Concierto de Aranjuez

• This was Rodrigo’s first guitar concerto. He wrote it in Paris 1939, shortly before after returning to Spain; he lived in France and Germany during the Spanish Civil War.¹
• This concerto premiered in Spain in 1940, and it soon helped make Rodrigo one of Spain’s most successful composers.² 
• Title: Rodridgo was inspired by the gardens of at the Palace of Aranjuez in Spain. 

This page from the official Rodrigo website quotes Rodrigo’s own delightful reminiscences about the genesis of the Concierto de Aranjuez. Rodrigo tells the story of how he was having dinner (with really nice wine) with Spanish guitarist Regino Sainz de la Maza, when de la Maze suddenly begged Rodrigo to write him a guitar concerto, saying, “it is the dream of my life!” Rodrigo goes on to say that he swallowed two more glasses of wine before agreeing to compose it.³

“I also remember -I don’t know why but everything related to Concierto de Aranjuez has stayed in my memory-, that one morning several months later, standing in my small studio on Rue Saint Jacques in the heart of the Latin Quarter, vaguely thinking about the concerto, which had become a fond idea given how difficult I judged it to be, when I heard a voice inside me singing the entire theme of the Adagio at one go, without hesitation. And immediatly afterwards, without a break, the theme of the third movement. I realized quickly that the work was done. Our intuition does not deceive us in these things…”

Joaquin Rodrigo⁴

1. Raymond Calcraft, “Rodrigo (Vidre), Joaquín,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed April 2, 2021,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000023647.
2. Raymond Calcraft, “Rodrigo (Vidre), Joaquín,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed April 2, 2021,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000023647.
3. “The True Story of the Concierto de Aranjuez,” Joaquin-Rodrigo.com, accessed April 2, 2021,  https://www.joaquin-rodrigo.com/index.php/en/concierto-de-aranjuez-2/genesis-del-concierto.
4. Ibid.