José Luis Turina. El talento como artesanía y la artesanía como talento / José Luis Turina. Talent as craft and craft as talent

By Tomás Marco

(Study published in Program-book of the 16th Canarias Music Festival. January 2000)


If my memory serves me correctly, and it usually does, I believe the first time I heard music by José Luis Turina was on January 30, 1979, on the occasion of the finalist concert of the 5th "Golden Harp" Composition Competition organized by the Spanish Confederation of Savings Banks, a legendary event that gained great prestige and which, as is customary in this frivolous country, was dismantled by the CECA itself without any significant reason. I already knew of his existence as a composer and I believe we had even briefly greeted each other, but this was the first time I heard one of his works. It was Crucifixus, for 20 string instruments and piano: The composer was only twenty-six years old then, and it was quite an achievement for the work to reach the final (1) where it proved to be a revelation. I remember it caught my attention vividly, and not only mine, as it suddenly revealed a new and powerful talent that combined an undeniable dose of personal invention with a refined craftsmanship, something not always evident among the most talented young authors of the time. I think I said something like that when I congratulated him, and since then, I have known not only that I was not mistaken but also that I have witnessed the growth of a magnificent evolution always supported by those two pillars: exceptional ideation capability and splendid execution craftsmanship. Additionally, I have been able to closely follow his career, sincerely admire him, and honor myself with his friendship.
Today, José Luis Turina has already reached his first maturity and can exhibit a wide catalog filled with works of the utmost importance, many of which already occupy their own place in the history of Spanish music of the last quarter of the 20th century. Undoubtedly, he still has a splendid future ahead, but from what has already been accomplished, a significant assessment can be made.
Years ago, I wrote that José Luis was born to composition inevitably as the grandson of Joaquín Turina but that, over time, it was Don Joaquín himself who could become José Luis's grandfather. For now, at this point in his career, fewer and fewer people remember that family descent when facing his work. José Luis has his own place that no one has given him, and without diminishing the work of his predecessor and without needing to downplay him familiarly, it can be explained by and through him. I even believe he is very aware of this, for if at first, with the utmost respect and admiration for his grandfather's work, he sought to establish his own identity, now he knows perfectly well that he can deal with it without causing any confusion. In 1982, when the centenary of Don Joaquín's birth was celebrated, other family members were at the forefront; in 1999, the fiftieth anniversary of the first Turina musician's death found José Luis very much at the forefront of the commemorations. The History of Spanish Music has room for two Turinas of the first magnitude.


> 1 NOTAS BIOGRÁFICAS

José Luis Turina de Santos was born in Madrid on October 12, 1952, into a family that has always been distinguished by its cultivation of the arts, not just music (2). If his grandfather was one of the greatest Spanish composers of the century, Joaquín Turina, in the same generation of the grandson, among siblings and cousins, there can be counted a painter, a pianist, and a music critic, in addition to himself as a composer.
Generationally, José Luis Turina belongs to the first completely different generation from the so-called Generation of '51 (De Pablo, C. Halffter, Bernaola, Guinjoan, etc.), authors born around the 1930s and connected through an intergenerational group (Villa Rojo, Marco, Cruz de Castro, Sardá, etc.) born in the 1940s but sharing some, though not all, characteristics of the previous ones. But Turina's generation already encounters other premises. To begin with, they are often students of the previous generation, and their integration into musical life happens not through a sharp break but through continuity. Even the new languages are already objects of prior study and not a conquest on the ground. This does not prevent these authors (including Guerrero, Encinar, Aracil, Fernández Guerra, and many others) from having to find their place or from being quite different from each other, but, like all those born in the same environment and world of ideas, they cannot avoid a distant family resemblance.
José Luis Turina's first musical training was not in Madrid but in Barcelona, as his parents moved to that city, and it was there that he began, starting in 1969, his musical studies at the Municipal Conservatory of Music of Barcelona while also pursuing studies in Philosophy and Letters at the Central University of Barcelona. But in 1973, he returned to Madrid, where he continued his education at the Royal Conservatory of Music.
If the high perfection of craftsmanship characterizes Turina's production, it is also true that this perfection is the product of meticulous, broad, and in-depth training. From an instrumental point of view, he studied various disciplines, such as the violin with Hermes Kriales, the piano with Manuel Carra, and the harpsichord with Genoveva Gálvez. He studied Music History with Federico Sopeña and Antonio Gallego, and at the same time, began studies in Counterpoint and Fugue with Francisco Calés and Harmony with José Olmedo. He also began studies in orchestral conducting with Jacques Bodmer, continuing with Enrique García Asensio. His composition teachers were Antón García Abril and Román Alís alongside Carmelo Bernaola, but he broadened his studies in special courses with Rodolfo Halffter and, after receiving a scholarship from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1979) to continue his studies at the Spanish Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, he attended the Advanced Courses given by Franco Donatoni at the Santa Cecilia Academy.
José Luis Turina's academic record during his studies is truly impressive. In 1978, he received the Extraordinary Prize in Counterpoint and Fugue at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Madrid, and that same year, he won the "José Miguel Ruiz Morales" Composition Prize at the International Course of Spanish Music in Santiago de Compostela. The following year, he received the "Luis Coleman" Prize at the same course. In 1980, he obtained the title of Professor of Solfeggio, Music Theory, Transposition, and Accompaniment, and in 1983, the Elementary Diplomas in Piano and Violin, as well as the titles of Professor of Harpsichord, Harmony, Counterpoint and Fugue, and Composition and Instrumentation. He elevated these to Superior Titles in 1989. Meanwhile, his composing career had begun brilliantly, and he also needed to obtain professional work that, in addition to composing, would allow him to make a living. After the good result as a finalist in the "Golden Harp", in 1980, he won second prize in the Wind Quintet Composition Competition organized by the Ateneo de Sevilla. He received recognition with Homage to César Franck while with Punto de Encuentro he won the First Prize in the Competition for the First Centennial of the Valencia Conservatory Orchestra in 1981.
In 1981, he was appointed Professor of Harmony, Counterpoint, and Composition at the Professional Conservatory of Music of Cuenca, where he remained until 1985, also successively holding the positions of Secretary and Director of that institution. In 1985, he obtained the position of Professor of Harmony at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Madrid through a competitive examination, a position he currently holds, although in 1992 he moved to the "Arturo Soria" Professional Conservatory, also in Madrid.
In 1986, José Luis Turina received the "Reina Sofía" Prize from the Ferrer Salat Foundation for his work Ocnos. That same year, he was appointed Corresponding Member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary in Seville. In 1997, the Royal Academy of Our Lady of Sorrows in Granada awarded him the same distinction. In 1990, he directed the Composition Course at the International Festival of Contemporary Music in Alicante, and between 1991 and 1993, he held the Chair of Harmony and Counterpoint at the "Reina Sofía" School of Music of the Isaac Albéniz Foundation. Sincerely interested in teaching, José Luis Turina has not limited himself to his chair of harmony. In 1989, 1992, and 1996, he conducted various courses and master classes at several American universities, and between 1993 and 1996, he served as Technical Advisor to the General Subdirectorate of Artistic Education of the Ministry for Education and Science for the regulatory development of Music, Dance, and Dramatic Arts education within the LOGSE framework. He returned to this position in 1998.
José Luis Turina also early on achieved the highest official award for a composer, the National Music Prize, which he received in 1996.
In recent times, our composer's activity has been focused on the composition of the Piano Concerto for the 16th International Festival of the Canary Islands in 2000 and the opera D.Q. (Don Quixote in Barcelona) , which will premiere at the Gran Teatro del Liceo that same year.


