Trinity 8th Grade “En Los Trigales”
Anyone who has known homesickness while away from their home will know the range of emotions experienced as the traveler eventually comes home.
This is what “En Los Trigales” is about. It’s a musical depiction of those emotions felt by the returning traveler.
The home is Spain and there’s no mistaking that “En Los Trigales” is Spanish music.
En Los Trigales means in the wheat fields.
It was composed by one of Spain’s greatest composers Joaquin Rodrigo as a suite of 4 guitar pieces called “Por La Campa Espanol” which means “for the Spanish countryside” and the story is that Rodrigo had travelled to Paris to study composition and was away from Spain for several years.
It’s an 8th great Trinity College London piece and is really quite challenging..
so anyone that masters this difficult but enormously interesting piece has really achieved something – Steve
The Great Joaquin Rodrigo and “The Six”
While in Paris he studied with the French composer Paul Dukas. Dukas was a member of a group of French composers known as “The Six” who were interested in exploring a less complicated approach to music than previous generation of Wagner and Debussy.
Paul Dukas became well known when Disney used one of his compositions, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, in the movie “Fantasia”.
After a successful stay in Paris Rodrigo returned home to Spain and was then to win a scholarship to go back to Paris for further study.
Newly married the couple returned to Paris but the scholarship money stopped with the start of the Spanish Civil War in 1936.
A Homecoming?
Rodrigo and his wife had been visiting Germany and were in Bavaria when the Civil War broke out and subsequently were received as Spanish refugees.
En Los Trigales was written after the Spanish Civil War when Rodrigo got back home to Spain.
I wonder what we can hear in this piece that refers to Rodrigo’s homecoming?
Anyway it’s a great piece and certainly fun and enjoyable to play or listen to.
It’s an 8th great Trinity College London piece and is really quite challenging so anyone that masters this difficult but enormously interesting piece has really achieved something
Steve