94973
TURINA Complete Guitar Music
Jan Depreter guitar
Joaquín Turina Pérez was born in Seville on December 9th, 1882, into a middle-class family. His father, Joaquín, from Italian descent, was born in Seville in 1847, was a painter trained at the Escuela Provincial de Bellas Artes (Provincial School of Fine Arts) and was a distinguished member of the Escuela sevillana. His mother, Concepción, was born in a small town near Seville. When he was four years-old he gained the reputation of being a child prodigy because of his improvised playing of an accordion that was given to him by a housemaid. He got his first music lesson at the Santo Ángel School and also accompanied the girls’ choir at that same school. He studied high school at San Ramón School and began his piano lessons with Enrique Rodríguez. In 1894 he started to study harmony and counterpoint with Evaristo García Torres, who Turina always remembered with much affection and admiration. Success first came to him as a performer and a composer with a piano quintet he established with friends and which was named La Orquestina, who performed at parties and gatherings. He also played four-hand piano with his teachers. His official presentation to the public was on March 14th, 1897, at the Piazza de Sevilla, playing in a recital organized by the Sociedad de Cuartetos (Quartet Society), where he interpreted on the piano, Fantasia on Rossini´s ‘‘Moses’’ ,by Segismond Thalberg. The reviews by the local news stood out his success and the ability to overcome the difficulties of the piece. Ten months later he played again successfully, for both the critics and the public, on the same place and it is when he began to explore the composition of the keys or chamber ensembles. His first orchestral piece was Coplas al Señor de la Pasión (Folk Songs for the Passion of the Lord), written for the Hermandad de Pasión (Passion Brotherhood) and premiering at the Church of El Salvador with a small orchestra composed of twenty musicians, a men´s choir, a tenor and a baritone, all of them directed by the author. His desire to create a more important piece took him towards writing an opera when he was only fifteen years-old and which he named, La Sulamita, based on the book by Pedro Balgañón. The author confessed having written and orchestrated the three-act 2
Joaquín Turina Pérez (1882-1949)
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opera by giving all his enthusiasm, and thought it would be easy to premiere at the Royal Theater of Madrid. Sometime later he would celebrate that he never premiered it. He initiated and later abandoned his studies of medicine and instead decided to dedicate himself professionally to music. His teacher, García Torres, showed him the need to move to Madrid. He had his father´s support for this, and his father even used testamentary dispositions so his son could have the resources needed to widen his studies outside of Seville. In March of 1902, three days after arriving in Madrid, Turina went to the magnificent Royal Theater to listen to the Orchestra of the Concert Society, under the direction of Wassilly Sapelnikow, who was offering the first interpretation in Madrid of the Fifth Symphony of Tchaikovski. Out of all the musical life in the city of Madrid, the orchestral concerts were the ones that impressed young Turina the most, even more than opera, zarzuela, recitals or the chamber ensembles. On this trip, his first to Madrid, his father was able to gather help from his friends, especially the painter, José Villegas, with the naïve intention of having his son premiere his opera, La Sulamita, in the Royal Theater. During a private audience he would meet Conrado del Campo, who later would become his partner for many years to come. He went back to Seville without succeeding on his mission and in the month of October he returned to Madrid to study for three whole years. He resumed his friendship with José Villegas, who at that moment was the Director of the Prado Museum, became friends with the bookseller, Fernado Fé, the critic and composer, Manuel Manrique de Lara and, within the paradise of the Royal Theater, he met Manuel de Falla, and they would become life-long friends. On March 14th, 1903, he presented himself to the people of Madrid at the Ateneo, with works from Scarlatti, Beethoven, Schumann, Wagner, and three of his own works which have disappeared since: La danza de los elfos (The dance of the Elves), Variaciones sobre cantos populares (Variations on popular songs) and Gran polacca. In Madrid he never took any composition classes, probably because he never found the right teacher. So instead, he perfected his piano preparation with José Tragó. He 4
continued to compose piano works, a trio, a quintet, a sainete (farce or short dramatic composition) titled, La Copla (Folk song), and also, a libretto by the Álvarez Quintero brothers titled, Fea y con gracia (Ugly but funny). His personal life changed radically between 1903 and 1904 with the death of his parents and his decision to follow José Villegas´ advice to move to study in Paris. Turina established himself in Paris at the end of 1905, at the Kléber Hotel and through Joaquín Nin he started taking piano and composition classes with Moritz Moszkowski. A few weeks later, in January, 1906, and always through Nin, he signed up to take composition classes with Vincent D’Indy at the Schola Cantorum, although he continued under the tutelage of Moszkowski as his piano teacher. On April 29th, 1907, he presented himself to the Parisian public at the Sala Aeolian. Alongside the Parent Quartet, they interpreted Quintets from Brahms and