Juan Manén: Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major, Op. A-7 'Concierto español'

Joan Manén (1883-1971)

Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major, Op. A-7 'Concierto español'

I. Allegretto ben moderato 0:00
II. Lamento: Adagio ma non troppo 13:22
III. Allegro molto 22:15

Tianwa Yang, violin
Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya
Darrel Ang, conductor

Joan Manén (1883 - 1971) was born in Barcelona, Catalonia. Precociously gifted, he learnt solfège and piano with his father from the age of three, and at seven played Chopin concertos in public. Meanwhile, at five, he had begun to study the violin with Vicente Negrevernis. In 1890 his father succeeded in convincing Clemente Ibarguren -formed in Paris- to give violin lessons to his son. They set two classes per week, and he rapidly attained astonishing technical mastery and at the age of nine made his début in Latin America. In the summer of 1892 Juanito's first public presentation takes place at the Nuevo Casino in Castellón, where he was a pianist and violinist in five successful concerts. The programs appear in the pieces "Adiós a la Alhambra" de Jesus de Monasterio, "Air varié" by Charles de Beriot, and "Balade et Polonaise" by Henry Vieuxtemps among others. A press excerpt shows his success: "Indeed, it does not cease to be surprising in its own years, to see the ease and the ingenuity with which he manages the bow, the tuning and clarity of the sound and the perfection of his articulation, conditions are well directed, over time they will make the artist-child, what the French call a virtuoso " 7-VII-1892, Teatro Pizarro). He made his European début as a violinist in 1898, when he was hailed as a virtuoso of the first rank; he later made five world tours. Almost entirely self-taught as a composer, Manén had begun to write at 13, and in 1900 he conducted a concert of his own works in Barcelona. It was in 1894 when his father, Joan Manén Abellan, believed that it was not enough that his son triumphed as a virtuoso of the violin and decided to start it in composition. As Joan Manén himself explains in the first volume of "My experiences", his father gave him a blank paper, hoping that he, without knowledge of harmony, would begin to compose some work. The first intents were an absolute failure, but after a while and in an intuitive way, he began to be aware of his talent as a composer. Manén was an involuntary self-taught person because throughout his childhood and adolescence his father, an entertainer, did not allow him to study composition at any conservatory. Looking at the history of music, it is difficult to find in the world of composition such an extraordinary case of self-learning. It must be remembered that his father, the only teacher of his son, was an amateur musician with few musical studies that only played the piano very discreetly. Several teachers offered to give classes of harmony and composition but the father used to say: "He will only learn it from the much music he reads. The instinct when possessed is the best teacher. " The ability to read in sight of the little Joan was extraordinary. He himself tells us that his father gave him many symphonic works and operas so he read them in the piano. In spite of the difficulty they were having, the child came out pretty shamelessly. His first opera, Juana de Nápoles (produced when he was 19), was well received at the Gran Teatre del Liceu from Barcelona, and he immediately followed this with Acté, for which (as for all his later operas) he wrote his own libretto. He then spent time in Germany, where he acquired an admiration for Wagner and Richard Strauss, which can be observed in his orchestral writing. Strauss's influence on his harmony can also be particularly heard in his songs. He composed prolifically in many genres, but later destroyed, disowned or radically revised everything he had composed before 1907. This led him, for example, almost completely to rewrite Acté - increasing the complexity of the texture - as Neró i Acté. Manén made numerous arrangements, both instrumental and vocal, of Spanish and Catalan folk melodies, and traditional dance styles (e.g. the Sardana) appear in his works. His music is tonal in idiom and predominantly lyrical, and there are often thematic connections between movements. His writings include many articles in Spanish and French periodicals and a treatise on the violin. In 1927 he became a member of the Spanish Academy of Arts; among many other awards and honours, there has been a plan to name a new concert hall in Barcelona after him. In 1930 he founded and presided over the Barcelona Philharmonic Society (Societat Filarmònica de Barcelona), an influential entity in the Barcelona musical atmosphere that programmed several concerts. His strong and demanding character and his indolent attitude towards the Franco regime made him, at the same time, loved and hated by the society of the moment. He died in 1971 and was buried in the Cementiri de Montjuïc in Barcelona.