Chabrier, "España", a rhapsody for orchestra

As has already been said on this site on other occasions, there have always been "minor" musicians. The 19th century was rich in them, perhaps due to the popularization of music in that century. Although they were talented composers who earned their living as musicians, a scarce production, or simply the absence of dazzling genius, kept them on the periphery, at the rear of the great masters. However, as in any hierarchy, it also happened that among the "minor" musicians, some were more so than others, that is to say, even more minor.

Chabrier, a "minor" musician

This is the case, with all due respect, of the composer Emmanuel Chabrier, born in Ambert, France, in 1841, and author of España, a rhapsody for orchestra that became very popular in its time. Composed in 1883 after Chabrier spent a few months in the peninsula, España is part of the widespread tendency of those years to compose music "a la española", or with "Spanish airs", according to a somewhat exotic vision of the Spanish reality, shared by most of the romantic or later artists (Glinka with his Jota aragonesa, Lalo and his Sinfonía española, Bizet and Carmen, Rimski-Kórsakov and the Capriccio español, Ravel and his Rapsodia española; and of course, Erik Satie, who composed his Españaña to signify his ultra "Spanishness", and mock all of the above).

Emmanuel Chabrier
(1841 - 1894)

Not so "minor"

But Chabrier, in his time, apparently was not so "minor." An author of songs, piano and orchestral works, he also wrote operas, most famously Le Roi malgré lui, whose opening bars Ravel said had changed the course of harmony in France.

Recognizing the "minor" musicians

And curiously enough, it has been these "minor" musicians who today allow us to acknowledge a certain familiarity with classical music, even if it deals with only one work.
We owe it to the media. We have had the first hearing of España and so many other works in circumstances completely alien to musical circles. The repetition makes us subsequently remember its melody, but we do not know anything else. We recognize it but completely ignore the author and his era. But there it is, recognizable, the work of the "minor" composer who has gone through, in this case, one hundred and thirty years of history and is still in good health.

España is a short work, lasting less than seven minutes, and like all rhapsodies, it has no sections, or parts.

The performance is by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Plácido Domingo.