Franck, and Turina presented his Poema de las estaciones (Poem of the seasons). Eight days later he went back to the same stage and with the same quartet for the premiere of his Quinteto en sol menor (Quintet in so minor). The piece was successful, it was included in the repertoire, and was given an award at the Salón de Otoño on the following year. Because he was able to organize his own catalogue, Turina would consider this Quintet as his first piece, ignoring everything he had written before that moment. But the best award he received at the Sala Aeolian was the presence of Isaac Albéniz. Turina confessed that the conversation he had with Albéniz and De Falla, who was also present among the public, on the night after that concert would completely change his aesthetic ideas. He defined this moment as the most complete metamorphosis of his life. Albéniz put all his effort behind the editing of the Quintet and in exchange he made Turina promise that he would never again write music with a French influence, and that he would instead base his art in the popular Spanish song, or better yet, from Andalusia. During his Paris phase, Turina wrote ten more pieces of work that little by little started moving away from the Schola Cantorum environment to give way to songs, rhythms, light and joy that are so characteristic of his native Andalusia. In 1908 he married Obdulia Garzón and two years later the first of his five children was born. 5
In 1913 he finished his training period at the Schola Cantorum. The school certificate signed by Vincent D’Indy is dated March 4th, and the 30th of that same month he premiered with a huge success at the Royal Theater of Madrid, La procesión del Rocío (The procession of El Rocio), with the Symphonic Orchestra of Madrid, and under the direction of Enrique Fernández Arbós. The beginning of World War I forced his exit from Paris and the definitive return to Madrid. He settled down at the definitive address on street Alfonso XI No.5 (today No.7) and his first premiere occurred on October of 1914, with the lyrical comedy, Margot, Op.11, with a libretto written by the married couple formed by Gregorio Martínez Sierra and María Lejárraga, who would become his regular collaborators for his theater plays. On January, 1915, a concert was given at the Ateneo de Madrid to present two young musicians that had just finished their studies in Paris: De Falla and Turina. Turina´s production would focus on the symphonic music, chambers, songs, and especially, piano pieces, which within the catalogue surpass sixty titles out of more than one hundred in total. Turina also maintained an intense concert activity, whether it was by himself, with chamber ensembles, or with singers. As an Orchestra Director he premiered his pieces, Navidad (Christmas) (1916) and La adúltera penitente (The penitent adulterer) (1917), from De Falla´s pantomime, El corregidor y la molinera (1917) and in 1918 Serge Diaguilev hired him as the Tour Director of the Russian Ballet throughout Spain. He worked as a Maestro at the Royal Theater at the same time as he premiered as a composer the following pieces: Danzas fantásticas (Fantastic dances) (1919), the Sinfonía sevillana (The Sevillian Symphony) (1920), Sanlúcar de Barrameda (1921), Jardín de Oriente (The Garden of the Orient) (1923), La oración del torero (The bullfighter´s prayer) (1925) and the Trío No.1 (1926). He also dedicated himself to the teachings of composition, first with private classes at his home, and from 1931 on, from his Chair at the Madrid Conservatory, while at the same time he gave conferences and masterful classes in and out of Spain. On this same line of contribution to theory, we must stand out, because of his uniqueness in the 6
Spanish music scene, the publication in 1917 of the Enciclopedia abreviada de la música (Abbreviated Encyclopedia of Music) and on his final days he was preparing the Tratado de composición musical (Musical Composition Treaty), but was only able to complete the first two volumes. In 1926 he began what would become a constant until the end of his life, his collaboration on the written press as a music critic. First at El Debate, until the newspaper disappeared in 1936, later in the newspaper Ya, and lastly on the weekly magazine Dígame. After the Spanish Civil War, which Turina spent living in Madrid and protected by a license that identified him as a ‘’worker’’ of the British Consulate, he is first integrated in a commission in charge of reorganizing the Spanish conservatories and later he is named the General Commissioner of Music, a position that gave him the opportunity to make a definitive organization of the National Orchestra. The accumulation of jobs, occupations and an illness that was becoming more evident each day limited his musical production. On the last nine years of his life he only composed 13 pieces of work. The last one of his catalogue is a piano piece titled, Desde mi terraza (From my balcony), which carries Op.104 and is dated on 1947. Turina died in Madrid on January 14th, 1949. Among his favorite pastimes were reading and photography, which he always cultivated. On his first phase he enjoyed gathering at coffee shops to talk, get together with his friends, always surrounding himself with music, and family walks to the near Retiro Park and through the Madrid of the Habsburgs. He had enormous passion for the Processions, and anytime he could he would go see them in Seville during Easter. He did not go often but he liked bullfighting and going to the movies. He also liked to go with his children to the circus, the local open-air dances, and riding the Ferris wheel.