> 2 FROM TEXT TO STAGE

A composer's creative concerns are usually varied and develop over time both in a sequence of events and in the simultaneity of various independent lines at a single compositional moment. In the case of José Luis Turina, we could establish several lines of force throughout his extensive and varied catalog. However, there is one very clear line that encompasses both non-theatrical and theatrical works, and even purely instrumental works. This is his interest in the musical possibilities of language and linguistic science. This interest would early on lead him to theatrical music (3), and after a series of years dedicated to non-theatrical language experiments, he would return, in a different way, to theater. In any case, we must be cautious with these definitions, as even in purely linguistic works, apparently non-theatrical, the dramatic-scenic element is somehow latent, as I will try to point out in due course.
Apart from some arrangements of arias and songs by various composers, which we will discuss in another section but still hold some importance here, some of José Luis Turina's early vocal works are now out of catalog. However, for our purposes, they do not yet show a primary interest in linguistics, something that somehow already emerges in the choral composition Para saber si existo from 1979, based on texts by Gabriel Celaya, and in Epílogo del misterio from the same year, for mezzo-soprano and piano, based on a text by José Bergamín.
Very early on, Turina tackled the operatic genre and did so successfully with Ligazón, a one-act opera in five scenes based on Valle-Inclán's "Retablo de la avaricia, la lujuria y la muerte". This is a chamber opera from 1981-82 that premiered in Cuenca and has been performed quite a bit, always successfully. Today, the author tends to believe he was not sufficiently prepared at the time to tackle opera and that subsequent works in other genres have led him to conceive it differently. While it is true that he did not have the preparation to approach it from the perspectives he employs now, this little opera is nonetheless an excellent first step in a theatrical path that exploits both singers and actors.
The next step will be a radio play from 1982. It is the adult tale Sin orden ni concierto, commissioned by the Spanish Broadcasting Society (SER) for its participation in the 1983 Prix Italia. The work involves an actress and two actors, an instrumental ensemble, a children's choir with Orff instruments, and various radio effects, as it is a piece for that medium and not for concert performance. With a duration of nearly an hour, the work explores a new realm, which is reflected in its sound profile and also in the treatment of texts and their instrumental correspondence.
Thus, the composer very quickly acquired the means to create one of his most accomplished masterpieces, which, although usually described as concert music, has certain elements of theatrical dramaturgy and lets the instrumental parts be permeated by the spirit and structure of the texts themselves. I am referring to Ocnos, the work with which he won the "Reina Sofía" Prize. It is music for poems by Luis Cernuda (from whom he takes the title from one of his most famous books), with a narrator, cello, and orchestra. Written in an apparently sequential manner, the work maintains great formal unity and alternates instrumental parts with recited ones and solo interventions by the cello that are truly extensions of the texts, transposing the linguistic values to instrumental technique. In this sense, it can be characterized as a very daring but highly accomplished work, treating pure instrumental music with a dramatic-theatrical writing approach. Ocnos is also an extraordinarily beautiful work that knows how to translate the beauty of the text into strictly musical terms.
Another important work in this vein is Exequias (In memoriam Fernando Zóbel) from 1984, commissioned by the Semana de Música Religiosa de Cuenca and composed in honor of the great painter who had recently passed away. The work uses Gregorian choir, mixed choir, and orchestra, and leverages its implicit condition as a requiem to delve into the music-word relationships that had concerned the composer in those years. It is also an emotional and truly expressive work, always with the artisanal perfectionism that the composer cannot and does not want to avoid.
However, I believe the pinnacle of José Luis Turina's work in the field of language exploration is Musica ex lingua, composed in 1989 on commission from the Community of Madrid for the May 2nd commemorations the following year. The work is for mixed choir and chamber orchestra, using texts by Agustín García Calvo, Lope de Vega, Góngora, Bergamín, Valle-Inclán, and Quevedo (4). The composer's explicit idea is to achieve a concatenation between music and language (or vice versa) in which one and the other are mutually respective antecedents and consequents. To this end, his interest in the work of García Calvo (whose text he uses for the prologue of the work) helped him, applying these principles to the treatment of the rest of the work. There is even a metalinguistic concept that allows him to coherently approach a kind of polystylism that also affects the musical sequences and integrates into a whole where singing, speaking, and instrumental music ultimately become a continuum. José Luis Turina's contact with Agustín García Calvo led him to participate in a project of his regarding the creation of a linguistics school. The idea, which was to be sponsored by Caja Madrid, only reached two preliminary meetings held at the cultural headquarters of that entity on Eloy Gonzalo Street, but it was not carried out.
These experiences with language and with a non-directly theatrical dramaturgy would lead the composer to a very broad and advanced experiment in La raya en el agua. The work was developed between 1995 and 1996, commissioned by the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid for the reopening of the renovated Sala Fernando de Rojas, with the help of the Ministry for Education and Culture of the Community of Madrid through the Autumn Festival. The work premiered in that hall in September 1996 and is a show for actors, dancers, instrumental ensemble, electronics, and audiovisual media.
The work does not develop in a linear narrative but rather as if it were a suite that also incorporates visual and vocal elements along with the sound. Divided into very changing and extremely varied episodes, it has served as the source for numerous compositions by Turina, such as Consonantes y vocales for soprano and tape, He was waiting for me to leave for soprano, saxophone, and ensemble, Klangfarbenpas de deux for ensemble, Pas de deux (Vals) for instrumental group, or Desintegración sintáctica de un soneto de Góngora for narrator and instrumental ensemble (5).
Certainly, La raya en el agua cannot be strictly defined as an opera but rather as modern musical theater. However, this experience and previous ones involving instrumental music and linguistics provide José Luis Turina with substantial expertise for tackling a new operatic work. It is in this context that his statements about Ligazón should be understood, which is nonetheless a perfectly coherent and valid work on its own terms. Turina's latest theatrical and linguistic endeavor is a comprehensive opera, already completed and whose premiere in Barcelona has been announced. This is D.Q. (Don Quijote en Barcelona) , written between 1998 and 1999. The project arose from the staging of Falla's Atlántida by the theater group La Fura dels Baus at the Granada Festival in 1996, followed by the staging of Debussy's Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien at the Perelada Festival in 1997 and Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust in Salzburg. La Fura intended to create a new opera from scratch and sought for it to be a project involving various regions rather than being purely Catalan. They contacted Andalusian writer Justo Navarro and Madrid-based composer José Luis Turina, and from their collaboration with La Fura, a work emerged that was later accepted by the Liceo.
This is a grand opera in three acts set in a distant future where auctioneers extract objects from the past to sell them in their time. Among these items are books, objects that hardly anyone knows what they are, and Don Quixote himself. The first act is the auction, the second takes place in Hong Kong at the home of the magnate who purchased Don Quixote, with his twin daughters who together form a dual Dulcinea (6). The third act occurs in Barcelona in 2005 during a Congress on Don Quixote that culminates with a hurricane devastating the city. While the staging project is very much in the style of La Fura, the music, drawing from the experiences of previous works, is highly operatic and, except for some recitatives and spoken passages, is fully sung and, moreover, in a very interesting manner. Judging by the score, and pending a final assessment during the staging, it appears to be the culmination of a long process of the composer's study of the relationships between music and word, texts and actions, vocal music and instrumental music. A powerful process of synthesis and unification of diverse elements aimed at achieving a top-tier aesthetic product through the absolute mastery of the very diverse technical means at his disposal. The score reveals meticulous and accomplished operatic work. José Luis Turina has undoubtedly created an opera to be staged by La Fura. The fundamental question is whether La Fura has envisioned a production to which they add music by José Luis Turina. Undoubtedly, a balance between both approaches will be essential for the show to work and for Turina's true opera not to be diluted into a more mixed whole.


> 3 PIECES OF MUSIC ABOUT MUSIC

Richard Strauss is credited with the phrase that the best commentary on a musical work is another musical work. The real background of this saying, if we delve into all its layers, could lead us to an entire treatise on the philosophy of music. For now, we will focus on two of its most obvious implications: a) the difficulty of approaching a musical work through words, b) the need to confront what has already been done in order to continue creating.
Certainly, music is a language, or at least a metalanguage, but it is not a verbal language. Therefore, talking about music without listening to it leads to very little, since the acoustic experience is absolutely irreplaceable. The best analysis of any work we do not know will not be able to present it to us as a sound image. In this sense, a good analysis can be made of both a great work and a mediocre one, without the analysis alone revealing which is which. I am not undervaluing musical analysis but simply pointing out that it must be inseparable from the experienced sound event.
This utopian endeavor to describe music with words has also occasionally led certain writers to disdain music, as they cannot appreciate what cannot be verbalized and tend abusively to make literature the highest, if not exclusive, reference of culture and artistic creation.
On the other hand, the only thing that justifies, at any time, someone adding more musical works to those already made is an attitude that can be both admiring and slightly critical. Composing continues under the belief that not everything has been said and catalogued. In a way, every new work is a dialogue with the previous ones, which it modifies in some way, as masterpieces can be born with the potential to be such but only become so through a temporal, ideological, and social process that ultimately makes them so.
Musical history is not only the succession of such technical-aesthetic confrontations but is also full of explicit references to earlier works and those of other authors. Many composers have completed works left unfinished by others; others have been drawn to orchestrate or transfer to another instrumental realm the works of others (7). There are so many well-known examples of this that I will refrain from citing any expressly. There are also hundreds of works based on themes by other authors, either by the well-known resource of variations on those themes or by using external elements in another way.
If the phenomenon of music written about other music is as old as music itself, the concept of "music about music" as an aesthetic criterion has been coined in recent times and requires a more philosophical consideration of what was almost always a mere technical practice. To some extent, it connects with the invasion of postmodernist doctrines and the appearance of some epiphenomena that we do not have time to clear up here.
Certainly, José Luis Turina practices a range of very current and synthetic aesthetics, so the reference to some postmodernist aspects would not be superfluous. From there, without a doubt, come some of the approaches to musical glosses. But not all. On the one hand, we must not underestimate the weight of a long and fruitful historical practice; on the other hand, the high craftsmanship of his technical procedures naturally leads to these challenges that most composers face at some point in their career and are generally very satisfying.
Not all "music about music" by José Luis Turina, or any other author, should be treated homogeneously, as we must distinguish between what are arrangements of others' works and what are original creations based on external materials.
In our author, I will distinguish at least three sections: a) Works on the music of Joaquín Turina; b) Arrangements of other music; c) Original creations based on other music.


