Output details
35 - Music, Drama, Dance and Performing Arts
University of Surrey
The Albeniz Concerto. A concerto for guitar and orchestra after the piano music of Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909) 28 mins (2picc.2ca.2.2. 2.2.0.0. timp.1 perc. str)
Background
Commissioned by EMI Classics for Xuefei Yang and the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, to mark the 150th Anniversary of Albéniz’s birth.
First performance, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, 24th October, 2009
Published by Cadenza Music, ISMN 979 0 708057 94 9, © 2010
EMI Classics, 5099969836121 © 2010
Justification
The music of Isaac Albéniz often evokes the sound of the guitar, despite the fact that he never wrote for the instrument. Today, paradoxically, it is through the myriad of guitar transcriptions of his piano works that Albéniz’s music is mostly widely performed and known.
The Albéniz Concerto posits a ‘what if?’ question – if Albéniz had written a guitar concerto, what would have it been like? Through close study of his orchestrational idiom, and that of his contemporaries, my intention was to compose a hypothetical guitar concerto in the style of late Albéniz c.1908/09.
Historical resonance
Pastiche, as a creative medium, is exemplified by completions of unfinished works (Deryck Cooke’s version of Mahler’s 10th Symphony, Anthony Payne’s of Elgar’s 3rd, and Robert Orledge’s of Debussy’s La Chute de la Maison Usher) and compositional orchestrations (Ravel of Mussorgsky, Colin Matthews of Debussy). The research questions at the centre of The Albéniz Concerto, firstly, focus on the moral and aesthetic issues that pastiche engenders and, secondly, interrogate the place of homage and nostalgia in contemporary concert music (as can be witnessed in the music of George Rochberg, John Corigliano, William Bolcom, Eric Whitacre, Thomas Adès, David del Tredici, and others). The concerto borrows material form Albéniz’s piano works (Iberia in particular) as well as utilizing new material composed in his style. The guitar writing of the concerto draws on the 100-year tradition of virtuoso guitar arrangements of Albéniz’s works by Andrés Segovia, Julian Bream, John Williams, David Russell, Xuefei Yang and others.
