Concierto de Aranjuez
Joaquín Rodrigo (* 1901)

Although we try to enhance the guitar repertoire and technique by the way we work, we can’t in a lifetime do what this Spanish composer did in one big blow back in 1939, when he composed his famous ‘Concierto de Aranjuez’, originally written for solo guitar and orchestra. At last, the guitar had its first major concerto work of importance, and the success was immediate and enormous.
    We were honoured by an invitation to visit the composer at his home in Madrid in 1992, and were given the opportunity to discuss the work at large with him. Naturally, this gave us a great deal of inspiration on how to refine and perform our transcription. What the Maestro thought about our meeting is stated on this page.
    The guitar solo part itself is technically very difficult to play, and it doesn’t get any ‘better’ in our arrangement, where the soloist also has to do a lot of ‘orchestral fill ins’ as soon as there are any spare fingers left over. To be able to transcribe this work at all, we also had to use quite a few unconventional techniques. For instance, there is no traditional technique to play a bass line and a pizzicato line simultaneously on the guitar, so we had to invent one. The interesting psychological effect these means convey is that – because of their very knowledge of the existing techniques – most guitar aficionados suddenly ’hear’ more than two guitars play...

Booklet text  1  2  3  4  5  6  (Booklet Text Index)

Back to Orchestral Illusions
Back to Orchestral Classics for Two Guitars