Monument to Fernando Remacha (La Musa) (1998)

Author: Pedro Jordán (Zaragoza, 1965).
Promoter/financing: City Council of Tudela.
Inauguration/installation: December 20, 1998.
Location: Autumn Park.

In 1998, Tudela celebrated the centenary of the birth of Fernando Remacha (Tudela, 1898-Pamplona, 1984), one of the most notable musicians of contemporary Navarre and the most brilliant composer of the Generation of '27, founder together with other young composers of the Madridgroup and a bridge between Navarre and the Spanish and European culture of the 20th century. He was also the first director the Pablo Sarasate Conservatory of Pamplona. The consistory of Tudela decided to honor him with a monument, for which a contest was summoned in which the winner was the project presented by Pedro Jordán, who realized an allegorical sculpture to which he denominated "The Muse". Placed in the Autumn Park, next to the place , its inauguration on December 20 was attended by authorities and relatives of the musician, and put the finishing touch to a year full of commemorative activities, perpetuating his bequest in the urban report . Fernando Remacha had already been named Favorite Son by the town council of Tudela in 1975. In the base of pinkish stone on which the registration is read: "'La Musa'. Centenary birth D. Fernando Remacha (musician). Tudela 1998".

The author of the work, Pedro Jordán, Aragonese by birth and Navarre by adoption, is a training artist whose artistic language moves between figuration and symbolic abstraction, with a marked interest in the dynamism of forms. Jordán is capable of translating into bronze not only the physical aspect of a figure, but also a concept, a feeling or a state of mind, resorting to stylization as an expressive resource .

The Muse, a bronze monument almost three meters high including the stone base, is an allegory of musical inspiration. Instead of resorting to a conventional bust, Jordán set out to represent the very essence of the music and inspiration that marked the life and work of Fernando Remacha. The sculptor carried out a previous research work that combined biographical sources and musical references, a process in which the staves with the core topic de sol of the maestro's scores for the Vespers of San Fermín provided him with a valuable clue. He completed this first idea with inspiration, a central element in the musical creation of the maestro from Tudela, to the point of blending both concepts. Thus, in La Musa the forms of the female body intertwine with the core topic de sol, so that the body becomes a visual score. The arms curve following the outline of the musical sign, while the legs suggest notes that create a synthesis between dance, music and sculpture. The stylization of the figure, with ascending and continuous lines, transmits a sensation of movement that recalls the cadence of the musical rhythm. The result is a work that, without directly representing the honoree, embodies the evocative power of his art: music made form. The resource is particularly effective, since the homage transcends the biographical and reaches a universal symbolic level.