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Turina’s Guitar Music Although Turina´s production would focus on the symphonic music, chambers, songs, and especially piano pieces (which within the catalogue surpass sixty titles out of more than one hundred in total), it was shortly after his return to Madrid that Turina heard and answered the call of the famous Spanish guitarist Andrés Segovia, who as he was getting ready to conquer the international concert platforms in the 1920’s, found himself in need of new original material, written especially for the instrument. Whereas Granados, De Falla and especially Albéniz, are famous for inventing a pianistic or symphonic National Hispanic style of writing that today might seem like a sublimation of the guitar, in fact they did not write or wrote very little for that instrument. Turina is one of the rare composers of the period who were not guitarists themselves who really “heard” and understood the guitar. Impregnated with the harmony that is produced its the open strings and many sound effects that flamenco players use regularly, Turina was the first to incorporate them into his classical compositions. With the exception of Ráfaga, all the pieces on this recording were dedicated to Andrès Segovia, who was often responsible for their creation and in many cases for their popularity. They were composed between 1923 and 1932.* With the first of these compositions for guitar, the Sevillana (Fantasia) Op.29, composed in 1923, Turina was confronted for the first time, not with the guitaresque style which he was already familiar with, but with certain technical imperatives of the instrument. He called upon Segovia for advice; in the works that followed there was a regular collaboration between them. From the outset this Sevillana inaugurates a style based on the toque flamenco inspired by the rhythmic passages and powerful rasgueados of the popular folkloric song by the same name of his native town of Seville. The first composition for guitar presented here however was the second written by Turina. He dated the score of the Fandanguillo Op.36 two years later, 1925. Remarkable is that while his first attempt at guitar music, the Sevillana, took Turina 5 months and a day to write, he finished his score of the Fandaguillo, his second guitar composition, in barely 9 days, clearly already feeling much more at ease with the instrument. A traditional flamenco dance from the cante chico tradition, the Fandanguillo opens with a percussive 8
thumping on the open E string reminiscent of the taconeo – a tapping on the floor made by dancers with the heels of their shoes. The next work represented here is also the third work chronologically in Turina’s guitar oeuvre. Ráfaga Op.53, was finished in 1930 and literally means “a gust of wind”. Turina unleashes a storm that culminates in tremoli typical for the guitar. Turina’s Homenaje a Tarrega Op.69 (1932) was to be his last composition for the guitar. Like in his previous works for guitar, we are once again treated to the abundance of the regional and national flavours of southern Spain, divided here in a garrotin and a soleares, two traditional flamenco dances translated here in 2/4 and 3/4 time respectively, dedicated to the father of the modern Spanish classical guitar technique, Francisco Tarrega who died in 1909. The penultimate and most ambitious piece Turina wrote for the guitar rightfully concludes this recording. Again stylistic flamenco elements define many of the melodies and rhythmical patterns of the three-movement Sonata Op.61 (1931) in which these elements are for the first time successfully incorporated in a cyclical form. The third subject of the first movement – which is only vaguely reminiscent of a sonata movement – resurfaces in the finale of the last movement thus creating a kind of architectural arch. © Jan Depreter *In this recording Jan Depreter plays Turina’s works for guitar in the sequence he has devised for his own concert use.
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Jan Depreter (°1975, Antwerp) receives his first music education at the age of five. His academic achievements include concert diplomas, first prizes and master degrees in Leuven, Antwerp and The Hague, while perfecting his art with masters like David Russell, Manuel Barrueco, Zoran Dukic, Pavel Steidl and Oscar Ghiglia, many of whom he would share the stage with later on in his career. A star of the classical guitar, Jan Depreter is a 16-time laureate in the most prestigious international guitar competitions in the world like the Paris, Antony, Alhambra, Mottola, Tokyo, Sydney, Vienna, Francisco Tarrega and Andres Segovia competitions. His last victory proved the most significant, becoming the first and only Belgian winner ever of the prestigious Concours International Printemps de la Guitare in his homeland, for which he was awarded the Gold Medal of H. M. Queen Fabiola of Belgium. Since 1993 he has been teaching at the Academies of Antwerp, where his class enjoys one of the best reputations in the country. He is regularly asked to give masterclasses around the world. As a performer, he has topped the bills of international music festivals in the Far East, both the Americas, Oceania, and throughout Eastern and Western Europe. Jan Depreter curently resides in Belgium where he is the founding Artistic Director of the Antwerpen Gitaar Festival, uniting hundreds of guitar lovers every year. After Fairytale, Sonata, The Segovia Concert, Legend (Klara) and Wit, Turina is his sixth solo album. His compositions are published worldwide by Ricordi, Metropolis and Auurk. www.jandepreter.com 10
Special thanks to: Frank, for giving me my voice Rudi and Roeland, for their unwavering friendship and support Peter, for his exceptional skill and patience during the realization of this project My parents, without whom there would be no music.
Recording: January 2015, Little BIG Studio, Ekeren, Belgium Recording director, editing and mastering: Peter De Wint Guitar: José L. Romanillos, Semley 1992 Strings: SAVAREZ Artist photo (p.12): Ridha Ben Hmouda Cover image and artist photo (p.10): Victor Pooters - & © 2015 Brilliant Classics 11