Manuel CASTILLO:

Concerto for piano and orchestra n. 3

Born in Seville in 1930, Manuel Castillo is one of the most widely-respected composers of the current “generation of maestros”. An excellent pianist, organist and teacher, he is an institution in the musical and cultural world of his home city, and his career and works have made him one of the most representative figures among the Andalusian composers in recent times. Manuel Castillo’s music has been included on several occasions in the programmes of the Festival of Granada, notably the recent world premiere of his Sinfonietta Homenaje, written for the concerts in memory of Falla in 1996, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Cadiz composer’s death.

This Concerto for piano and orchestra n. 3 was composed between 1976 and 1977, as part of his work under the “Queen SofÌa Scholarship” awarded to Castillo by Madrid City Council. The work was premiered in the Charles V Palace in the Alhambra Palace in Granada on 26 June 1978, by the RTVE Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Enrique García Asensio, and with Manuel Castillo himself as soloist.

José GARCÍA ROMÁN: Summer sextet

The Granadan composer José García Román, born in Gabia Grande (in the province of Granada) in 1945, for chronological and educational reasons, represents perfectly the generation which succeeded Castillo’s generation, or, as we have called it above, the ‘generation of maestros’. In fact, García Román found in two of those musicians the teachers and the stimulus he needed to channel his career. Their names were Juan Alfonso García and Carmelo Bernaola. His contacts with both took place in Granada, since his work with the Basque composer was basically in the Manuel de Falla Courses where the latter was Master of Composition for several years.

The Summer Sextet was performed here on 2 July 1988, in the Manuel de Falla Auditorium, in a concert of the Grupo CÌrculo conducted by José Luis Temes, and in which work by former pupils of the Manuel de Falla Courses were performed. It had won the first edition of the City of Alcoy Composition Prize (1986), and was premiered by the London Sinfonietta under Diego Masson at the Festival of Alicante the following year on 17 September. The Summer Sextet was composed, in the words of its creator, “in a moment of consolidation of style and of a feeling of maturity, after a long, hard period of work dedicated to orchestral composition”.

Juan Alfonso GARCÍA: Tríptico

After the departure of Falla for Argentina, there were two other great ‘Granadan musicians’: Valentín Ruiz Aznar and Juan Alfonso García. It is curious to note that of these three, one was from Cadiz, another from Aragon and the third from Extremadura... But Granada is a land that invites its visitors to take root. Born in Los Santos de Maimona (Badajoz) in 1935, Juan Alfonso García settled in Granada at the age of eleven and received his musical training here, precisely with the chapel master Valentín Ruiz Aznar, who had enjoyed cordial personal and professional relations with Falla. Thus, Juan Alfonso was a link in a chain that he himself was to continue: it is important to note that composers of the stature of García Román, Guerrero and Hidalgo (to speak just of those included on these CDs) have acknowledged Juan Alfonso García as an early, decisive influence.

On 1 July 1990, at the Manuel de Falla Auditorium, next to the Alhambra, Juan Alfonso García’s Tríptico was performed by the Granada Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Misha Rachlevsky, the same combination that had premiered the work in the spring of the same year. Maestro García had been asked for a six-minute piece for strings, which he produced, but later, he was offered the chance to expand it, and so he took old organ pieces that he had composed long before, transcribed them for strings and wove them into the nucleus of the new composition, one at the beginning (as a prelude) and the other at the end (as a finale).

Manuel HIDALGO:

Music to a poem by Ignacio Llamas

Born in Antequera (Malaga) in 1956, Manuel Hidalgo was a pupil of Juan Alfonso García in Granada before leaving for central Europe to complete his training with figures such as Lehmann (in Zurich) and Lachenmann (in Hanover). He finally settled in Stuttgart, from where he has worked as a basically German composer. And so, these notes are written soon before world premiere (21 May) at the Schwetzinger Festival of his music-theatre spectacular Bacon, co-produced by the Mannheim National Theatre, with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Blunier... Acid, corrosive titles –such as Harto (Fed up), Vomitivo (Repulsive) or Marcha fúnebre (Funeral March)– accentuate the irony of others such as Seguiriyas de Stuttgart and Plaza Hölderlin or Alegrías- in an atypical catalogue that is rabidly personal and quite independent of all convention.

The poem by Ignacio Llamas, in fact, is not used as such, but is used by Hidalgo as a formal, architectural model for the first part of this purely symphonic work: ìsomething akin to a symphonic poem about the poem and on the poemî, as Enrique Gómez described it in the programme notes accompanying its premiere; while the second part of the piece extends, annotates and completes the first.

Francisco GUERRERO (1951-1997):

Opus 1, Manual. Anemos C. Concierto de Cámara. Ars Combinatoria. Delta Cephei.

A pupil of his father –a musician who worked mainly in Las Palmas– and of Juan Alfonso GarcÌa in Granada, Paco Guerrero, born in Linares in 1951, died unexpectedly in 1997 at the age of 46 after having come to the forefront and consolidating himself as one of the most powerful personalities in the world of composition in Spain and Europe of his time, just at a moment when he still had much to say.

Francisco Guerrero wrote his Opus 1. Manual in 1976. Although he was still very young, and despite the title, this piece was by no means his first, but was simply the first for piano alone. It was premiered and divulged by Jean-Pierre Dupuy. Guerrero, who was himself a pianist and organist, had written something far from a ìtypicalî composer-pianistís work. On the contrary, Opus 1. Manual is a merciless piece for the performer, whose virtuosity and even physical resilience are tested to the full.

Also from the same year, 1976, is Anemos C, for wind and percussion instruments, part of the of the trilogy completed by Anemos A (1975) for wind and Anemos B (finished in 1978) for choir. Stefano Russomano, one of the leading students of Guerrero’s work, after highlighting how the meaning of the Greek word ‘anemos’ (wind, life breath, passion) fit in perfectly with the spirit of the piece, indicates the “descendancy of Varèse” to be found in Anemos C: ìIt shares with Verèse’s music the liking for tumultuous sonority, the heterophony, and the energetic asperity of soundî...

The Chamber Concerto (1977) and Ars Combinatoria (1979-80) are two very different works, but which nevertheless have an instrumental link (both are sextets) and common composition technique (both order their material in line with the laws of combinatorial mathematics). The former was premiered in 1977 by the Grupo Instrumental de Madrid conducted by José María Franco Gil at Festival of Orleans (France), and the latter at the IRCAM in Paris on 25 February 1980, performed by the L’Itineraire group (which had commissioned the work) conducted by Mercier.