Joaquín Rodrigo’s 'Concierto Andaluz' on New Telarc Recording

Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concierto Andaluz has just been released on a new Telarc disc featuring the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet and the Delaware Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Amado. Marking the ensemble’s first concerto recording, the album serves as a microcosm of the evolution of the concerto for guitar quartet genre, pairing Concierto Andaluz, the first ever written, with Sergio Assad’s Interchange, the most recent. Composed in 1967 to mark the 10th anniversary of legendary guitar quartet Los Romeros' emigration from Spain to the US, the Concierto Andaluz uses as its main inspiration Andalusian folk music, also reflecting also Los Romeros' long-held affection for this music. Music critic Jim Svejda comments on the work:

Cast in three movements, the Concierto Andaluz opens with a lively Tempo di Bolero, making full use of the guitar quartet's potential with strummed chords and cascading scales. As in Rodrigo's ever-popular Concierto de Aranjuez, the heart of the Concierto Andaluz is a moving Adagio as its central movement. Featuring a passacaglia-like descending bass line over ethereal sustained strings, a plaintive melody is passed around the quartet and echoed by the winds. The exuberant final movement is based on the rhythms of two Andalusian dance forms which are closely associated with flamenco: an infectious sevillana-which originated, of course, in Andalusia's major city-and an even more vibrant zapateado, so named because this dance in triple time is invariably marked by a vigorous stamping of the heels.

The Telarc recording is just the most recent project to come out of David Amado and the LAGQ's ongoing collaborations. Amado and the quartet recorded the music for the CD in the Grand Opera House in Wilmington, Delaware after having performed the two works in three straight concerts.

The music of Rodrigo continues to be in high demand across the country. Performances this month include: Concierto de Aranjuez at Boise State University, the New Philharmonia Orchestra (MA), the Asheville Symphony Orchestra (NC), the Calgary Civic Symphony and the Symphony New Brunswick; Tres viejos aires de danza at the Santa Fe Symphony; and Fantasia para un gentilhombre at Mobile Symphony in Alabama.

Joaquín Rodrigo-Composer Profile

Purchase the new Telarc recording here.

Joaquín Rodrigo
Concierto Andaluz (1967)
for fours guitars and orchestra
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25'

Concierto de Aranjuez (1939)
for guitar and orchestra
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20'

Fantasía para un gentilhombre (1954)
for guitar and small orchestra
based on an idea by Gaspar Sanz
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22'