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Enrique Iturriaga
Enrique Iturriaga composer / arranger
date of birth: 03.04.1918
date of death: 23.11.2019
Enrique Iturriaga Romero (April 3, 1918 November 23, 2019) was a Peruvian composer and educational theorist.
Enrique Iturriaga Romero was born in Lima, Peru, in 1918 and spent most of his childhood in Huacho, a small port city north of the Peruvian capital. As a child, Iturriaga did not receive any formal musical training, but music was always present in the Iturriaga family house. His grandmother and older cousins often played the piano during family gatherings, arousing Enrique's interest in music from an early age, and was also encouraged by his father to play the piano. The young Iturriaga was naturally involved in music and enjoyed improvising on the piano; He also learned to play popular music like Peruvian waltz, marinera, tango, jazz, all by ear.[2] Peruvian popular music not only played an important role in the development of Iturriaga's childhood, but also later shaped his musical creativity. In the coastal regions of Peru where he grew up, the most common type of popular music during the first half of the twentieth century was música criolla.[3]
Although Iturriaga's exposure to music in his early years was predominantly that of popular idioms, the family's Victrola gramophone also gave him the opportunity to explore a selection of music and art. Due to the difficulties in properly recording piano and string instruments in acoustic and electrical recordings, most of the repertoire recorded in the 1920s consisted of short and arian songs, however, even the vocal recordings were as Poor quality that the singer's voice sounded like "horrendous scream" and the accompanying orchestra was almost inaudible. However, in an isolated environment, such as the city of Huacho, where Iturriaga spent his childhood, the opportunities for music concerts of different artistic angles are very rare, and as a result, Iturriaga could satisfy his curiosity for music art only by Gramophone use.
Iturriaga learned to play popular music with relative ease because of his keen ear, but was not interested in becoming a popular music artist; rather, it was the invention of original piano pieces that fascinated him most. However, I needed basic music training before I could start composition studies. In 1932, at the age of fourteen, he auditioned in Lima for Lily Rosay, piano teacher at the Sas-Rosay Academy of Music. Although he could not read music, Iturriaga presented an interpretation in C minor for Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 original key is different that he learned completely by ear.
Between 1934 and 1939 he studied piano with Lily Rosay and began studying theory and harmony with Andrés Sas. He enters the National University of San Marcos and studies in the faculty of letters, then leaves his studies to enter the National Conservatory of Music. There he would work with Rodolfo Holzmann from 1945 to 1950.
At the Conservatory he graduated as a composition teacher. In 1947, when he was still a student he won the Duncker Lavalle National Prize for his work Canción y muerte de Rolando for voice and orchestra, on a text by the poet Jorge Eduardo Eielson. He has formed an important number of Peruvian composers. He has been director of the National Conservatory of Music.
He was part of the group of Peruvian composers who in the 1950s renewed the art music of their country, through the introduction of new musical techniques and the improvement of musical work. In 1950 he traveled to France with a scholarship granted by the Government of that country. In Paris he took classes with Arthur Honegger.
Enrique Iturriaga Romero was born in Lima, Peru, in 1918 and spent most of his childhood in Huacho, a small port city north of the Peruvian capital. As a child, Iturriaga did not receive any formal musical training, but music was always present in the Iturriaga family house. His grandmother and older cousins often played the piano during family gatherings, arousing Enrique's interest in music from an early age, and was also encouraged by his father to play the piano. The young Iturriaga was naturally involved in music and enjoyed improvising on the piano; He also learned to play popular music like Peruvian waltz, marinera, tango, jazz, all by ear.[2] Peruvian popular music not only played an important role in the development of Iturriaga's childhood, but also later shaped his musical creativity. In the coastal regions of Peru where he grew up, the most common type of popular music during the first half of the twentieth century was música criolla.[3]
Although Iturriaga's exposure to music in his early years was predominantly that of popular idioms, the family's Victrola gramophone also gave him the opportunity to explore a selection of music and art. Due to the difficulties in properly recording piano and string instruments in acoustic and electrical recordings, most of the repertoire recorded in the 1920s consisted of short and arian songs, however, even the vocal recordings were as Poor quality that the singer's voice sounded like "horrendous scream" and the accompanying orchestra was almost inaudible. However, in an isolated environment, such as the city of Huacho, where Iturriaga spent his childhood, the opportunities for music concerts of different artistic angles are very rare, and as a result, Iturriaga could satisfy his curiosity for music art only by Gramophone use.
Iturriaga learned to play popular music with relative ease because of his keen ear, but was not interested in becoming a popular music artist; rather, it was the invention of original piano pieces that fascinated him most. However, I needed basic music training before I could start composition studies. In 1932, at the age of fourteen, he auditioned in Lima for Lily Rosay, piano teacher at the Sas-Rosay Academy of Music. Although he could not read music, Iturriaga presented an interpretation in C minor for Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 original key is different that he learned completely by ear.
Between 1934 and 1939 he studied piano with Lily Rosay and began studying theory and harmony with Andrés Sas. He enters the National University of San Marcos and studies in the faculty of letters, then leaves his studies to enter the National Conservatory of Music. There he would work with Rodolfo Holzmann from 1945 to 1950.
At the Conservatory he graduated as a composition teacher. In 1947, when he was still a student he won the Duncker Lavalle National Prize for his work Canción y muerte de Rolando for voice and orchestra, on a text by the poet Jorge Eduardo Eielson. He has formed an important number of Peruvian composers. He has been director of the National Conservatory of Music.
He was part of the group of Peruvian composers who in the 1950s renewed the art music of their country, through the introduction of new musical techniques and the improvement of musical work. In 1950 he traveled to France with a scholarship granted by the Government of that country. In Paris he took classes with Arthur Honegger.
