Tag: Spain

Hello God!

Thank You for the violin melody I am listening now. It is “Adiós a la Alhambra” by Jesús de Monasterio. I was lucky to meet the composer in the centre of nice mountain village Potes, Cantabria, Spain.

This funny illustration by Daniel Pérez embodies the violinist and exactly mirrors my own idea about Jésus. Yes, the Crown – Violin is on his head and in his mind. The bows radiate the music we feel in his blue eyes.

Jesús de Monasterio was born in Potes in 1836. “One afternoon, little Jésus 4 y.o. listen a melody his father playing the violin, a melody as simple as melancholy. When father saw his son sitting in a corner of the room he was in abundant tears. “Why are you crying, child?” he asked. “I cry”, answered the boy, “because that music makes me cry”. With such an answer, Jacinto Monasterio decided to teach his son to play the violin.

He learned to play the violin at age five and became a child prodigy. At the age of seven, Jesus de Monasterio as Mozart astonished the audience by his first performance. “He caused an inexplicable admiration with the prodigies that he made playing the violin: this little angel, smaller than the instrument he had in hand,” – the review of that concert said.

Monasterio devoted most of his life to teaching and promoting music in Spain. Outside of teaching, Monasterio founded in 1863 the Society of Quartets, which became the gateway to Spain of the best chamber music of European Romanticism.

He directed the Orchestra of the Concert Society and brought greater technical complexity to the orchestra, especially in the string section. As a composer, he left half a hundred works. He composed orchestral music and chamber music, religious works and didactic works.

In Proust Questionnaire for the magazine Black and White published in 1893 he affirmed that his favorite occupation was to study; that his favorite color was white; that among all the animals he preferred the dog; that his favorite writers were Cervantes, Fray Luis de Leon and Concepcion Arenal, and that he had no favorite politician. To the question “To what faults do you feel most indulgent?”,  Jesus of Monastery replied: “Those committed its who are blindly in love”.

 “Adiós a la Alhambra” is the piece for violin and piano, I am saying “Good bye, Summer!” with. This beautiful melody declaims Violin poem by Hafiz:

“When the violin can forgive the past

it starts singing

When the violin can stop worrying

About the future

You will become such a drunk laughing nuisance.

That God will then lean down

And start combing you into His hair.

When the viloin can forgive

Every wound caused by others

The heart starts singing”

It seems the violinist, A. Detisov, embodies the genius of Jésus de Monasterio. I am so grateful to share this pleasure to listen such a beautiful violin melody today, in the last summer day!

Adiós, Summer!