Lorquiana

Lorquiana

“With words, human things are said; with music, that which no one knows or can define, but which exists in everyone to a greater or lesser extent, is expressed. Music is art by nature. It could be said that it is the eternal field of ideas… To be able to speak of it, one needs great spiritual preparation, and above all, to be intimately united with its secrets.”

Federico García Lorca: “Digression. The Rules of Music” (Diario de Burgos, 1916)

The first text published by Federico García Lorca (1898-1936) contains one of the most beautiful definitions of music ever written, which is the best proof that the Granada poet and playwright had a strong natural inclination towards the art of sounds. At the time, in 1916, Lorca was 18 years old, but from his childhood music had been very present in his life, especially due to his mother Vicenta. In fact, during his youth he was considered a musician rather than a writer. At the age of 10, he began studying the piano, and as a teenager he regularly performed in public. He wanted to continue his musical training in Paris, but around 1917, the literary vocation became prevalent. At the Madrid Residencia de Estudiantes, he maintained a fruitful relationship with the so-called Group of Eight, which included the Halffter brothers, Bacarisse, Mantecón, Remacha, Bautista, Pittaluga, and García Ascot. During that time, he encountered Spanish music from past eras that aroused his interest and curiosity. Finally, in 1919, he met Falla in Granada. From then on, their encounters were numerous, although, unfortunately, they never collaborated in the creation of a piece.

“Above all, I am a musician,” Lorca stated in an interview with Pablo Suero in 1933. And indeed, in addition to being a writer, he was a piano and guitar player, singer, researcher, composer, music lover, and musical director. He conducted fieldwork on his various trips through Granada and other regions of Spain or America, defended the authenticity of flamenco singing and folk music, and used multiple songs and instruments in the theatrical productions of La Barraca. In addition, the rhythm, internal accentuation, and musicality of Lorca’s writing, as well as the constant references to musicians, instruments, forms, genres, and musical indications in his texts, only confirm what the poet and critic José Moreno Villa expressed so aptly: “Federico was a musical soul by birth, by root, by millenary inheritance. He carried it in his blood like Juan Breva, Chacón, or the great Argentinita. It seemed that music flowed from him, that everything was music in his person. Here lay his power, his fascinating secret.”

In this album, Lorquiana, Ana María Valderrama, violin, and David Kadouch, piano, project Lorca’s musical personality into the future by compiling different scores linked in one way or another to the Andalusian artist. Poulenc’s sonata illustrates the positive welcome of the political and social significance of Lorca’s figure in France, where it became a symbol of freedom and resistance. Hahn’s work, on the other hand, takes us to those happy and ephemeral Twenties of the last century that Lorca also enjoyed. Alizia Terzian’s song shows the powerful influence that the poet has had in the Hispanic American context. The famous La vida breve passage is a nod to the veneration Lorca professed towards Falla. And, of course, we listen to Lorca’s own creations in a rich selection of Spanish popular songs, iconic testimonies of his compositional activity that are revisited in an exceptional arrangement by Alberto Martín for violin and piano.