A) WORKS ON THE MUSIC OF JOAQUÍN TURINA

Without being, by any means, the only musician in the Turina family lineage, José Luis is undoubtedly the most important composer in the family since his illustrious grandfather. This has naturally led him to be the one responsible, on occasions when needed, for making the arrangements or at least supervising them when necessary.
As early as 1979, José Luis undertook the first orchestration of his grandfather's works with the Plegaria a María Santísima del Amparo arranged for male choir and chamber orchestra. Later, in 1982, he made a version for string orchestra of the Serenata de Don Joaquín. The work is pertinent, as the original piece was written for string quartet and had the potential to be adapted for string orchestra, something seemingly simple but with real risks. José Luis executed this with extreme brilliance, achieving a new realm of expansion for the work, where it fits perfectly without forcing its original musical values.
However, the most delicate work of the young Turina on the old Turina is the orchestration of Poema de una Sanluqueña, also done in 1982 (8). The original work is an important sonata for violin and piano that can be considered among Joaquín Turina's most expansive and attractive works. Adapting it for solo violin with orchestra was a risky yet significant challenge. The difficulty was compounded because it was not a complete orchestration from scratch; the author had orchestrated the first two movements. Under these conditions, orchestrating the third and fourth movements required José Luis not only to deploy all his musical craftsmanship but also to delve deeply into his grandfather's work as an orchestrator to try to guess what he would have done. The accuracy of this is mere speculation, and we will never know if this is what he would have done; what is certain is that José Luis rendered it with great perfection, with no technical or stylistic fractures observed throughout the four movements of the work, something verifiable as there is a recording of it. A fine example of the best kind of craftsmanship.
It is well known that Joaquín Turina wrote the first version of La oración del torero for lute quartet, specifically for the famous Cuarteto Aguilar (9). He himself also arranged other pieces for lute quartet, such as the same Serenata, already mentioned for another purpose, or Recuerdos de la Antigua España op.48, El desfile de los soldados de plomo from Niñerías op. 21, or Fiesta mora en Tánger, which is No. 5 from Álbum de Viaje op. 15. These pieces are currently part of the repertoire of a modern lute quartet called Cuarteto Paco Aguilar in honor of the founder of the original ensemble. Antonio Navarro, the leader of the new quartet, has arranged some other pieces by Joaquín Turina which, in this case, were supervised by José Luis. These include two other pieces from Niñerías like Preludio y fuga and Jeux, as well as the first series of Danzas Gitanas.
We should also mention another work that is not an arrangement or adaptation but a restoration: the realization of the score for the opera Jardín de Oriente from its orchestral parts without making any changes or arrangements.


B) ARRANGEMENTS OF OTHER AUTHORS

If not born from a family impulse, like the works we have just described, or becoming original pieces, most of the arrangements composers make of others' music are commissioned and usually have a specific and immediate purpose. In the case of José Luis Turina, this is no exception, and thus we have a good number of arrangements of vocal pieces that arise mainly from two different commissions.
The first group of arrangements is of vocal works, actually songs, by the Spanish Romantic composer Sebastián de Iradier (1809-1865), the author of the famous tune La paloma and another habanera, El arreglito, which Bizet used as the basis for his Carmen. The commission came to José Luis Turina from the Provincial Council of Álava (Iradier was born in Lanciego and died in Vitoria) in 1977 for an album that was indeed made (10) with soprano Josefina Cubeiro and a chamber group conducted by Turina himself. Our composer arranged the following songs, all originally for voice and piano: El arreglito, El Jondito, El recuerdo, El zapateado, La negrita, La paloma, La rubia de los lunares, La soledad de los barquillos, La venta de Cárdenas, Los Pollos and Una ingrata. Needless to say, it is an excellent professional work that does justice to Iradier's music and never betrays its spirit; on the contrary, it enhances its values and characteristics.
The other group of vocal arrangements was developed between 1982 and 1984 and was made at the request of soprano Montserrat Caballé. These are arias by various classical and romantic composers, mostly from operas, adapted as concert songs. It is not so much about orchestrating, as in the case of Iradier, although instrumental criteria and ensembles are unified, but about adapting to the concert setting and the specific characteristics of Caballé's voice some historical pieces that are well known in some cases.
The work begins with Ach! Kampft der Freiheit Stolz, originally by Christoph Willibald Gluck and from Armida. From Vivaldi, there are two examples: Agitata da due venti and Sposa son disprezzata. Haendel also appears with an aria, O had I Jubal's lyre. Pacini is represented by Tacete ohime quei canti, a cavatina from the opera Temistocle. Moving out of classicism and into the turn of the century, we have Spontini with O nume tutelar from his famous La Vestale and Cherubini with Ahi, che farsa ai miei dí. From there, we move to the trilogy of great Italian composers of early romanticism: Bellini, Donizetti, and Rossini. From Bellini, there is one piece, Dopo l'oscuro nembo, the romance from Adelson e Salvini. There are two pieces by Rossini: D'amore al dolce impero from Armida, and O Patria dulce ingrata, the famous recitative and aria known as I Palpiti from Tancredi. Donizetti is the undisputed star of these arrangements with five pieces: Tu che vogli gia spirto beato from Fausta; Sola io sono from Sancia di Castiglia; In questo semplice from Betly ossia La Campanna svizzera; Che mai dite from Adelia, and Scena e aria di Elisabetta from Roberto Devereux. From the same era, although less prominent than the previous ones, is Saverio Mercadante, with Dove sono! from Le due illustri rivali. Finally, there is a tribute to zarzuela in this entire package for Montserrat Caballé with the Polacca from El barbero de Sevilla by Nieto and Jiménez.
There is still the arrangement of another aria with a different purpose. This is Non m'e grave, a recitative and aria by Benedetto Marcello that José Luis Turina arranged in 1987 for a Spanish Television program. We could not conclude this section without mentioning the meticulous work done on the original score of Margarita la Tornera by Ruperto Chapí for the critical edition by the Instituto Complutense de Ciencias Musicales, which was used for the recent revival of the work at the Teatro Real in Madrid.

With José Luis Temes and Luis de Pablo in Lisbon
(IV Encontros de Música Contemporânea, 1980)

C) ORIGINAL CREATIONS BASED ON OTHER MUSIC

Without a doubt, the most stimulating works in this category belong to this subgroup. These are original works by José Luis Turina, as purely creative as any other, but with the particularity that, in some way and not always the same, they are linked to the music of other authors. True "music about music", in which our composer gives us his vision, or his visions, on a set of problems that have likely concerned all composers throughout history but have acquired a complete relevance in our current technical and aesthetic moment.
Several works by José Luis Turina are based on materials from other authors, and it must be said that he has always approached them with different criteria, achieving not only a special dialectical relationship with the past but also a work of his own present with projections towards the future.
The first work to mention is the Fantasy on Don Giovanni, a piece for piano four hands written in 1981 with the same support from the Ministry for Culture with which he composed the opera Ligazón. The impetus came from a request by the piano duo formed by Miguel Zanetti and Fernando Turina, and our composer had the idea of reviving the tradition of the romantic era piano four hands, which was rich in transcriptions, fantasies, or variations on opera themes. Naturally, the result is quite different. José Luis takes from Mozart's Don Giovanni not a specific theme but the chromatic passage found in the entry of the Commendatore at the dinner, described as the first twelve-tone series in music history (11). This passage is not used as a theme per se, and thus there are no variations, but rather it serves to provide structural coherence to the entire piece that derives from it. It is a subtle work where the historical reference achieves a notable level of abstraction, assimilated as a material for a beautiful piece.
To commemorate the 300th anniversary of Domenico Scarlatti, the Community of Madrid, through its Autumn Festival, commissioned José Luis Turina to compose a piece in homage to the Italian-Spanish composer, which he composed and premiered in 1985. The work is titled Variations on Two Themes by Scarlatti and indeed uses two themes (one being the so-called "cat theme") from the Italian composer, rather than the usual isolated theme. The novelty is not only in this but also in the fact that the two themes are superimposed and varied simultaneously and independently. Only a composer of Turina's dazzling skill could undertake such a challenge and not merely produce a brilliant and historical exercise but create a piece of music that establishes a relationship and fosters creation.
Less ambitious but no less perfect is the following work in this category, Variations on a Theme by Prokofiev for bassoon and piano from 1986. The theme chosen for the bassoon is, of course, the one characterizing the grandfather in the musical tale Peter and the Wolf. Moving beyond incidental music, although it had many possibilities of being so, the outcome of the commission from the Isaac Albéniz Foundation in 1987 for the Arthur Rubinstein Commemorative Book is a series of brief but attractive Five Preludes on a Theme by Chopin, showcasing the potential for radicalism in the small piano form.
Just as the work on Scarlatti was a commission from the Community of Madrid's Autumn Festival, another commission from the same source led him to another Italian-Madrilenian composer, Luigi Boccherini, for whom he composed Variations and Variances on Themes by Boccherini in 1988. However, the approach to Boccherini differs significantly from that to Scarlatti. Firstly, the instrumental arrangement differs: while the former utilized six instruments, this one is a concertante piece for harpsichord and chamber orchestra. Moreover, whereas the Scarlatti themes generated a form, here the themes succeed one another and are confronted with responses from José Luis Turina. The work is neither more nor less personal than the Scarlatti one, but here, the two worlds are deliberately juxtaposed, with clearly defined realms, unlike the integration and interdiffusion in the other case. One should also not overlook the virtuoso aspect marked by the appearance of a soloist. Certainly, the encouragement of the harpsichordist Pablo Cano might have influenced the composition, but let us not forget that José Luis Turina not only studied this specific instrument but even graduated in it. In the Boccherini-inspired piece, the soloist rigorously integrates the ensemble, whose divergent points are numerous in those discrepancies over the themes, yet they enhance the work's coherence, ultimately bestowing it true value.
Fantasy on a Fantasy by Alonso Mudarra written in 1989 for the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra's commission for the IV Canary Islands Music Festival, is an extraordinarily brilliant orchestral work, one of the most performed and applauded by José Luis Turina, and a consummate exercise in orchestral virtuosity. Turina addresses perhaps the most famous vihuela piece by Mudarra, and possibly the most popular in the entire Spanish literature for that instrument, the Fantasia que contrahaze la harpa en la manera de Ludovico. Note the vertigo produced by this sort of temporal Russian doll, where one theme is borrowed from another, which in turn borrowed it from yet another. Regardless of who the original Ludovico might have been, the fact remains that Mudarra borrowed a theme that has since become famous.
Again, we encounter a work far from conventional variations. In fact, the title Fantasy, alluding to very free and diverse realities, fits it well, as the theme appears, distances itself, and transforms, leaving in the music a residual spirit even when not explicitly present. I have occasionally compared this piece to another by the same author, which we discuss in another section, Pentimento. This is not because they are technically or sonically similar, but because in this fantasy work, we find a kind of density of planes where Mudarra appears distinctly or fades among the veils, akin to how the pictorial regrets referenced in the other piece disappear.
The Fantasy employs a standard symphonic orchestra treated with a timbral calibration of great precision. Various percussions contribute, but the treatment of strings and winds is highly virtuosic and effective, giving the impression of a mini-concerto for orchestra. The piece's relatively short length adds a lapidary solidity, further highlighting its significance.
José Luis Turina has developed a solid body of violin works, including a concerto, a piece for solo violin, another for two violins, and several for violin and piano, generally of considerable scope. Among them are two that approach the theme of music on music. These are two series of the same work composed in 1990: Variations and Theme on the Theme with Variations «Ah, vous dirais-je maman!» by W.A. Mozart. The first series was written for the violinist Víctor Martin and premiered in 1993; the second series was a commission from Música en Compostela and premiered in 1991.
The title, as often in Turina's works, perfectly expresses the author's intentions. These are variations leading to a theme, which in turn, arise from a theme with variations, that of Mozart. The piece is extremely virtuosic and challenging but also highly effective. Formally, the two series are ambitious and highly developed, each exceeding the length of the Mudarra-based piece. In some way, they culminate the various approaches the composer has taken to transform others' music into his own.
The latest work by José Luis Turina based on other music is Toccata (Homage to Manuel de Falla), written in 1995 for the pianist Humberto Quagliata, who premiered it in Luxembourg in 1996. This piano piece, not very long but longer than the one on Chopin for the Rubinstein tribute, is not so much a set of variations as an homage involving a certain linguistic confrontation or integration, depending on how one views it. The Falla citation is minimal but fundamental for initiating the piece's development: the first chord of the guitar work Homenaje a Debussy.

