Carmelo Alonso Bernaola
(Otxandiano, 1929-Madrid, 2002) Spanish composer.At the outbreak of the Civil War he settled with his family in Medina de Pomar (Burgos), where he would remain until 1946.There he was part of a trio and the local music band, for which he wrote marches and other compositions.In the capital of Burgos he received classes from the teachers Amoreti, Blanco and Quesada and years later, in 1949, he obtained the second clarinet position of the Burgos Symphony Orchestra.
In 1951 he was assigned to Madrid as a clarinetist for the Army Ministry Band, and thus he was able to study counterpoint, fugue and composition at the Madrid conservatory with professors Massó, Calés Pina and Julio Gómez.In 1953 he obtained a position as clarinetist in the Madrid Municipal Band, but obtaining the Rome Prize in 1959 led him to settle in Italy.
There he was a student of Goffredo Petrassi (Santa Cecilia Academy of Rome), who, in the words of Bernaola himself, "Latinized" his musical language.Also in Italy, this time at the Chigiana Academy in Siena, he conducted orchestral conducting with the Romanian maestro Sergiu Celibidache.He also received lessons from Bruno Maderna and Messiaen at the prestigious summer courses in Darmstadt (Germany), where he was able to learn about the work of Boulez, Stockhausen, Luigi Nono and Ramón Barce.He was also a student of Jolivet and Tansman in the summer courses in Santiago de Compostela.
1962 was the year in which he obtained the National Music Prize with his First Quartet and in which he decided to return to Madrid to occupy the position of professor of harmony at the Conservatory, as well as that of clarinetist in the Municipal Band.Shortly afterwards, he was appointed Professor of Cinematographic Music at the University of Valladolid.Later, in 1981, he spent a few years in Vitoria to take charge of the management of the conservatory of that city, and after his retirement he returned to Madrid, the city where he would die.
Bernaola was elected Full Member of the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in 1990 replacing the late Ernesto Halffter and, recognized as one of the greatest Spanish composers of his generation, received again the National Music Award in 1992 in the composition section.Also, in 1988 he was named Doctor Honoris Causa by the Complutense University of Madrid and that same year he received the Goya Award for Best Original Music for the feature film Pasodoble .In 2001 he was awarded the Guerrero Foundation Prize, one of the most important on the Spanish music scene.In June of that same year, the BBC Symphony Orchestra premiered his work Fantasías at the Granada Music and Dance Festival.
The Biscayan musician felt a deep admiration for the composers of the Second Vienna School, especially by Webern, and was considered aesthetically close to his contemporaries Cristóbal Halffter and Luis de Pablo, representatives along with him and other composers of the so-called "Generation of 51".It was thanks to De Pablo that his first contacts with twelve-tone took place.His work begins within the scholastic tradition and follows academic criteria until the 1970s, in which he begins to experiment with random languages and to worry about serialism and avant-garde trends.This trajectory was a constant in the members of the Generation of '51.
Bernaola's compositions are born from the musical matter itself, leaving aside literary problems, always at the service of first-rate research freedom.His deep traditional training allowed him to create an advanced and personal language in which his talent for orchestration stands out.Although he felt deeply Basque, his work barely has folkloric overtones.
Among his compositions are Suite-divertimento (1957, orchestra), Surface nº 1 (1961, chamber ensemble), Spaces Varia-dos (1962), Mixturas (1964), Trace (1966), Heterofonías (1967), Continuo (1968), Oda für Marisa (1970), Villanesca (1978), Combined Variants (1980, chamber music ), Nostalgic (1986), Abestiak (1989), Clamores and sequences (1993) and pieces for solo instruments.Wrote numerous Works for film and television, including music for the films El Love feroz (1975), Akelarre (1984), Wait for me in heaven (1987), Jarrapellejos (1987) and Adios con el corazón (2000); and for the television programs Verano Azul and La Clave .
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