Ruperto Chapí, biography and works

Posted by Trito on March 10, 2009  |  2 Comments

Alicante 1851 -  Madrid 1909

Ruperto Chapí orn in Villena, Alicante, came from a humble family background. Thanks to the family love of music, which had been passed down through several generations, he began his musical education at a very early age. He began his playing career in his hometown as a band musician and would later go on to the Conservatorio de Madrid. There, Ruperto and his friend Tomás Bretón studied with Arrieta.

His career as a composer was benefited by the award of a first prize for composition in 1872. This success enabled him to take up residence and study for four years in Rome and Paris. Although he was interested in music for the stage from an early age (at the age of twelve he had composed the zarzuela Estrella del Bosque), it was during this time that he managed to establish himself in the lyric-dramatic genre. In this period he composed and premiered his first opera, Abel y Cain, in Madrid, and this was followed by Las naves de Cortés and Vasco Núñez de Balboa. His first piece at the Teatro Real was La hija de Jefté, a work that the composer wrote during his stay abroad and which was premiered when he was only twenty-five years old.

When he returned to Spain he consolidated himself in the zarzuela genre and composed a sizeable number of works of which the majority are included in the standard repertoire of zarzuela companies: La Tempestad, La bruja, El rey que rabió, La zarina, El tambor de granaderos, Las bravías, La revoltosa, Las hijas de Zebedeo, El milagro de la Virgen, El duque de Gandía and Curro Vargas.

A new symphony by Josep Pons (1770-1818)

Posted by Trito on November 11, 2008  |  No Comments

A previously unpublished symphony by Josep Pons (1770-1818) has been included in volume 6 of the Collection “Compositors valencians”, published by Tritó in conjunction with the Generalitat Valenciana. It has been classified as No. 10 so as to respect the numbering of the catalogue initiated years ago by Joám Trillo and José López-Calo.

The task of the publication of this symphony in A major fell to Josep Dolcet, who located the manuscript in the Biblioteca Històrica of Madrid City Council, among the archives that came from the old Teatro de la Cruz.

It was found together with other overtures and symphonies by Pons and by Sor (published and recorded), Pablo del Moral and Francisco Javier Moreno, and also works by Haydn, Pleyel

Chamber music for guitar and violin from the 18th century

Posted by Marcel Soleda on November 7, 2008  |  2 Comments

Volume 7 of the Collection “Compositors valencians” has been released. It is published by Tritó in conjunction with the Generalitat Valenciana and contains the Complete repertoire of chamber music composed by the brothers Antonio and Joaquín Nicolás Ximénez Brufal, in an edition prepared by the Valencian musicologist Miguel Ángel Picó Pascual.

This researcher has reconstructed the lives and historical and family background of these two composers and violinists who practised their profession at the collegiate church of Alicante and in the courts and concert halls of Madrid, London and Paris, like the other musicians in their family.

The edition contains twelve works, with score and parts. The six sonatas for violin and basso continuo by Nicolás Ximénez, composed totally in the Galante and Rococo style typical of the post-Baroque period, were first published in London in 1772.

Reglas de canto plano, de Fernando Esteban

Posted by Marcel Soleda on October 30, 2008  |  No Comments

Internet has facilitated access to the digitalised collections of many archives and libraries around the world. However, there are still many titles, not only in Spain, that are unavailable through the web but which can be obtained in book format.

This is the case of Reglas de canto plano è de contrapunto è de canto de Organo (Rules for plainchant and counterpoint and polyphony) by Fernando Esteban, which, with a first edition dating from 1375, constitutes one of the essential sources of theory for specialists in the reconstruction of theory and thinking behind Spanish music.

Although this facsimile edition with its accompanying typed transcription was published over 30 years ago, today it has special value because it provides specialists with difficultly accessible material of great interest.

The volume begins with a synthetical introductory study by the musicologist Mª Pilar Escudero Garcia. The organisation of the contents (facsimile on even-numbered pages and transcription on the odd numbers) makes reading them easier and allows the reader to contrast the original source with its interpretation.