Elegía (a la memoria de Antón García Abril) / Elegy (in memory of Antón García Abril)

For solo Cello


Commentary
Score of the Elegy (in memory of Antón García Abril)
Recording
Video

Commentary

This is a brief piece, approximately four minutes in duration, composed to be performed at the conclusion of my induction ceremony as a full member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid on April 23, 2023. It serves both as a gift to the institution to which I have the honor of belonging since then and as a tribute to my predecessor in holding medal no. 30, the composer Antón García Abril, who passed away in March 2021.
Antón García Abril was not only a composer I greatly admired but also the most significant influence during my academic training at the Royal Conservatory of Music of Madrid in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Later, we maintained a strong professional rapport and a very good personal connection, which was further strengthened by the various occasions he attended as a guest composer at the working periods of the Spanish National Youth Orchestra, whose artistic direction I was in charge of from 2001 to 2020, when his works were programmed.

The induction ceremony opened with my speech Tradition and Intertextuality in Music, and, as required, its introductory section had to contain a brief portrait of the deceased academic whose position I would be taking from that moment. The portrait was more extensive than usual and easy to draft, given how close I felt to his figure. As I wrote it, the content of the piece I was to compose to be played at the end of the ceremony began to take shape in parallel, eventually becoming an elegy in his memory.
The Elegy was written in July 2022 and develops fragments from the cello solo that runs through his work Cántico de "La Pietá", based on a text by Antonio Gala, composed in 1977 for soprano, cello, organ, choir, and string orchestra. I attended its first Madrid performance -held at the Teatro Real a few months after its premiere at the Cuenca Religious Music Week that same year- and was deeply impressed. The fragments from the cello part are woven into my Elegy, serving as a "cantabile" counterpoint to the succession of contrasts ranging from furious and aggressive to lyrical or mysterious in the soloist’s discourse.
The Elegy (In Memory of Antón García Abril), performed by my son Guillermo, preceded the premiere of the Suite da Chiesa for cello and harpsichord, dedicated to him and his wife, the harpsichordist Eva del Campo, in 2021, at the end of the induction ceremony at the Academy.

Score of the Elegy (in memory of Antón García Abril)

Recording

Recording: Guillermo Turina (recording of the live performance at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernandoo. Madrid, April 23, 2023

Vídeo

Premiere in the induction ceremony at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando (Madrid, April 23, 2023)

Guillermo Turina, cello