also given concerts with the Radio Television Orchestra and the symphony orchestras of Bilbao, Málaga, and Seville, among others. Since July 1994 he has been Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Symphony Orchestra of the Principality of Asturias. Born in Santiago, Chile, of Asturian ancestry, he studied at the Concierto de National Conservatory and subsequently at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome. In Italy he studied composition with Goffredo Petrassi, as well as piano and violin, subsequently studying conducting with Franco Ferrara in Rome and Aranjuez in Venice. In 1976 he was appointed Assistant Conductor at La Fenice in Venice and the following year was invited to Tanglewood, where he worked with Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa. He began his professional career in 1982, 8.557223 after winning important international prizes in the Vittorio Gui Competition in Florence and the Nikolay Malko Competition in Copenhagen, and has gone on to engagements throughout Europe and America, the latter including a Gwyneth Wentink, period of ten years as Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, and a series of guest engagements in leading concert halls and opera houses, in collaboration with artists and orchestras of distinction. Maximiano Valdés has recorded with Harp the Royal Philharmonic, Monte Carlo Philharmonic, Nice Philharmonic and the London Symphony and Simon Bolivar Orchestras, works by Ginastera, Revueltas, Moncayo and Carreño, in addition to his recordings with his orchestra in Asturias of Spanish and Latin American music for Naxos. Asturias Symphony Orchestra (OSPA) Maximiano Valdés 8.555843 5 6 8.555843 555843 bk Rodrigo US 8/10/06 2:26 PM Page 2 Joaquín Rodrigo (1901-1999) composition is inspired by a vision of Spain two virtuosic throughout for the harpist in collaboration with Gwyneth Wentink Concierto serenata • Sones en la Giralda (Fantasía sevillana) • Concierto de Aranjuez centuries or more ago, with references to composers a fiery accompaniment from the orchestra. such as Padre Antonio Soler (1729-1783), the great Concierto de Aranjuez, destined to be the most Gwyneth Wentink was born in 1981 in The Netherlands, Joaquín Rodrigo was born on St Cecilia’s Day, 22nd seek refuge for eighteen months at the Institute for the Catalan master of the harpsichord, and Francisco celebrated guitar work of the twentieth century, takes its the daughter of Hungarian and Dutch musician parents. November, 1901, in Sagunto in the Spanish province of Blind in Freiburg. In 1938 they were able to make a Barbieri (1823-1894), also a conductor and name from the magnificent Aranjuez palace (once a She had her first harp lesson at the age of five. When she Valencia. In 1905 an outbreak of diphtheria impaired brief visit to Spain for a summer school in Santander musicologist. royal summer residence), fifty kilometres south of was eight she played Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and the young boy’s vision and within a few years he lost but, failing to secure appropriate employment, were Concierto serenata begins with Estudiantina Madrid. Since its première by Regino Sáinz de la Maza, Harp with The Netherlands National Youth Orchestra in every vestige of sight. From the age of seven he forced to return once more to Paris. In 1939 Victoria (Allegro ma non troppo) which follows the first its dedicatee, the work has received hundreds of the De Doelen concert hall in Rotterdam, and at the age attended the School for the Blind in the city of Valencia suffered a miscarriage brought on by exhaustion and movement structure of the classical concerto form, but, performances and innumerable recordings, as well as of ten she performed for Queen Beatrix. She has studied where, his musical gifts becoming increasingly poverty. Yet somehow, despite all these tribulations, as Rodrigo informs us, ‘the second theme introduced by being used for a ballet, in films and jazz contexts and at the Utrecht Conservatory with Erika Waardenburg, apparent, he played the violin and piano, the latter being Rodrigo found the strength and will to keep on the orchestra, is almost non-existent’, being a refrain also heard in a variety of popular arrangements. completing her studies Cum Laude. She has participated his favourite. Later he took composition lessons with composing and during this time completed the rather than merely a theme. The work continues as a Rodrigo’s notes for the première envisaged his concerto in master-classes with Maria Graf, Susann McDonald, Francisco Antich Carbonell, the renowned organist and Concierto de Aranjuez, a work which would ensure his kind of march with occasional quotations of familiar as being ideally performed by an ‘imaginary instrument Catherine Michel, Andree Laurens-King and Susanna maestro. Having composed various apprentice pieces, international fame. musical phrases. Intermezzo con aria (Adagio), the which might be said to possess the wings of the harp, the Mildonian. As a soloist with orchestra, Gwyneth Rodrigo was awarded an Honourable Commendation in Rodrigo returned to Spain a few days before the second movement, is an aria in the form of a canon, first heart of the grand piano and the soul of the guitar’. Wentink has performed with I Fiamminghi, the 1925 in a national music competition for his orchestral start of the Second World War and with the help of performed by the harp and then interrupted by an Thus it is not surprising that in 1974 the composer Orquestra Sinfonica Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho in work, Cinco piezas infantiles, first performed by the colleagues, including Manuel de Falla, was soon offered allegretto section, a fugue which permits the aria to presented his friend, Nicanor Zabaleta, with a harp Venezuela, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Nieuw Valencia Symphony Orchestra two years later. posts in broadcasting and the university sufficient to conclude pianissimo after the orchestra has developed transcription of the famous work. Rodrigo commented Sinfonietta at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, with the In the autumn of 1927, the young composer, earn a living. After years of deprivation, the tide began the totality of its expressive emotion.The third that while the guitar ‘has its strings saturated in the roots South-West German Radio Orchestra, and orchestras in following the precedent of so many Spanish musicians, to turn with the première in Barcelona of the Concierto movement, Sarao (‘soirée’) marked Allegro deciso, of the spirit of Spanish music, and this is where the Norway, Romania, Helsinki and New York. She has travelled to Paris to enroll as a student at the Ecole de Aranjuez on 9th November, 1940, followed by takes the form of a rondo, the main theme being classical and flamenco traditions converge’, the harp is given solo harp recitals all over the world, making her Normale de Musique. His teacher, Paul Dukas, one of performances in other Spanish cities. On 27th January, alternated with secondary themes, though the composer also ‘full of the spirit of crystalline brightness London recital début in 1999 at the Wigmore Hall, and the masters of early twentieth-century French music, 1941, the anniversary of Mozart’s birthday, Rodrigo’s considered these to be of equal significance. Rodrigo possessing elements of distant evocations’. her recital début at the Merkin-Hall in New York. With a profoundly influenced Rodrigo, especially in aspects of daughter, Cecilia, was born. also commented how he had ‘attempted to accomplish a Each of the three movements creates impressions of wide array of awards and prizes, including, in The orchestration. In 1928, the French President awarded Though there were to be many setbacks over the very difficult thing - to make the entire work light, clear the glories of eternal Spain, whether past or present. The Netherlands, The Young Music Talent Foundation, Prinses Christina Concours, and abroad the International Manuel de Falla the National Legion of Honour and years, Rodrigo’s reputation as a great Spanish composer and joyful, like the harp’s child-like soul, and in the first movement, a whirl of colour and excitement, leads Nippon Harp Competition in Tokyo, the Torneo Internazionale di Musica in Rome, in 1998 she won the prestigious Rodrigo was invited to perform his piano pieces at the now began to gain global esteem.