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WORK TITLE: A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS
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CITY: Madrid
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COUNTRY: Spain
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PERSONAL
Male.
EDUCATION:Attended Royal Conservatory of Music of Madrid, Complutense University of Madrid, and Oviedo University, earning degrees in guitar, art history, and musicology; University of Sheffield, Ph.D., 1994.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Musicologist, educator, editor, and writer. Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain, professor of musicology, 1994–. University of Melbourne, principal fellow/associate professor, 2007-12; has taught courses at University of the Basque Country, University of Valladolid, National School of Music of Montevideo, São Paulo State University, and National Autonomous University of Mexico.
MEMBER:Spanish Guitar Society (president).
AWARDS:Erasmus Scholarship, University of Sheffield.
WRITINGS
Also author of CD-ROM Manuel de Falla, 1876–1946, Fundación Autor (Madrid, Spain), 1997, and of critical editions of musical scores. Contributor to anthologies, including International Encyclopedia of Dance, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1998; Music in Spain during the Eighteenth Century, edited by M. Boyd and J.J. Carreras, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge, England), 1998; Creación musical, cultura popular y construcción nacional en la España contemporánea, edited by Celsa Alonso, Instituto Complutense de Ciencias Musicales (Madrid, Spain), 2010; Music and Francoism, edited by Gemma Pérez Zalduondo and Germán Gan Quesada, Brepols (Turnhout, Belgium), 2013; Music and Figurative Arts in the Twentieth Century, edited by Roberto Illiano, Brepols (Turnhout, Belgium), 2016. Contributor of music criticism and essays to periodicals and journals, including Cuadernos de Música Iberoamericana, Diverdi, Gaceta Complutense, Revista de la Sociedad Española de la Guitarra, Revista de la Sociedad Española de Musicología, Revista de Musicología, and Revista Literaria.
Roseta, subdirector.
SIDELIGHTS
[open new]A musicologist specializing in compositions for the guitar, Javier Suárez-Pajares has written or edited a dozen books in his native Spain. He has covered Spanish musicians and their output from the seventeenth century to the twentieth, with a focus on guitarist Julián Arcas and especially composer and pianist Joaquín Rodrigo. The subject of several of Suárez-Pajares’s books in Spanish, Rodrigo is also at the center of the musicologist’s first major English-language volume, A Light in the Darkness: The Music and Life of Joaquín Rodrigo, coauthored by Walter Aaron Clark of the University of California–Riverside. Suárez-Pajares has been a professor at the Complutense University of Madrid since 1994 and has taught courses at several universities elsewhere in Spain as well as in Latin America.
Born in 1901, Rodrigo endured an illness at age three that left him with impaired vision. He would come to believe that this heightened his aural sensitivity and strengthened his musical intelligence. Attending a school for the blind in Valencia, he learned a complex variety of Braille that enabled him to make musical notations and record his compositions. After studying in Paris and living in communal housing for the blind in Germany, he returned to Spain. In 1933 he married Victoria Kamhi, a Turkish pianist, who would remain his intimate and artistic partner for over forty years. Rodrigo endured the reign of Franco by foregrounding his musical output, which would inspire the likes of Miles Davis and Chick Corea. Alongside the composer’s life and times, Suárez-Pajares and Clark delve into the qualities of his music, analyzing innovations with regard to bitonality, polyphony, and dissonance. His magnus opus is the Concierto de Aranjuez, an orchestral favorite and a mainstay in pop culture’s clsssical background.
A Kirkus Reviews writer affirmed that A Light in the Darkness is “detailed and fascinating and will appeal both to classical music buffs and neophytes seeking to learn more.” The reviewer appreciated how Suárez-Pajares and Clark provide technical expertise as well as “ample emotional color” and plenty of “evocative … interesting passages.” Recognized as “exhaustive” by Frederick J. Augustyn Jr. of Library Journal, A Light in the Darkness was praised by the Kirkus Reviews writer as a “passionate, definitive account of a great artist.”[close new]
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 2024, review of A Light in the Darkness: The Music and Life of Joaquin Rodrigo.
