Concierto in modo galante

• Rodrigo composed this cello concerto in 1949.¹
• This work premiered at the Palacio de la Musica in Madrid on Nov. 4, 1949.²
• The Spanish cellist Gaspar Cassadó commissioned this concerto.³

“The work is divided into three movements: ‘Allegretto grazioso’, ‘Adagietto’, and ‘Rondo giocoso’. All its themes, though totally the invention of the composer, make constant allusion to boleros, panaderos, and zapateados, Spanish dances which were very much in vogue in the second half of the 19^th century. This explains the title ‘galante’, even though the work is absolutely of our own time in its harmonic language, its contemporary writing for the cello, and its sparkling orchestration.”

Joaquín Rodrigo on his Concierto in modo galante⁴

1. Raymond Calcraft, “Rodrigo (Vidre), Joaquín,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed April 28, 2022,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000023647.
2. Walter Aaron Clark, Joaquín Rodrigo: A Research and Information Guide (New York: Routledge, 2021), ebook.
3. Joaquín Rodrigo, Writings on Music, trans. Raymond Calcraft and Elizabeth Matthews (New York: Routledge, 2022), 124.
4. Ibid.