Composers; Music -- 20th century -- History and criticism
I have already spoken of _Dolores_. It is one of a long series of
operas and zarzuelas written by Tomás Bretón y Hernandez (born at
Salamanca, December 29, 1850). First produced at Madrid, in 1895, it
has been sung with success in such distant capitals as Buenos Ayres and
Prague. I have been assured by a Spanish woman of impeccable taste that
_Dolores_ is charming, delightful in its fluent melody and its striking
rhythms, thoroughly Spanish in style, but certain to find favour in
America, if it were produced here. Our own Eleanora de Cisneros at
a Press Club Benefit in Barcelona appeared in Bretón’s zarzuela _La
Verbena de la Paloma_. Another of Bretón’s famous zarzuelas is _Los
Amantes de Ternel_ (Madrid, 1889). His works for the theatre further
include _Tabaré_, for which he wrote both words and music (Madrid,
1913); _Don Gil_ (Barcelona, 1914); _Garin_ (Barcelona, 1891); _Raquel_
(Madrid, 1900); _Guzman el Bueno_ (Madrid, 1876); _El Certamen de
Cremona_ (Madrid, 1906); _El Campanere de Begoña_ (Madrid, 1878); _El
Barberillo en Orán_; _Corona contra Corona_ (Madrid, 1879); _Les Amores
de un Príncipe_ (Madrid, 1881); _El Clavel Rojo_ (1899); _Covadonga_
(1901); and _El Domingo de Ramos_, words by Echegaray (Madrid, 1894).
His works for orchestra include: _En la Alhambra_, _Los Galeotes_, and
_Escenas Andaluzas_, a suite. He has written three string quartets,
a piano trio, a piano quintet, and an oratorio in two parts, _El
Apocalipsis_.
Bretón is largely self-taught, and there is a legend that he devoured
by himself Eslava’s “School of Composition.” He further wrote the music
and conducted for a circus for a period of years. In the late seventies
he conducted an orchestra, founding a new society, the Union Artistico
Musical, which is said to have been the beginning of the modern
movement in Spain. It may throw some light on Spanish musical taste at
this period to mention the fact that the performance of Saint-Saëns’s
_Danse macabre_ almost created a riot. Later Bretón travelled. He
appeared as conductor in London, Prague, and Buenos Ayres, among other
cities outside of Spain, and when Dr. Karl Muck left Prague for Berlin,
he was invited to succeed him in the Bohemian capital. In the contest
held by the periodical “Blanco y Negro” in 1913 to decide who was the
most popular writer, poet, painter, musician, sculptor, and toreador in
Spain, Bretón as musician got the most votes.... He is at present the
head of the Royal Conservatory in Madrid.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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