by Queralt Morral Bisbal
“The Mediterranean has greatly influenced my music: the sun, a colour that may not be rich in nuances, but is very clear. The light, in the timbral aspect of my work, I see it present. Let’s call it impressionism, the point is that I feel very comfortable with that colour, and I attribute it to the light of the Tarragona countryside and the Mediterranean in general.” (Joan Guinjoan)
Joan Guinjoan (Riudoms, 1931 – Barcelona, 2019) is one of the most prominent figures in Spanish contemporary music of the 20th century. Strongly committed to the social and cultural reality of the time, he has been an essential figure in the development and dissemination of contemporary music in Catalonia and more specifically in Barcelona.
Born into a family of farmers, Guinjoan spent his childhood and adolescence balancing his school studies with the tough and relentless work in the fields. He himself expressed that this moulded his character, tenacious and hardworking, which would later become evident in his musical career. It also significantly rooted him to the land, to Riudoms, and its people.
Guinjoan’s first encounter with music was thanks to an accordion that was given to his cousin when he was a teenager. At the age of 14, Guinjoan developed an immediate interest in the instrument and started playing it by ear, learning dance pieces that were popular at the time.
He enjoyed playing more and more and would seize any break in his fieldwork to practice. His family thought the accordion would be a passing hobby for Guinjoan, but he was enthusiastic and insisted on taking lessons. In the end, they took him to Reus to study with Maestro Fructuós Piqué, who advised him to leave the accordion and start a career in piano, as he saw potential in the boy and decided he could develop better as a musician by playing the piano.
To contextualize this, it is important to acknowledge that the development of the accordion as a concert instrument spanned the entire 20th century and continues to evolve today. It is also noteworthy that, at that time, the public’s perception of the accordion as an instrument for performing classical music was not widespread. The accordion’s prominent role in popular music and the associated preconceptions with it hindered its inclusion in the classical music sphere.
Joan Guinjoan studied piano with Maestro Piqué from 1947 to 1952, at which point he entered the Liceu Conservatory to study piano under Professor Alexandre Ribó. At that time, Guinjoan left behind what was originally supposed to be his occupation, as he was the heir to the family’s land and was expected to take over the estate. However, music had entered his life with force, and he had already decided to move to Barcelona to start building his future as a performer; he wanted to pursue a career in music.
In 1954, he enrolled at the École Normale de Musique in Paris. There, he studied piano with Charlotte Causeret and Jules Gentil, who provided him with significant technical foundations. During the years he lived in Paris (until 1960), Guinjoan worked in different venues to financially support himself: he played at Au Père Tranquille or in Pigalle, places where dance music was performed. Guinjoan acknowledged that playing in all these environments was a very beneficial experience for him as a person and composer, as it allowed him to explore a wide range of genres within the so-called light music, which enriched his extensive and varied body of work. It was also during this time that he discovered the extraordinary cultural atmosphere of the French city.
During these years in Paris, Guinjoan developed an interest in composition. In 1954, he had already created his first work for piano, Melodía exótica. In 1960, determined to dedicate himself exclusively to composition, Guinjoan premiered his work Suite op. 1 for piano at the Pérez Galdós Theater in Las Palmas.
In 1960, upon his return to Barcelona, Guinjoan met Frederic Mompou, a Catalan composer who, after hearing some of his works, organized a patronage to help him continue working in the field of composition. This enabled him to study composition with Cristòfor Taltabull. Guinjoan recognized that Taltabull was a providential figure for music in Barcelona during those years when Spain’s cultural boundaries were impermeable. Thanks to him, European musical avant-garde arrived in Barcelona, as he was well-versed in the Vienna School, Webern, and Schönberg. In Barcelona, Taltabull gathered a group of young composers around him who would become the most prominent references of the time (Josep Maria Mestres-Quadreny, Josep Soler, Xavier Benguerel, Jaume Padrós, etc.). Guinjoan found his initial training as a composer with Taltabull, as all the works he had created until then were the result of self-taught development of his musical ideas.
Determined to further his composition studies at the Schola Cantorum, he returned to Paris to study with Pierre Wissmer (composition and orchestration) and Edmund Pendelton (orchestral conducting). During this period, Guinjoan, in addition to receiving the academically traditional musical education at the Schola Cantorum, had the opportunity to explore other types of music, such as the musical avant-garde driven by Xenakis, Berio, and Stockhausen.
He returned to Barcelona in 1964, from which point he would establish himself definitively in the city and embark on numerous projects for the development of contemporary music. Joan Guinjoan turned out to be a completely multifaceted figure in the world of music and a great entrepreneur. As a performer, conductor, music critic, and composer, he was always faithfully committed to the political and social reality of the time in order to develop and promote contemporary music in all its facets.
Joan Guinjoan was a unique and clearly versatile composer. His catalogue of works encompasses pieces for a single instrument, symphonic works, chamber music, scenic music, electronic music, and incidental music.
Sonidos de la tierra (Sounds of the Earth) is the result of Guinjoan’s reconnection with the accordion. After meeting the accordionist Iñaki Alberdi, he proposed to compose a solo accordion piece. From that point on, Guinjoan began working on a piece that he conceived as a divertimento, an experiment for himself. It is a work with a theme and variations structure, with the main theme being a popular Catalan melody.
The piece premiered on November 12, 2008, at the Auditori Caixa Catalunya in La Pedrera, as part of a concert in the III Festival of Contemporary Music in Barcelona dedicated to Guinjoan’s music. The work premiered at that time had some differences from the version completed on June 14, 2011, after a collaborative effort between the composer and the performer.
The title of the work, Sonidos de la tierra, evokes the image of a young Guinjoan playing the accordion in Riudoms, surrounded by farmland. These sounds of popular dance music blend with the sunny landscape of Baix Camp and transport us to the composer’s past, his home, and his first encounter with the accordion. The subtitle of the piece, Variaciones sobre un canto popular (Variations on a Folk Song), not only reveals the general form of the work but also its character and melodic essence.
References
García del Busto, José Luis (2001). Joan Guinjoan: testimonio de un músico. Madrid: Sociedad General de Autores y Editores.
Fernández García, Rosa María (2006). Aspectos configuradores de la música guinjoaniana. Barcelona: Recerca Musicològica núm. 16.
Fernández García, Rosa María (2001). La obra del compositor Joan Guinjoan (Tesis doctoral). Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona.
Güell, Xavier & Casanovas, Mercedes & Viñamata, Agueda (2008). Joan Guinjoan 2008. Barcelona: Música al Límit
Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España (2012). Carta blanca a Joan Guinjoan. Madrid: Fundación Juan March