With Odón Alonso, after the premiere of Exequias
(In memoriam Fernando Zóbel)(Cuenca, 1985)
(Photo: Joaquín Turina)

> 4 THE ORCHESTRAL PALETTE

Orchestral music has always had a very special attraction for composers. While opera may be a temptation to which one succumbs or not, and it is done in an exclusive way, sporadically, or not at all -Wagner and Brahms can be seen as the extreme poles- few composers have escaped the fascination of the orchestra, whether in its pure form, mixed with voices, with the accompaniment of a solo instrument, or in the theater pit. For most, it ends up being the highest expression of their creative possibilities, and in saying this, I do not ignore the loud exceptions, such as those of Chopin or Mompou. But, with all their undeniable greatness, these authors are nothing but exceptions that prove every rule and, as they say, confirm it.
It is also not uncommon for composers to continually assert that chamber music is purer and more difficult. Despite this, for most composers, openly or intimately confessed, the pinnacle of their aspirations is the orchestra, which, along with theater, is also the medium most appreciated by the general public. If this has been true at all times, it is even more so today for two reasons that are not closely connected. On the one hand, the access of contemporary composers to the orchestra is generally more difficult than in the past, despite the multiplication of orchestras, which has inversely correlated with their interest in performing contemporary compositions. This difficulty pertains, of course, to premieres, but it grows geometrically regarding the possibilities of normal circulation. It can be said that, if the premiere is not easy, the second or third performance is even more problematic, and from there we tread the path from pure utopia to science fiction. The other reason is that the increasing importance of timbre in 20th-century musical construction makes the orchestra the richest timbral palette available, electronic means aside. Both reasons—the rarity of performances and the available sound world—make the current trend generally lean towards the composition of works for elephantine orchestras (if one has the opportunity, it is exploited to the maximum), with few examples of medium-sized orchestras, such as those typical of Beethoven or classical periods. With very diverse treatments, the post-romantic hyperorchestra is what attracts many composers to their own detriment, as it multiplies the difficulties of execution and circulation.
Another negative effect of the difficulty of accessing the orchestra is that it is usually studied only theoretically in schools, making its practicality much more problematic than approaching individual instruments, which are either mastered or examined more closely with specific performers. Therefore, today as before, it is not uncommon for a composer to show a more mature or accurate instrumental mastery in solo instruments and chamber music than in the orchestra, although there are exceptions where everything is handled at the same level.
Undoubtedly, an example of this exceptionality is José Luis Turina, who has evolved rapidly in all areas, and his mastery of treatment is precocious at all levels and in all genres. One thing is that one can and should evolve and refine a style, and another is that, as occurs here, one cannot be a master from the beginning. This facility comes to Turina both from his innate musical condition and from his absolute preparation and his artisanal mastery of his craft. As we have seen, he has thoroughly studied various instruments as an academic discipline, and his knowledge of the orchestra comes from study but also from practice alongside instrumentalists and through continuous exercise.
Although many times catalogues of orchestral works are divided into different sections, placing works for orchestra alone, concertante works, and symphonic-choral works in separate containers, I believe that the conceptual, aesthetic, and stylistic unity of Turina's works makes it advisable to view his orchestral output as a whole, regardless of whether we point out, if any, the specificities of each case. Indeed, as we will note, some works have been or will be seen in other sections for reasons that I hope have become clear. Turina's first orchestral work is as early as 1979 and as accomplished as to win an award the following year. But, although this award was in Valencia and commemorated the anniversary of the Conservatory Orchestra, its premiere took place in Las Palmas in 1983. We are, of course, referring to Punto de encuentro.
Somewhat contradicting the introduction of this section and demonstrating the uniqueness of our composer's case, we are not dealing with a work for a massive orchestra but one with a classical ensemble featuring pairs of winds, no trombones, and no more licenses than a harp and a second percussionist. Two things stand out in the work. Firstly, the finesse of its instrumental treatment, which hints at the author's early mastery and Turina's taste, later expanded and multiplied, for variation as a form of generating musical works. Indeed, we are dealing with variations that, as in later Turina works, precede their themes, which are not singular, and even provide an explanation for the work's title, as points of encounter always occur between the variations and their themes. If this first orchestral work was itself a discovery, the second will be an important revelation and will offer a sure step in the composer's career. This is Pentimento, composed in 1983 on commission from the Spanish National Orchestra, which premiered it in February of the following year to resounding success. Here we already find an orchestra of more powerful proportions and an instrumental treatment that is both enormously economical and coloristically sumptuous. When discussing the title, Turina refers to the pictorial concept of "pentimento," something frequent in the great masters of Renaissance and Baroque painting, who "repent" certain forms or strokes and correct them, leaving them beneath, sometimes perceptibly and other times guessable because time brings them to the surface or because they are sought with modern photographic or radiological technologies. Turina proposes a general sound technique that confronts us with at least two stimulating experiences. One, the penetration into the music itself as if through a system of successive layers or glazes, allowing for an approach to various levels of depth. The other, a new, gently personal concept of the variation technique, once again present here at the technical-creative core of the work as in many productions of this master. Pentimento is undoubtedly a rounded and masterful work, standing among the best of its time and among the most emblematic commissions carried out by the National Orchestra. Personally, I feel proud of my relationship with it, as I was the Director-Manager of the orchestra when the commission was proposed to López Cobos, who accepted it with an enthusiasm that honors him and which reality rewarded.
We will now briefly touch on the next two works. One, Ocnos, because it was already discussed in another section, and the other because the composer has withdrawn it from his catalog. This is the Concerto for Viola and String Orchestra (Homage to Óscar Domínguez) written in 1985 for Humberto Orán, who premiered it in La Laguna. Not knowing the work and respecting the author's wish to withdraw it, I can only express the hope that someday Turina might revisit and attempt to rework it, for although he may have found it flawed, it surely contains elements worth salvaging. Thus, we now turn to another concertante work that is not only one of the most performed by José Luis Turina but also a brilliant and powerful work, the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra. The piece was written in 1987 on commission from the Center for the Diffusion of Contemporary Music and premiered at the Alicante International Festival in 1988. An orchestra of good proportions with significant percussion dialogs, contrasts, and blends with a very virtuosic soloist to design a practically perfect formal arch.
The work consists of three movements performed without interruption. The first is of great timbral richness as it pits the violin with its tuned sounds against orchestral sounds (membranes and strings) without determined tuning. The second is a kind of rondo-scherzo interrupted by a dramatic episode of brass, then resumed with a coda that gives way to a broad solo cadenza linking to the third movement with a wide divisi of the strings into tiny cells of attractive sonorities, leading back towards the end to elements of the first movement, guiding the work to the mysterious climate with which it began. The treatment of the soloist is always virtuosic and tends to stand out from the orchestra, which is not, however, a usual accompaniment. At other times, the blending of the violin and the instrumental parts is carried out with great subtlety. Víctor Martín and Víctor Pablo Pérez with the Tenerife Orchestra offered the absolute premiere with great authority. There is no doubt that we are dealing with a virtuosic work but also with a powerful orchestral invention that provides new solutions to the concertante form while magnificently exploiting instrumental resources. We will skip the next two works for having already discussed them. These are Variaciones y desavenencias sobre temas de Boccherini and Fantasía sobre una Fantasía de Alonso Mudarra. The next orchestral work emerges in 1991 on commission from the RTVE Symphony Orchestra, which premiered it the following year. Its title is El arpa y la sombra, for large orchestra. It is a purely orchestral work, but its title, taken from a famous novel by Alejo Carpentier, alerts us to some of the author's intentions. On the one hand, the proximity of the 1992 commemorations leads Turina to address this Americanist theme; on the other, for some time the author had toyed with the idea of an opera based on this novel and utilizes experiences in the orchestral work. It is not that we are dealing with theatrical instrumental music, but rather, to continue my initial discourse, Turina has been shaping his concept of linguistic work and action inseparably with his instrumental treatment. We are faced with a purely orchestral work but one full of subtle nods, poetic corners, and slanted symmetries capable of referring us to or evoking other realities. From some point of view, few works are as exquisite and secret as this, although this does not exclude the security and even the power of the orchestral hand.
A certain kinship with the previous work, although with fewer literary roots, is found in Música Fugitiva, written in 1992 on commission from the Fundación Caja Madrid for the Orquesta de Tenerife. Here, the subtleties lie in the construction and the new direction taken -also in other chamber works- by the principle of the variation form, so dear to our author. Variations take on a curious form in a shorter but no less interesting work, Fantasía sobre doce notas, written in 1994 to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Madrid Symphony Orchestra. José Luis Turina recalled the tribute that various authors paid in 1934 to Maestro Arbós, the legendary conductor of this orchestra, and how his grandfather Joaquín created a fantasy on the five notes of his name. He adds the remaining seven but not for a twelve-tone treatment; rather, for a variant on three levels: that allowed by the seven absent notes, the five present in his grandfather's work, and an inter-variation between the two that provide a finished display of formal virtuosity and almost lapidary orchestral treatment (12).
In 1996, Turina composed Dos Danzas Sinfónicas, a work for large orchestra commissioned by the Orquesta de Galicia, where the presence of dance music and its invariants takes on a dimension of investigation into the language, but in this case not the spoken language but the metalanguage of music itself and its stereotyped forms, which, nevertheless, can be a stimulus for breaking and recomposing. Note how in many of the author's compositions, external themes serve as a basis for variation work in which pentimenti and, even more, palimpsests have a very specific function, both formal and evocative. The work was composed simultaneously with La raya en el agua and exists in this symphonic version as well as a chamber version that incorporates theatrical work (Klangfarbenpas de deux and Pas de deux (Vals)).
Turina's orchestral work concludes for now with Concerto da chiesa, a concerto for cello and strings that has yet to be premiered and, for that reason, we will not discuss it, and with the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, which, as it is the work being premiered as a commission at the present Canary Islands Music Festival and thus justifies this study, we will address it separately later on.

