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Javier Suarez-Pajares

A composer of singular vision.

Joaqun Rodrigo (19011999) is best known as the composer of one of the most popular works of music in the twentieth centurytheConcierto de Aranjuezfor guitar and orchestra. Its been featured in movies and television commercials and remains a staple of concert programs for orchestras around the world. Miles Davis said, After listening to it for a couple of weeksI couldnt get it out of my mind, and he used it as inspiration for his albumSketches of Spain. But as Javier Surez-Pajares and Walter Aaron Clark reveal in this musical biographythe first complete study in EnglishRodrigos work and influence extend far beyond that singular composition.

A Light in the Darknesstakes us through Rodrigos childhood in Valencia, the onset of blindness at the age of three, and the beginnings of his musical education. He achieved some early success in Spain as a composer before moving to Paris in 1927 to advance his studies, following in the footsteps of other eminent Spanish composers like Isaac Albniz, Joaqun Turina, and Manuel de Falla. There he enrolled in courses with composer Paul Dukas, met the woman who would become his wife, and earned the respect and friendship of Falla, who became his champion. Along the way, Rodrigos musical voice developed and matured as his horizons widened.

Surez-Pajares and Clark present a definitive account of the making of Rodrigos celebrated guitar concerto, even as they capture the breadth of Rodrigos compositional output, from solo works for piano and guitar through chamber music and vocal works to concertos and orchestral pieces. As they demonstrate, Rodrigos music is unmistakably Spanish, but with his own unique accent.

Rodrigos life and career spanned a period of great tumult in Spain, and he had to navigate strong, shifting political and cultural currentsbefore, during, and after Franco. An authoritative life of one of the twentieth centurys great musical geniuses,A Light in the Darknessbecomes a stunning tale of how art gets made under even the most challenging circumstances.