Fantasía para una gentilhombre

• Rodrigo composed this, his second guitar concerto, in 1954.¹
• Rodrigo composed this concerto for Andrès Segovia. Segovia might be the “gentleman” referred to in the title, or it might be Gaspar Sanz, a 17th-century Spanish guitarist who was a “gentleman” of the court of King Philip IV of Spain. The concerto is based on themes by Sanz.²

“It was in 1951 that Segovia asked Joaquín for a new concerto for guitar and chamber orchestra. In order to exchange ideas, he came one summer afternoon to our chalet in Torrelodones and stayed to have supper…After the triumph of Concierto de Aranjuez in Paris, Joaquín felt no great desire to compose another concerto, and he postponed the work. One day, however, he told me that he had thought it over and that he would write a “Suite” on themes collected by Gaspar Sanz, the famous guitarist of the court of Felipe IV. The title would be Fantasía para un gentilhombre, and he would also dedicate it to Andrés Segovia, whom he greatly admired, as a tribute…At Christmas, Andrés Segovia unexpectedly came to our house, asking to look over the score…Just as I was accompanying him at the piano in the first measures, there was a power failure, and the whole apartment was plunged into darkness. Thanks to two candles, we surmounted the difficulty. The work played marvellously under the great artist’s fingers, and the tenuous light lent an archaic atmosphere, very fitting, above all for the ‘dance of the torches’.”

Victoria Kamhi, Turksih pianist and Rodrigo’s wife³

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. M. Ross, “Fantasía para un gentilhombre ,” Hyperion (2011), accessed April 2, 2021, https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/tw.asp?w=W16587.
3. Ibid.