The University pays tribute this Friday to Fernando Remacha on the 125th anniversary of his birth

The University of Navarra will once again pay tribute this Friday, April 21, to the composer Fernando Remacha, from Tudela, on the 125th anniversary of his birth. It will be through the presentation of a book written by the interpreter and musicologist Antonio Baciero and a concert offered by himself at the Museum of the University of Navarra.

The new biography of the Navarrese composer Fernando Remacha (1898-1984), Remacha, maestro inolvidable (Libargo), will be presented at noon at the City of Music, in conjunction with the Pablo Sarasate Professional Conservatory of Music and the Higher Conservatory of Music of Navarre. 

In this work Antonio Baciero provides unpublished material on this musician, considered one of the most important musicians in Spain in the 20th century. The volume gathers testimonies from the memory of the man who was his teacher, as well as unpublished documents -such as letters-, all of it structured by critical reflections on his figure. It contextualizes the biography of the musician born in Tudela and offers a complementary vision to other books that have been written about him.

The publication is promoted by the group 'Vínculos, creatividad y cultura' (Links, creativity and culture) of the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) of the University of Navarra and has been made possible thanks to the support of the Gondra Barandiarán Foundation. presentation Albert Recasens, researcher of the ICS; Itziar Larrinaga, director of the collection 'Música crítica. Musicología', of the publishing house Libargo; Berta Moreno, head of the department of Composition, Musicology and Music Theory of the Professional Conservatory; Sandra Myers, head of the department of Musicology of the Conservatory; Antonio Baciero and Margarita Remacha, daughter of the composer. 

A concert that reflects its didactic and educational spirit. researcher

On the other hand, the pianist Antonio Baciero closes the IX edition of the cycle Cartografías de la Música at 7:30 p.m. with the concert Ocho siglos de música navarra (Eight centuries of Navarrese music). In the recital, whose tickets cost 16 and 18 euros, will be represented the multiple didactic aspects of Remacha, teacher and friend of Baciero.

The program of this concert opens with some Trovas del Rey Teobaldo de Navarra (1201-1253), result of the meetings held between Baciero and Remacha in the Week of Medieval programs of study in Estella, whose musical aspect directed the tudelano since its beginnings. They follow works from Baciero's musicological work with Joseph Ximénez (1600-1672), also from Tudela, Joaquín Asiain (1758-1828) and Sebastián de Albero (1722-1756), all of them from the New Spanish Library Services of keyboard music, initiated by Baciero in 1979 in the Spanish Musical Union (Madrid), with the impulse and criterion of Remacha. The publication included the three Sonatas preserved in a manuscript from El Escorial by Julián Prieto (1765-1844), Chapel Master of the Cathedral of Pamplona for more than 40 years and Eslava's teacher. The recital will end with one of the Maestro's most emblematic works from his time in Tudela: the Sonatina of 1948.

50 years of a tribute at the University of Navarre

"The recital, together with the book being presented, are undoubtedly the most visceral of all my returns to Tudela and Pamplona," says Baciero, whose friendship with Fernando Remacha dates back to 1956, when Baciero was the recipient of a scholarship Príncipe de Viana, the first important of his degree program, and whose tribunal Remacha presided over. That scholarship facilitated his first stay in Vienna, was subsequently extended for nine more years and was the beginning of their long and strong friendship.

"It is a fact that Remacha not only transmitted to the young people of that time the concerns and spirit of renewal of his Generation of '27 and its intellectual core of group in Madrid, but also the love for the renewal of knowledge and the full incorporation of the historical reality of musical art in a committed demand in its study and knowledge dissemination", emphasizes Baciero.

Fernando Remacha, an outstanding composer and pedagogue from Navarre who played a fundamental role in 20th century Spanish music. He was one of the founders and the first director of the Pablo Sarasate Conservatory of Music of Navarre and contributed to the training of several generations of musicians. He also worked as a music critic and as an orchestral conductor director . His bequest includes more than 200 works, among which his compositions for piano, voice and orchestra stand out. 

Throughout his career, degree program, he received numerous recognitions and awards, including the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts in 1986. In 1973 -50 years ago now- he received a tribute at the University of Navarra for his extensive and fruitful work. The celebration included a concert at the campus and another at the Teatro Gayarre and concluded with an academic ceremony at the University's classroom Magna presided over by Francisco Ponz, then President.

→ presentation of the book Remacha, maestro inolvidable.
Date: Friday, April 21, 2023.
Time: 12:00 h.
Place: Ciudad de la Música, Pº Antonio Pérez Goyena, 31008 Pamplona.
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→ Concert at the Museo Universidad de Navarra 'Eight centuries of Navarrese music'.
Date: Friday, April 21, 2023.
Time: 19:30 h.
Place: Museo Universidad de Navarra, campus universitario s/n
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