With members of the Madrid Association of Composers, after the concert by
Jonathan Carney and Rebecca Hirsch at the Teatro Real in Madrid (1999)

> 5 CHAMBER MUSIC

We spoke earlier about the dual attitude of composers toward orchestral and chamber music, the purity and difficulty of the latter, and how it is the usual refuge for most contemporary composers. But let us hasten to add that for great authors like José Luis Turina, it is not a remedy or resignation but a voluntary choice in each case.
In any event, it must be said that chamber music has evolved significantly during the 20th century, not only in its concepts but also in the expansion of its scope. The classical forms of chamber music eventually became perfectly codified stereotypes with little apparent possibility (or intention) of expansion. Thus, the forms of the trio, in its dual aspect of string trio and piano trio, the string quartet as the undisputed and indisputable king of chamber music, the piano quartet (string trio and piano), and the string quartet plus piano, the wind quintet and its variant of woodwind trio or quartet, and more rarely, the string sextet, the wind octet, and the mixture of the nonet, were established. Many of these formations are almost marginal, although all boast masterpieces in their literature, so the usual domain of classical chamber music is trios and quartets.
All this would be swept away in the 20th century without the need to resort to an emblematic but somewhat large-scale work like Schönberg's Chamber Symphony op. 9. In that same composer, chamber (and vocal and theatrical) forms are pulverized with a work as specific and unclassifiable as Pierrot Lunaire. Other examples, like Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale, Bartók's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, etc., began expanding the chamber domain in the interwar period, gradually blurring its distance from the symphonic. But it was not until after World War II, and especially with the advent of total serialism, that the concept of chamber music was revolutionized by the introduction of the so-called "Darmstadt-type ensemble," a type of formation of varied instruments, generally between five and a dozen (with possible extensions), which has been the basis of all music in the last half-century, producing tons of music of the most varied techniques and disparate values. However, the fact that most of these works require a conductor, along with the fact that there is also a need for smaller formations since classical instrumental models not only have not disappeared but are cultivated in abundance, makes it useful to divide the chamber music of any author with a substantial body of work like Turina's into three subgroups: music for ensembles, music for small formations, and music for classical formations. We will do this by mentioning the works but dwelling less, with some exceptions, due to space reasons, on individual details than we have so far.


A) MUSIC FOR ENSEMBLES

This section includes works for more than five instruments that, with few exceptions, require a conductor for their performance. We must begin with the same work mentioned at the start of this essay, Crucifixus (1978), for twenty string instruments and piano. This piece is followed by Ofelia muerta (1979), for twelve string instruments, exemplifying a unique writing style that produces globalizing results. The early virtuosity and tonal control that the young composer demonstrates in these works are notable.
With Titulo a determinar (1980), José Luis Turina makes a brilliant entry into the realm of Darmstadt-type ensembles (clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, viola, cello, and double bass). Written for the Koan Group, the irony of the title (often how new works are announced when time is short and the composer hasn't yet finished or named the piece) translates into an attractively light and nervously buoyant music. The next work in this vein is Alaró (1984), commissioned by the Círculo de Bellas Artes for a confrontation between musicians and painters (13). Turina created his work based on Hernández Mompó, and while it does not aim to achieve a sonic correspondence to the painting, nor a description of it, much of the music reflects the type of painting on which the experience was based.
We have already discussed Variaciones sobre dos temas de Scarlatti, the next chronological work, while Divertimento, aria y serenata (1987) was written for a viola octet but has circulated more in its subsequent version for eight cellos. Here, there is a delicate balance between hyper-control and almost improvisation (from a creative perspective, not in the writing, which is not aleatoric), as well as between irony and effusive expressiveness, culminating in a highly satisfying work, the Kammerkonzertante (1988), commissioned by the Rencontres Internationales de Musique Contemporaine in Metz, France. In essence, it is a double concerto for alto flute and bass clarinet with violin, viola, cello and double bass that are far from mere accompanists. The tonal world starting from the lower sonorities is very attractive, and the material execution is perfect, as the author has accustomed us.
The next works in this group have already been mentioned as parts of La raya en el agua, later separated from that production. They are Pas de deux (Vals) for ensemble, Klangfarbenpas de deux, also for ensemble, and Desintegración sintáctica de un soneto de Góngora for reciter and ensemble. The last independent chamber work in this group is Scherzo para un hobbit (1987), written for an instrumental ensemble (14).

With Federico Sopeñ at the Spanish Academy of Fine Arts
(Roma, 1980)

B) SMALL ENSEMBLES

In this section, we include those works with fewer than five instruments that do not belong to classical formations. For practical reasons, we will study them in descending order of instrumental participants. Starting with instrumental quartets, we mention a very early work, Según se mire, written in 1978 for oboe, viola, harp, and double bass, and revised in 1983. With Cinco estudios (d'après Valery) from 1993, commissioned by the Paco Aguilar Quartet, Turina approaches the lute quartet, which had proven so successful for his grandfather. These pieces are not literary, despite the reference to the French poet, but rather a sort of tour de force to achieve a very personal and appealing music through the limitation of an ensemble more suited to light or folk pieces. The result, inevitably, is attractive. And if the lute quartet formation is unusual, even more so is the cuarteto de corni di bassetto (15) for which in 1994 he wrote a curious piece titled Cuatro cuartetos.
We go back chronologically to revisit works with diverse trios that begin with La commedia dell'arte from 1986, a work for flute, viola, and guitar, which implicitly contains a nod in its title, as it was written for the now-defunct Trío Arlequín (16). There are echoes of Lorca in the title Túmulo de la Mariposa (a title taken from a verse by Quevedo) written in 1991 for a failed attempt at the Madrid Pavilion at Expo 92 (17). The work, for clarinet transitioning to bass clarinet, cello, and piano, premiered in Paris in 1993. Another failed attempt is the very brief Siete cánones para tres guitarras from 1996, which remains unperformed. Meanwhile, there is another trio work originating from La raya en el agua, titled Dubles for piccolo, subcontrabass flute and 4 steel drums (18).
Our author has an abundant output of instrumental works for duos, with a significant presence of excellent works for violin and piano, starting this subgroup of the catalog with Movimiento from 1978. An attractive contribution to the flute and piano duo is Iniciales from 1980, while in 1986 he dedicates the already mentioned Variaciones sobre un tema de Prokofiev to bassoon and piano. The Sonata da chiesa from 1987, for viola and piano, coincides with the dedication to the viola prompted by Humberto Orán with the withdrawn concert, although the chamber work persists and the title extends to the recent concerto for cello.
Dos Duetos for viola or cello and piano, are from 1988 and precede the interesting Seis Metaplasmos for two violins from 1990. These are interesting not only for their undeniable musical quality, but also for what they reveal about Turina's research on language figures treated instrumentally, as in this case (19), and how he traverses his entire pre-operatic path from the central core of Musica ex lingua. This work is followed by two equally important but more ambitious and formally extensive series, the already discussed Variaciones y tema sobre el tema con variaciones "Ah, vous dirai-je maman!" by W.A. Mozart. With Rosa engalanada, for flute and guitar, from 1992, Turina offers elegant and graceful music that demonstrates once again that a work somewhat occasional in nature does not have to be merely occasional, while the Dúo, for dulzaina and oboe, from 1996 is again one of those challenges that José Luis Turina usually accepts gladly and develops brilliantly. Writing for such a particular instrument, so closely tied to folk music as the dulzaina (shawn), is a challenge; achieving through it a work that is memorable in many aspects is a triumph. The cycle concludes for now in 1999 with PasoDoppio, a tenderly ironic duo in homage to one of his teachers, Carmelo Bernaola, on the occasion of his seventieth birthday and the commemoration organized by the Quincena Donostiarra.


