"The Romance of King Rodrigo"

"The Romance of King Rodrigo"

Julián Bautista and the Pamplona Chamber Choir. An incomplete history.

This concert is about "El Romance del Rey Rodrigo" by Julián Bautista, a major work in the history of Spanish choral music of the twentieth century, and its relationship with the Chamber Choir of Pamplona, the instigator and promoter of its creation.

Program

Fernando Remacha

Seven Basque Songs*.

Romance del pescador - Manuel de Falla/Fernando Remacha*.

Games on poems by Federico García Lorca*.

Jota's Copla *.

Salvador Bacarisse

Clear, serene eyes ?

The Infanta of France **.

Rodolfo Halffter

Three Epitaphs

- To the tomb of Don Quixote

- To the tomb of Dulcinea

- To the tomb of Dulcinea

Julián Bautista

The Romance of King Rodrigo***.

Antonio José

El Molinero

(*) Work written and premiered for and by the Pamplona Chamber Choir.

(**) Work premiered by the Pamplona Chamber Choir.

(***) Work written for the Pamplona Chamber Choir and not premiered by the group (premiere in Navarra).

The program revolves around Bautista's "El Romance del Rey Rodrigo" as a major work in the history of Spanish choral music of the twentieth century and its relationship with the Pamplona Chamber Choir, the instigator and promoter of its creation but which never performed its premiere. We do not know the reasons why Luis Morondo refused to premiere it, but we do have enough information about the commissioning of a work by the Choir to Bautista and the mediation of Remacha in the event. This process lasted several years in which Bautista matured the work and changed text and structure. The result is a masterpiece, a true masterpiece, as unknown as it is considered by the few scholars who know it, the best "a cappella" choral work of Spanish music of the 20th century.

The concert contains more elements of interest: the relationships between Falla, Bautista, Remacha, Halffter, Bacarisse, José and Lorca, both in the years of "La Residencia", and during the war or through the Chamber Choir itself, already in exile.

A final reading of our proposal would have to do with the incessant search for identity on the part of these "exiled" authors through the great Spanish literature and the relationship, so dear in the years of the Republic, between poetry and music.
 

Artistic data

Soloists:
Mariasun Montoya and Marta Huarte, sopranos.
Ana Olaso, mezzo-soprano
David Echeverría, tenor
José Antonio Hoyos, baritone
 

Director: David Gálvez