GASPAR SANZ: Canarios

We take a journey to 17th-century Spain this month to explore Declan Zapala’s arrangement of this uplifting miniature originally written for the baroque guitar.

- Declan Zapala

This month’s classical arrangement by baroque Spanish composer Gaspar Sanz is said to be one of the inspirations behind the vibrant opening theme to Joaquín Rodrigo’s world famous Guitar Concerto in which the guitar majestically dances between an alternating 6/8 and 3/4 pulse over a simple D Major tonality. A quick glance at the opening notes of this month’s arrangement reveals a striking similarity to this compositional characteristic with the alternating time signature giving it a quintessentially Spanish flavour.

Born in 1640 (well over 250 years before Rodrigo) Sanz was baptised Francisco Bartolome Sanz y Celma but later adopted the more familiar Gaspar as his forename. A colourful character born into a wealthy family in the Bajo Aragón region of Spain, in his life Sanz was a priest, a poet, a writer, and a teacher, though his legacy is almost certainly his compositions as a baroque guitarist. The privilege afforded to him allowed him to travel to Italy to pursue his love of music, moving between Naples and Rome for his studies as well as studying back home in Spain at the University of Salamanca – Spain’s oldest university – where he received his Bachelor’s in Music, Theology and Philosophy.