C) CLASSICAL CHAMBER ENSEMBLES

Practically no major contemporary composer has escaped the temptation to try the usual chamber formations from classicism and romanticism at some point. On the one hand, these are balanced groups that offer a multitude of treatments, including contemporary ones. On the other hand, the immense literature of great quality that the past offers is a challenge for a creator who can bring their personal vision and unique work to this long historical chain.
José Luis Turina has also succumbed to the charm of these forms and groups, and his catalog shows his works in this regard. These begin with his only and early wind quintet, Homenaje a César Franck from 1979, which has already been awarded, as mentioned in the biographical note. His first approach to the string quartet dates back to 1980 with Lama Sabathani?, a work commissioned by Radio Nacional de España (20), whose initial dramatic condition does not hinder a work of great constructive rigor that ultimately enhances its very lively expressiveness.
The classical trio of violin, cello, and piano finds its most accomplished expression in the Trío from 1983, a work of clear progression and notable timbral and formal discoveries, which may be the most performed among the pieces in this group by the author (21). His second work for quartet, the Cuarteto en Sol, was composed in 1985 on commission from the Ministry for Culture for the European Year of Music. Premiered two years later in Santiago de Compostela (22), the quartet is a work of greater length and formal ambition than the first work of this formation, and its title does not refer to a key but to a sound spectrum from which Turina extracts diverse material treated in continuous variations at all levels. The attractive Cuarteto con piano from 1990 was commissioned by the Juan March Foundation, in which Turina once again demonstrates his mastery in handling sound materials and the precision of his writing.
For now, José Luis Turina's catalog of chamber ensembles ends here. Undoubtedly, the future will bring us a significant number of works that will further expand and shape his important contribution to this chapter of Spanish music.

With Pablo Cano, during a rehearsal of Variaciones y desavenencias
sobre temas de Boccherini (Teatro Real, Madrid, 1988)
(Photo: Gloria Collado)

> 6. SOLO MUSIC

Music for solo instruments has a long history in Western sound culture, and in some ways, it can be considered one of the earliest instrumental practices and one of the professional means for historical composers. Initially, it was practiced on the organ when most creative music was performed in the service of ecclesiastical functions, generally liturgical or more broadly sacred, assuming one could distinguish the liturgical from the ecclesiastical sacred and concert religious in the Medieval or even the Renaissance periods. In any case, one of the drivers of the evolution of purely instrumental forms, when they became evident in Mannerism and the early Baroque, was the solo instrument illustrated by some organists, with Frescobaldi at the forefront, but also by the numerous and brilliant generation of Spanish vihuelists and some ingenious players of string instruments like the brilliant Diego Ortiz, the true inventor of variation (23).
However, the pinnacle of solo writing belongs to the keyboard. First with the organ, then with the clavichord, the spinet, the virginal, and finally the harpsichord, and from the late 18th century, exclusively the piano, which for a century and a half would be the essential instrument for many composer-performers. Therefore, it is not surprising that when discussing solo compositions, the catalogs of modern composers show a clear preponderance of the piano. In the case of José Luis Turina, I believe I should open three sub-sections in this category, as it is necessary to address the piano works, which are quite abundant, the guitar works, which are also significant, and then together, but in no way mixed, those solo works for other diverse instruments without enough pieces to have an independent heading.


A) PIANO WORKS

José Luis Turina's piano works are relatively abundant and of certain interest. There is also an unusual presence of piano four-hands, which can be explained by knowing that his brother Fernando, an excellent pianist, forms a piano duo. For this duo, he wrote in 1981 the already mentioned Fantasía sobre Don Giovanni. The same duo commissioned and premiered Sonata y Toccata in 1990, a piece featuring an interesting formal play combined with an intelligent metric exploitation of certain mechanistic aspects that the four-hands writing sometimes implicitly carries as a necessary tribute to its synchronization and even the sociological burden of its historical literature. This is not the last work for four hands, as we must also mention the Tres palíndromos from 1996, a commission from the Centre for the Diffusion of Contemporary Music to be published in a magazine (24). The work demonstrates an ingenious use, once again, of a linguistic figure such as the palindrome, adapted to the special symmetry of music that can also use intervallic inversion or, in the case of four-hands play, the two right hands against the left hands, etc., in such a way that, perhaps a bit abusively but for the benefit of musicality, we find greater flexibility in what Turina understands as a musical palindrome. The first uses what Cabrera Infante humorously says is the first palindrome in history: Madam, I'm Adam. The second is from Juan de Timoneda and dates from 1561: No deseo ese don, with the subtitle REconocER which allows him to set up symmetries around the note D. The third is by José Antonio Millán, Anita, la gorda lagartona, no traga la droga latina, allowing for a humorous scherzo.
For solo piano, his catalog begins with a work about his grandfather, Don Joaquín, as it was commissioned by the Ministry for Culture for a tribute book on the occasion of the first centenary of the birth of the first composer Turina, celebrated in 1982. The work is titled ¡Ya uté ve…!, and according to the composer, it illustrates a typical colloquial expression of his grandfather. For this, José Luis uses a musical turn present in Mujeres españolas and Recuerdos de mi rincón. The next work was written in 1986 at the request of the magazine Scherzo for a commemorative concert of its first anniversary. It is naturally called Scherzo. The piece lives up to its title and the festive occasion, skillfully developing scherzando music with discreet humor through an adept use of extremely pianistic virtuosity.
In the same year, at the request of pianist Albert Nieto, who was asking various composers for a brief piece around the theme of peace, he composed Amb "P" de Pau, taking inspiration from the Catalan origin of the pianist and the known pacifist trajectory of cellist Casals, and the phonetic identification between the Catalan words for Pablo and Peace, both being "Pau". As a reference to Casals, he employs a quote from the popular song El cant dels ocells, which the Catalan performer used almost as an emblem.
In 1991, at the request of the pianist from Tenerife Guillermo González, he composed the most formally ambitious piano work, the Sonata. Regardless of its atonal character, or rather, non-tonal or metatonal, the piece is truly a formal effort closely related to the sonata and incorporates those elements of virtuosity that are inherent to a significant work written for a true soloist of high caliber. The pianistic writing, always serving the musical idea, reveals a deep understanding of the instrumental technique developed here.
The solo piano works currently conclude with a piece already mentioned in previous sections, the Toccata (Homenaje a Manuel de Falla) .


B) GUITAR WORKS

Until not too long ago, contemporary composers prudently avoided the guitar, and in the catalogs of most of them, this instrument barely appeared with some occasional piece. The reasons were varied and ranged from the association of the guitar with transcription music and folk origins to the weak technique of most guitarists and the peculiarities of the instrument, which apparently did not allow for many possibilities.
This mindset has now become outdated for exactly opposite reasons: new guitarists have better technique and greater interest in creating new works than their predecessors, transcriptions are giving way to original compositions, and composers have better understood the mechanics of the instrument, which has also evolved. This revolution began from within, as one of the main champions of the modern guitar was a composer who was also an extraordinary guitarist for a few years, the Cuban Leo Brouwer, who demonstrated to his fellow performers and skeptical composers that the guitar is as capable as any other instrument for contemporary music.
Fortunately, José Luis Turina was not affected by the earlier aversion to the guitar, which once had some justification, and his catalog includes several works for the instrument, in addition to the piece for three guitars and the quartet of lutes already mentioned in previous sections. The solo guitar catalog begins with a youthful piece written at the request of the illustrious guitarist José Luis Rodrigo, Tres piezas from 1977, which incorporate a song form, a recitative, and a scherzando form with a rondo structure.
In 1980, at the request of Pablo de la Cruz, he wrote Copla de Cante Jondo, in which he originally and creatively embraces the folkloric, Andalusian, and flamenco essence that the guitar often carries. Here, Turina demonstrates ingenuity and sensitivity to transcend an entire realm without betraying it but expanding it from its very essence. The Cuatro estudios en forma de pieza from 1989 were directed to another important guitarist, Ricardo Iznaola, and are actually four pieces intended to serve the concept of a study as a formulation of a specific technical feature, while also being compositions meant for concert performance rather than pedagogical use.
Monólogos del viento y de la roca was written in 1993 at the request of Gabriel Estarellas, and despite its naturalistic title and the evocative intention it may have, it alternates between fixed elements of the musical discourse and the fluidity and capacity for transformation of others. For the same performer, and at his request, Turina wrote his latest guitar work to date, Preludio sobreesdrújulo, which is part of a series of pieces that had to be specifically preludes, requested by Estarellas from various composers. The piece, in its brief course, shows an intelligent framework of accentuations and rhythmic and timbral treatment.

