Chapi, R.: Symphony in D Minor / Fantasia Morisca

Featuring

José Ramón Encinar
Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid
Ruperto Chapí

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Performer Biography

José Ramón Encinar, the conductor on this album, has led nearly all major Spanish orchestras and many abroad, and has a strong interest in 20th-century music, having directed the Koan Group for its performance.

Composer Biography

Ruperto Chapí, whose career spanned the last three decades of the 19th century, divided his time between composing and conducting, and helped establish the Spanish artists' rights association.

Composer's Artistic Vision

The Fantasía morisca reflects the 19th-century European Romantic interest in the past and the exotic, with Andalusia, Granada, and the Alhambra providing imagery that led to the aesthetic movement of 'alhambrismo'.

Composition History

Chapí successfully adapted his compositional style from zarzuela grande, a mid-1800s genre, to the later trend of shorter género chico works, which emerged due to an economic crisis.

Composition History

Chapí's Symphony in D minor was composed while he was studying at the Spanish Academy of Fine Arts in Rome and Paris, where he encountered works by Saint-Saëns, Bizet, and Massenet.

Historical Context

The Sociedad de Conciertos, which premiered Chapí's Symphony, was founded in 1866 by Barbieri to promote foreign symphonic works and encourage Spanish composers to write orchestral music in an era dominated by musical theatre and zarzuela.

Compositional Technique

Chapí incorporated elements from Andalusian music, such as the Andalusian cadence, the augmented second, and melismatic melody, into his Fantasía morisca.