Fernando Remacha - Music

Music

Thus, the life of Fernando Remacha is the story of a composer conditioned by circumstances that limited his musical career. The Spanish Civil War cut off his musical evolution and his presence in the musical life of Spain. Following the war Remacha suffered an "interior exile" which, together with Spain's isolation, produced a step backwards in the aesthetics of some of his works. Remacha's activity from 1957 as the director of the Pablo Sarasate Conservatory halted his work as a composer since he devoted himself almost entirely to teaching. Additionally, the advance of his Parkinson's disease caused him to compose very little music in the seventies.

Within this context, Remacha's return to music took place through teaching and the composition of music for piano and for the Navarrese choirs with which he came into contact. In this way musical genres that Remacha had hardly dealt with prior to the war came to acquire considerable importance, since these were the works that could have the most immediate impact. Some of his piano works were based on a Bachian conception of music. This was the case with the "Prelude and Fugue in D minor" (1945), dedicated to Ricardo Urgoiti. Certain anecdotal circumstances explain the idiom used in some of Remacha's works. For example the "Piano Sonatina" (1945) is a more peaceful work because it was intended to be performed by Urgoiti's daughter. At the same time, as a result of the contests in which Remacha took part and the commissions that were made to him, a regionalist component arose in his work which added nothing new to his compositions. Despite this, it should be noted that in all his compositions Remacha tried to assimilate this regionalism with his own traits. This may be observed in such works as "Cartel de Fiestas" ("Festival Poster") (1946) or "Rapsodia de Estella" ("Rhapsody of Estella") (1958), which are by no means among the best pieces composed by Remacha. Aside from this Remacha composed a large quantity of choral music which may be divided between original compositions and harmonisations or adaptations.

In the works that were composed without conditioning of any type, Remacha maintained links with the pre-war period, developing at the same time a very particular expressionistic vision. Among the imbalances and ellipses that exist in his work, we find a common denominator that is none other than musical expressiveness. In short, his music presents an evident emotional charge, but always with a personal style that arises from the composer's deep reflection and not from emotional spontaneity. His music does not reflect the personality of a highly imaginative composer but, paradoxically enough, it does show an original personal style in the way of dealing with the elements or the lines inspired by other composer. The circumstances and the haste that marked his composition is reflected in his short catalogue of pieces, to which Remacha himself referred on receiving his Third National Music Prize in 1980: "For reasons beyond my control, I am a musician without music. For years I could hardly compose anything at all and later, on devoting myself to the Conservatory, I found myself in the same situation". The carelessness and abandon he showed for his scores and the scant importance he attributed to them was also reflected in disillusionment that Remacha felt for composition in the last years of his life.