Fernando Remacha

Fernado Remacha Villar (15 December 1898 – 21 February 1984) was a Spanish composer, part of the Group of Eight which formed a sub-set of the Generation of '27.

Remacha was born in Tudela, Navarre on 15 December 1898. At the age of nine he began to study the violin with the choirmaster of Tudela Cathedral, Joaquin Castellano. In 1911, Remacha travelled to Madrid for the purpose of studying to become a chartered accountant, but at the same time he continued his music studies. He took courses at the Madrid Conservatory where he passed at one time the first three courses of solfeggio, and had private violin classes with Jose del Hierro. Remacha lived in the home of his aunt, Isabel Soriano, who encouraged him to study harmony once he had completed the violin courses. That was how he began his instruction under Conrado del Campo, in whose classes he met Salvador Bacarisse and Julian Bautista, the people who formed the initial core of the Grupo de Madrid together with Remacha.

During his period as a student in Madrid, Remacha also played in the Orquesta de Revista y Zarzuela, which performed at the Teatro Apolo and provided him with a wage of twelve pesetas a day.

His first works, some of which already revealed a great talent, date from those times: the ballet "La Maja Vestida" ("The Clothed Maja") (1919), the symphonic poem "Alba" ("Dawn") (1922) and "Tres Piezas para Piano" ("Three Pieces for Piano") (1923). 1923 was also the year in which Remacha finished his composition studies under Conrado del Campo, and entered and won the Premio de Roma (Rome Prize) with a cantata and a motet for choir and orchestra, and an instrumental fugue. The grant obtained in the prize contest allowed him to travel to Rome, where he studied under Gian Francesco Malipiero, deepening his knowledge of Monteverdi and Vivaldi. In this way he gained a thorough acquaintance with the resources of the old masters, resources which he later put to use in his works through a modern idiom.

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