Library Journal, March, 2024, Frederick J. Augustyn Jr., review of A Light in the Darkness, p. 108.
ONLINE
Complutense University of Madrid website, https://www.ucm.es/ (April 21, 2024), author profile.
Javier Suárez-Pajares is professor of musicology at the Complutense University of Madrid, where he resides.
In Spanish.
Suarez-Pajares, Javier & Walter Aaron Clark. A Light in the Darkness: The Music and Life of Joaquin Rodrigo. Norton. Apr. 2024.400p. ISBN 9781324004455. $39.99. MUSIC Musicologists Suarez-Pajares (Complutense Univ. of Madrid; Iconografia) and Clark (Univ. of California, Riverside; coauthor, Federico Moreno Torroba) present a biography of Joaquin Rodrigo (1901-99), a composer and pianist most known for creating Concierto Ae Aranjuez for classical guitar and orchestra. The popular Contierto was one of the first to feature the intimate guitar symphonically; however, he sometimes considered that its fame overshadowed much of the rest of his prolific output. An illness at age three left him sight-impaired, which he believed enhanced his aurality. He composed in Braille and led an active life, often leaving his beloved Valencia to study in Paris and to perform abroad. He deftly survived the cultural gloom of Franco's Spain, countering conservatism when he could (in music as well as in politics), and influencing artists around the world, including Miles Davis and Chick Corea. His wife, Victoria Kamhi, a Turkish pianist, remained his artistic companion from their marriage in 1933 until her death in 1997. VERDICT This exhaustive, annotated treatment about Rodrigo's work is best for musicologists, although cultural historians will find it helpful.--Frederick J. Augustyn Jr.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
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"A Light in the Darkness: The Music and Life of Joaquin Rodrigo." Library Journal, vol. 149, no. 3, Mar. 2024, p. 108. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A786321582/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=5fda29d4. Accessed 4 Apr. 2024.
Suárez-Pajares, Javier A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS Norton (NonFiction None) $45.00 4, 23 ISBN: 9781324004455
A comprehensive biography of a significant 20th-century composer.
Joaquín Rodrigo (1901-1999) began composing music as a young man in Valencia, Spain, at a school for the blind, where he learned a complex variety of braille that allowed him to make musical notation before dictating it to his assistant. "Being blind affected every aspect of Rodrigo's life and brought him closer to music through an acute aural sense," write Suárez-Pajares and Clark, both professors of musicology. Today, he is best known for his Concierto de Aranjuez, "the key with which Rodrigo opened the door to the history of music and walked through it." The concerto remains a fixture with orchestras and in pop culture, appearing in places as far-ranging as a 1975 Chrysler car commercial, the 2003 film The School of Rock, and the 2021 superhero movie Suicide Squad 2. The authors diligently chart the trajectory of the artist: years in Paris when Rodrigo allegedly pawned an overcoat for opera tickets, communal housing for the blind in Germany, and a return to his native Spain. Throughout, the text is detailed and fascinating and will appeal both to classical music buffs and neophytes seeking to learn more. The authors offer close examinations of many of their subject's compositions, veering into the technical as they dissect his use of musical techniques. Among other signature strategies, they examine Rodrigo's unique use of bitonality, dissonance, and polyphony. Alongside the procedural analysis, they include ample emotional color, such as this evocative description of some of his earlier musical compositions: "When Rodrigo was not praying, he was shouting. One suspects that at times he could do both simultaneously." Reading such interesting passages, curious readers will no doubt find themselves seeking out Rodrigo's full repertoire. The authors include many illustrations and musical examples.
A passionate, definitive account of a great artist.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Suarez-Pajares, Javier: A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Mar. 2024, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A786185693/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=cc4e7d91. Accessed 4 Apr. 2024.