The score and the sand: Concert by Arajuanez

The turquoise of the Mexican sea and the special affection  that Paco De Lucía professed for it began many years ago.  In front of  these white sands he mounted  for the first time the emblematic Concierto de Aranjuez, by Joaquín Rodrigo. Paco De Lucia himself once told it:

By Paco De Lucia, October 2010.

When I was asked to play the Aranjuez concerto in Japan, it was a challenge. for me, I had never touched it and never knew it. As often happens to me, I signed the contract and I forgot about it. When I realized that I was only  a month away from  my debut, I thought I could only learn it by being completely  alone and abstracting myself from the world.

Para estudiarlo me escapé a México, a la casa de Playa del Carmen. Me llevé mi bata japonesa, un par de bañadores, la partitura del concierto, un pentagrama con los nombres de las notas para poder descifrar aquello y varias versiones grabadas.

Those were hard days but I remember them with pleasure.  Every morning I would take my fishing speargun and walk about 5 km along the  beach to the small bay of X-Caret, which was then virgin, it  was my private fish market. I would dive for a couple of hours until I got  my food for the day, which was usually a snapper. Back home, I   would clean it and fry it. A delight.

After lunch, I would settle in with my notes and cassette until  midnight.

With the score I could locate the notes and with the recordings I understood the   beats. That part was the most difficult, because in many passages, the   classical versions use rubatos that are not in the score. What a  lot of hours I spent with some passages listening to them a thousand times until I could  fit them in. Because for me, the most important thing at that moment was to respect the   time

After a month, I returned to Madrid, I had it.

Taken from: pacodelucia.org

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