With Laura Klugherz (violn), Suzanne Sieber (piano) and Agustín León
Ara, in a rehearsal of Movimiento (Santiago de Compostela, 1978)

C) WORKS FOR OTHER SOLO INSTRUMENTS

Piano and guitar are the only solo instruments treated by José Luis Turina with enough works to justify their own sections. Here, we will mention other solo works written for various instruments, and instead of classifying them by instrumentation, we will do so chronologically regardless of the instrument for which they were written. Thus, the first work that appears is for solo cello, composed in 1982 at the request of the soloist Arturo Muruzábal. It is titled En volandas and is a brief piece written in a single, continuous, and virtuosic sonic gesture.
In 1983, at the request of flutist Linda Wetherill, he wrote a work for solo flute titled Dubles. This piece should not be confused with another of the same title already discussed but which is different, although they are related. In reality, José Luis Turina reworked the piece for the show La raya en el agua and later extracted it as an autonomous work. However, the normal solo flute here becomes a piccolo, sub-contrabass flute and 2 steel drums (see supra).
The next two works reference two historical instruments that were once closely related and even received music that could be played on either. These are the harpsichord and the organ, which today are quite distant in our sonic imagery, where timbre has taken on an absolute value it did not have in the Baroque period. For the harpsichord, an instrument that Turina studied and for which we recall he wrote a concertante work, he composed Due essercizi in 1989, intended for harpsichordist Genoveva Gálvez. The organ piece was created in 1990 by commission from the National Orchestra of Spain to inaugurate the new organ in the Chamber Hall of the National Auditorium. Punto de órgano perfectly adapts to the characteristics of the mentioned instrument but is also coherent with the intentions of such a commemoration, as evidenced by its selection for the inaugural program of an organ with very different characteristics, that of the Almudena Cathedral in Madrid. (25) Finally, we should mention a work for harp written in 1992 commissioned by Nicanor Zabaleta, Notas dormidas, which remains unperformed due to the great instrumentalist's death.


> 7 VOICE AND PIANO

Not without purpose do we leave for the end the works of José Luis Turina composed in the broad genre of song, that is, vocal works with piano accompaniment. If we began the clearing of compositions by the path leading from language and word to theatrical music, there is no doubt that we perform a kind of small virtual palindrome by ending with the song. It is clear that this type of vocal music has also served the author as a testing ground for the treatment of sung texts and that, in some way, we could have inserted this section into the first one. However, the song holds such strength and rootedness among Spanish composers of all times that, regardless of the experience they gain from it for other fields, it constitutes a closed group in itself with special characteristics. It has even been said that in the least interesting of Spanish composers, one will always find a good concert song.
The group of works under this heading composed by José Luis Turina is certainly in line with his overall evolution, but we can note some important points. Thus, the very choice of texts illustrates well the varied cultural interests of the composer and the formal and expressive lines that interest him. One can also see his effort to highlight the text in two directions: to exploit its phonetic and semantic capacities, which impact the structure of the piece, and to modulate the conceptual content not by a sound description of the text but by corresponding musical images. All these parameters advance, vary, and bifurcate throughout the progression of works emerging over the years, allowing us to discern a steady advance in the indicated directions and a process of refinement in the composer's compositional thinking. Therefore, we will not dissect each vocal work but will spatially place them in the general catalog and highlight their main informative data.
The currently valid catalog of Turina's songs begins in 1979 with Epílogo del misterio, a commission from the Spanish Confederation of Savings Banks on a text by José Bergamín (26). It is a work for voice and piano of certain magnitude, in a single movement, more complex than a mere song. In 1981, at the request of soprano Ana Higueras, he composed Primera antolojía for voice and piano, on texts by Juan Ramón Jiménez.
At this point, José Luis Turina's catalog in this section takes a leap in time, also reflected in the journey of new vocal works following the crucial experiences of Musica ex lingua and others. The first to appear is from 1992 and is for voice and three instrumentalists on texts by Lope de Vega, Góngora, and Quevedo, with the formally indicative title Tres sonetos. A year later, Tres poemas cantados on texts by García Lorca was born, again for soprano and piano, with a formal and expressive dimension different from that of the previous work. Canción apócrifa, on a text by Antonio Machado, is a very precise and beautiful song that emerged in 1994, commissioned by the Soria Musical Autumn, and, that same year, a rather different work emerged for soprano and strings, Cinco canciones amatorias on Catalan poems from the 14th to 16th centuries, composed for the 150th anniversary of the Jaime Balmes Institute of Secondary Education in Barcelona, where his father was a drawing professor and he himself studied for his baccalaureate. Again in the same year, he wrote a song for contralto and piano based on Alberti and titled En forma de cuento.
There is no doubt that if La raya en el agua prompted independent works of all kinds, its theatrical musical nature propels the appearance of works for voice. Two were extracted by the author in 1995. The first is Consonantes y vocales for soprano and pre-recorded tape with texts by Fernando de Rojas. The other is for soprano, alto saxophone and instrumental ensemble and is titled He was waiting for me to leave with a text by the composer himself. The composer's vocal chapter ends for now in 1998 with a very brief piece written for the presentation of the Madrid Association of Composers. It is for soprano and piano, without text, and is titled Vocalise de la guitarra (con algunas consonantes) .

With Juan Pablo Izquierdo, Arturo Muruzábal (cello), Joaquín
Hinojosa (reciter) and the ORTVE in a rehearsal of Ocnos
(Valencia, 1988)

> 8 DIVERSE WORKS

The title of this section suggests a "catch-all" category for works that are not easily classified. This is far from my intention; rather, it concerns two subgroups of works that have not been treated in their respective sections (but could have been): some, because they have been withdrawn by the author, and others because they are intended for educational rather than concert purposes. It could be argued that the history of music is full of pieces that were created with a didactic intention and later became cornerstones of concert music. This is undoubtedly true, but when a composer of the stature, intelligence, and sensitivity of José Luis Turina makes that distinction himself, his wishes should be respected. Only time will tell if any of these pieces deserve to be classified elsewhere.
Regarding the withdrawn music, it presents a thorny problem. On one hand, there are theorists (and composers) who prefer not to mention it. However, these works are simply withdrawn, not destroyed, and in most cases, they have been premiered (and sometimes even published and recorded), and there are people who have listened to and even appreciated them. José Luis Turina himself mentions them, albeit as out of catalog, in his list of works. Therefore, we will do justice to the author by mentioning them. We will only add the title and the instrumentation, although, as is the case with several, I am familiar with them. We will apply the same criterion to pedagogical works.


A) PEDAGOGICAL MUSIC

The Siete piezas para piano from 1987 are written for solo piano. Ocho variaciones manieristas sobre la escala de Sol Mayor were composed in 1993 for two violins, intended for Sergio Castro. At the request of the same teacher, Turina composed a Suite for string orchestra in 1993. In 1995, he composed Seis bocetos para la Toccata (Homenaje a Manuel de Falla) for piano. It seems necessary to make two clarifications regarding this work. The first is that these are diverse and independent sketches for a specific work of that title, which does exist as an autonomous and cataloged piece, and we have already addressed it. The second is that the work includes as its first sketch a piece titled Paisaje from 1994, which was written for the Colien’s Album and premiered within it (27).
In 1995, he composed Tres piezas for celli (or violins) ensemble, commissioned by Arantxa López Barinagarrementeria. The Elegía for guitar from 1996 is again intended for the second Colien’s Album and was premiered within it. Marcha for two violines, Homenaje a Oscar Wilde for string quartet, and Tres danzas for dos violines y violoncelo (and for string quartet) are from 1997. Movimiento compuesto for violin, cello, and piano was written in 1998 as a tribute to Félix Hazen on the occasion of his fifty years of professional life, while Estudios para la mano derecha, for solo violin, began in 1999 with the intention of continuation.


B) WITHDRAWN MUSIC

The first work in this section is from 1975 and is Tres Canciones for soprano and piano on texts by García Lorca, Alberti, and Antonio Machado. From 1977, Tres Poemas for soprano and piano on texts by Fernando Villalón, Alberti, and Juan Ramón Jiménez. The Suite for flute, cello, and piano is from 1978, as is the Sonatina for piano and Nostradamus for solo violin. Canción última, with text by Miguel Hernández, for vocal octet and 5 percussionists, is from 1979, the same year as Tres contrapuntos for two violas, Albedarán for string trio, and the five pieces for piano titled Trastevere.
Requiescat, for vocal quartet and piano four-hands, with texts by José Bergamín, is from 1980. In 1989, he orchestrated and revised the third of the five movements (Recitativo) to include it in Musica ex lingua. From 1981 is Beltenebros, for two pianos, string trio and two percussionists, and from 1985 is the previously mentioned Concierto para viola y orquesta de cuerda (Homage to Óscar Domínguez), while Siete piezas para piano are from 1987.

