JOAQUÍN TURINA (1947)

Composer who helped to promote the national character of 20th-century Spanish music.

After studying in Seville and Madrid he went in 1905 to Paris where he was a pupil of Moritz Moszkowski for piano and Vincent d´Indy for composition.
Though he absorbed elements of the French style he was inspired in Paris by Isaac Albéniz to establish distinctly Spanish features in his music.
He wrote the Sonata española for violin and piano and the symphonic poem La procesión del rocío (1912) and in 1914 returned to Spain.

His native city Sevilla figures largely in his predominantly picturesque works notably in the Sinfonía sevillana (1920), in the Canto a Sevilla (1927) for voice and orchestra and in his albums of piano miniatures among them Rincones sevillanos and La leyenda de la Giralda.

He was most successful in his numerous songs.
He also wrote two operas, Margot (1914) and Jardín de oriente (1923), incidental music and chamber works.
His Danzas fantásticas for orchestra (1920) and La oración del torero (1925) for string quartet or string orchestra were particularly popular.

He was critic of the Madrid paper El Debate and wrote a short encyclopaedia of music.