> 9 THE PIANO CONCERTO

This study is undertaken due to the commission made by the Festival of Music of the Canary Islands to José Luis Turina for its 2000 edition. It is logical to dedicate a separate section to discuss the work that the composer has offered in response to this request, which is his Piano Concerto. Naturally, this is a work not yet premiered at the time of writing these notes, and thus, we base our discussion on the score, which has been carefully examined with the composer himself.
The first thing to note about this work is that it is a concertante piece of considerable length, lasting about thirty minutes, with a complex and extensive instrumental setup. It includes piccolo and two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets and a bass clarinet, two bassoons, 4 horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani and two percussionists, as well as a large string section, occasionally treated individually, in addition to the solo piano. It reflects well the path taken by José Luis Turina and his previous concertante experiences, especially the Violin Concerto, with which it seems to have some similarities, though they are quite distinct works. The primary difference, which precisely separates them, is the extraordinary adaptation of the writing to the chosen instrument. While in the former the writing was purely violinistic, in this piece, the soloist’s language is entirely pianistic and arises from the characteristics of the instrument. In both, it is extraordinarily virtuosic.
The piano part of the concerto presents notable difficulties that are surmountable due to its instrumental suitability, provided there is a great soloist. Similarly challenging is the orchestral part, which requires an orchestra with very high technical ability and a highly experienced conductor. This difficulty arises from both the precision, and even the meticulousness of the instrumental writing, as well as the challenging metric integration. The score is fraught with continuous changes in meter and the appearance of constant irregular meters and broken measures, sometimes at quite fast tempos, which does not facilitate reading. All of this insists that practically everything is feasible and only requires meticulous and knowledgeable preparation. It is possible that in the future, given the rehearsal structure of most orchestras, some reasonable compromises will need to be made regarding certain passages (such as measures of 15/16, which make the missing sixteenth note in a theoretical 4/4 problematic).
Structurally, the work unfolds in three movements, performed in one continuous flow without breaks. The first movement begins with a brilliant piano introduction that quickly subsides to allow the orchestra to develop the first two ideas. These ideas are based on continuous metric changes and some timbral contrasts, such as the powerful intervention of the brass. Later, the piano integrates into the process, establishing a constant play of symmetries between the soloist and the various instrumental groups, and among these groups themselves. A cadenza reminds us that we are dealing with a concerto form of evolution rather than rupture with traditional forms and the virtuosic nature of the piece. From this point, an interesting development of previously exposed elements is established, showcasing Turina’s capacity in the field of variation. A new cadenza connects the first movement with the second without any break.
The second movement is technically very interesting and sonically attractive. Initially, we encounter a kind of canonic variations, although the proliferation and variation of the canons lead us into a genuine play of textures. Here, in reality, the omnipresent piano plays a responsive role, as the canonic material is always presented by the orchestra, and the piano varies it until reaching an accumulation (in a kind of coda in stretta) with a scherzando character that becomes increasingly compact.
The third movement establishes a complex interplay of mirrors and symmetries, as it somewhat specularly corresponds to the first movement. What happens is that the materials and sections assigned to the piano in the first movement are transferred to the orchestra in this movement, and vice versa. This allows the variations to alter the nature of the elements and for the mirrors to become something fluid and mutable, leading inexorably toward the end. In the finale, the composer performs a pirouette by concluding with a loss of tension rather than the usual sonic outpouring. Another element to consider is that Turina consciously embraces something that was noted by some historical composers and acoustic physicists like Helmholtz: the sound realm (even the construction) of the piano and the orchestra’s instruments (28) is irreconcilable and they can never merge. Thus, in many concertos, including this one, there is a constant presence of the soloist, which is why we find numerous cadenzas here.
Without a doubt, José Luis Turina’s Piano Concerto is an important work that will hold a significant place in the composer’s catalog, in Spanish music of its time, and among the commissions made by the Festival of Music of the Canary Islands.


> 10 TECHNIQUE AND AESTHETICS

Although much of José Luis Turina’s creative thought is already apparent from the previous text, the work could not conclude without some brief notes on his technique and aesthetics.
In my view, this composer’s body of work arises from the tension between two pairs of elements: structuralism and expressiveness on one hand, and tradition and avant-garde on the other. In summary, between craftsmanship and ideation. There is no doubt that his technical world is nourished by both traditional techniques and the avant-garde. From the latter, he draws elements from structuralist techniques that originated in serialism. However, Turina is not a serial composer; he occasionally uses series as he would any other linguistic element. Rather, the structural imprint of serialism on musical composition is manifested in his work through other techniques. At the same time, being thoroughly knowledgeable about the traditional craftsmanship of music, it appears in his works with a personal and lucid transformation. One might even speak of tonal elements, if it did not lead to confusion, as it is not about functionalizing chords but about an effective use of those derived from that realm. There are many such references in his work, but one cannot conclude that he is a tonal composer in the same way he is not serial.
Turina never renounces ties to tradition; he explicitly shows concern for it but does not only look backward or, if at all, does so like Benjamin’s Angelus Novus (29). His postmodernist attitude allows him to navigate comfortably between opposites not as an end to history but as an integration of it. This has been misunderstood from opposing viewpoints: by the traditionalists, who assume he is a conservative and are pleased with that, and by the supposed progressives, who are unable to openly approach such a personal position. But as is well known, the number of fools is infinite, encompassing all tendencies.
The art of perpetual and continuous variation was something Webern bequeathed to later integral serialism; however, variation is also a traditional regulated musical technique, and Turina is very fond of it. He employs it profusely, and with the particularity that he uses both traditional variation and structuralist variation in a very stimulating fusion. Alongside it, canonic forms blend with modern concepts of symmetry for subtle games of references and self-replication. We arrive at a very meticulous writing style, mannerist in some aspects, precise in its adaptation to the instrumental or vocal means used, and ultimately becoming a language that also leverages the semantic relationships of spoken language. The filigree construction thus built is so solid that it is not threatened by the constant invasion of expressive temptations to which the composer happily succumbs, because his structures are expressive in their perfection and, through ideation and talent, become essentially communicable. The continuous tension, which integrates and fuses tradition and avant-garde into a continuum, makes his communication both accessible and renewed.
All these technical elements are the result of total mastery of a craft and the infusion of an animus of ideation into that corpus. They clearly correspond to an aesthetic stance in Turina that is fully a fin-de-siècle aesthetic, drawing from both the solid construction of structuralism and the meanders and nooks of a postmodernism capable of uniting opposing elements. The secret lies in achieving a true fusion and not just a mere patchwork where the stitches are too visible, resulting in a clumsy Frankenstein monster rather than a beautiful living organism. Turina transcends the aesthetics of opposites: he delves into achieving a personal theory of language for the realization of his musical metalanguage. We are faced with the talent of craftsmanship and the craftsmanship of talent. Exactly what true art has always offered.


NOTES

(1) The Golden Harp of that year was awarded to Claudio Prieto, and the Silver Harp to José García Román.
(2) Joaquín Turina's father was a prominent painter.
(3) The interest in linguistics that eventually leads to theater and vice versa is a constant in many contemporary Spanish composers.
(4) Regardless of the other texts used, the linguistic influence of García Calvo, the author of the preface, is undeniable.
(5) Although they are fully integrated into the show, they can perfectly have an independent life.
(6) The dual nature of Dulcinea, embodied simultaneously by two singers, coincides with a similar idea by Cristóbal Halffter for his opera on the theme of Don Quijote. Both composers arrived at this conclusion without any prior exchange of information.
(7) It is not unusual for a composer to gloss their own work in different versions.
(8) On the Centenary of Don Joaquín’s birth.
(9) Founded by Paco Aguilar with members of his family, it was well-known in the 1920s and 1930s for obtaining original pieces or transcriptions from leading composers of the time. They moved to Argentina during the Civil War and remained active there until Paco Aguilar's death in 1947. He also wrote a curious book in America titled A orillas de la música.
(10) The commission and recording were in 1977, but the album did not appear until fourteen years later, in 1991. There seems to have been some institutional or administrative neglect.
(11) There is an excellent study on this by Luigi Dallapiccola.
(12) In the end, the series produces more diatonic than chromatic results, something that Gerardo Gombau studied brilliantly years ago regarding Stravinsky’s final works.
(13) The experience was repeated for three years, inviting composers to create works based on the painters conducting workshops at the Círculo that year. The result was presented in a public concert and recorded on an album.
(14) Violin, viola, clarinet, bassoon, and piano.
(15) A historical instrument preceding the clarinet.
(16) Formed by Salvador Espasa, Pablo Riviere, and Nicolás Daza, the trio generated a notable new repertoire for such an unusual combination during its years of existence.
(17) Several composers wrote works commissioned by the Community of Madrid for its pavilion at Expo'92. However, no concert was subsequently organized, and the works were abandoned by the commissioners.
(18) Steel drums, of Jamaican popular origin, are metal drums. Originally, they were empty gasoline barrels.
(19) The RAE Dictionary defines metaplasm as the generic name for figures of diction.
(20) For the series of pieces commissioned at that time for Holy Week, notably new attempts with Siete Palabras.
(21) The Mompou Trio, which commissioned and premiered it, constantly programs it and has performed it with other similar ensembles.
(22) During the Holy Week organized there by the Center for the Diffusion of Contemporary Music, which was responsible for the premiere of almost all these commissions.
(23) Gloss or difference are Spanish terms that prefigure what will later be known as variation.
(24) No. 6 of the Quodlibet journal published by the University of Alcalá de Henares with funding from the Caja Madrid Foundation.
(25) On December 10, 1999, with organist Montserrat Torrent.
(26) The original purpose was to complete the discographic space of the work that had been a finalist in the competition.
(27) A collection of short pieces with a didactic intention commissioned by the patron Colien Honegger from numerous composers. There is a piano album and a later guitar album.
(28) The reason lies in the historical evolution of instruments and their tuning methods, and in the fixed tempered tuning of the piano.
(29) Walter Benjamin uses Paul Klee’s painting Angelus Novus as an image for his Philosophy of History, where an angel looks backward while being inexorably driven forward by the wind.