Luis de Pablo

Biography

Luis de Pablo Costales (28 January 1930 – 10 October 2021) was a Spanish composer belonging to the generation that Cristóbal Halffter named the Generación del 51. Mostly self-taught as a composer and influenced by Maurice Ohana and Max Deutsch, he co-founded ensembles for contemporary music, and organised concert series for it in Madrid. He published translations of notable texts about composers of the Second Viennese School, such as Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt's biography of Arnold Schoenberg and the publications of Anton Webern. He wrote music in many genres, including film scores such as Erice's The Spirit of the Beehive, and operas including La señorita Cristina. He taught composition not only in Spain, but also in the U.S. and Canada. Among his awards is the Premio Nacional de Música.

Life

Luis de Pablo was born in Bilbao. After losing his father in the Spanish Civil War, he went with his mother and siblings to live in Madrid from age six. Although he started to compose at the age of 12, his circumstances made it impossible to consider an artistic career, and so he studied law at the Complutense University of Madrid. For a short time after graduating in 1952, he was employed as legal advisor to Iberia Airlines, but soon resigned this post in order to pursue a career in music. As a composer, he was essentially an autodidact. He travelled to the Darmstädter Ferienkurse in the 1960s, where he met Pierre Boulez, György Ligeti, Bruno Maderna and Karlheinz Stockhausen. In Paris, he studied with Max Deutsch and Maurice Ohana. His participation at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse in 1959 led to the performance of some of his works under Boulez and Maderna.
De Pablo and Cristóbal Halffter are regarded as key members of a group called Generación del 51, formed by young composers at the time they finished their studies, with a mission to connect music in Spain to musical developments in Europe after the Civil War. De Pablo adapted atonalism, serialism, aleatory forms, use of electronics and graphic notation. In 1958, he co-founded the group Grupo Nueva Musica, and in 1959, Tiempo y Musica. He organised several contemporary music concert series, for example the Forum Musical and Bienal de Música Contemporánea de Madrid. He was particularly concerned with promoting appreciation in Spain of the Second Viennese School, publishing translations of Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt's biography of Arnold Schoenberg in 1961, and texts by Anton Webern in 1963. In 1965, he founded the first studio for electronic music in Spain, with the group Alea. He founded a festival, Rencontres de Pampelune, for music, theatre, film and the arts in 1972. He was accused of giving too much prominence to "left-wing art" by the Franco regime, but also of being a supporter of that regime by ETA. When one of the festival's patrons was kidnapped by ETA, the event was cancelled, and De Pablo went into exile in the U.S. and Canada, returning only after Franco's death.

De Pablo composed film scores, collaborating with directors such as Víctor Erice (The Spirit of the Beehive) and Carlos Saura (The Hunt). His opera Kiu is based on Alfonso Vallejo's farce Zero Temperature. The world premiere of his opera La señorita Cristina (Miss Cristina), based on a novel by Mircea Eliade, with a stage design by José Hernández, took place in 2001 at the Teatro Real in Madrid.
De Pablo began teaching at the Madrid Conservatory in 1971. In exile, he lectured at the University at Buffalo, and later at the University of Ottawa and the University of Montreal. He resumed teaching in Spain upon his return. De Pablo was awarded Spain's Premio Nacional de Música for composition in 1991, among many other awards.
De Pablo died in Madrid on 10 October 2021, aged 91.

Compositions

Luis de Pablo Costales has more than 143 works among which are:

Chamber music

Anatomías for viola solo, two clarinets, horn, trombone and harp (2005–2007)
Ex voto for violin and viola (1995)
Monólogo for viola solo (1990–1992)
' Choral music

Yo Lo Vi for 12 voices (1970)
Passio (2006)
Orchestral music

Las Orillas (1990)
Operas

Kiu (1983)
El viajero indiscreto (1990)
La señorita Cristina (2000)
Film music

La Caza (The Hunt), Carlos Saura (1966)
El jardín de las delicias (The Garden of Delights), Carlos Saura (1970)
El Espíritu de la Colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive), Victor Erice (1973)

Recordings

Recordings by de Pablo include:

Los Novísimos, Vendaval (Stradivarius, 2010)
Libro de imágenes, Segunda Lectura, Metáforas (Stradivarius, 2014)
Soliloquio, Melisma furioso, Per Flauto, Cuatro Fragmentos De 'Kiu' (Stradivarius, 2015)
Senderos del aire and works for flute. Col Legno
Dibujos, fragments from Kiu, Chamber Concerto et al. ADDA
Tarde de Poetas. Harmonia Mundi
Piano Trio. Ermitage ERM 413
Visto de Cerca, para 3 músicos y cinta; Chaman, obra electronica. Hispavox LP (30) 130 202
Al Son que Tocan, Homenaje an Antonio Machado. RCA LP SRL2-2444

Writings

Aproximación a una estética de la música contemporánea, in: Los complementarios, Editorial Ciencia Nueva, 1968
Lo que sabemos de música, Gregorio del Toro, 1968

Cited sources

Heine, Christine (2001). "Pablo (Costales), Luis de". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. London: Macmillan. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.20636. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. Retrieved 12 October 2021.
Salas, Roger (8 February 2001). "Luis de Pablo define su cuarta ópera como una obra de grandes contrastes / 'La señorita Cristina', basada en una novela de Mircea Eliade, se estrena el sábado en el Real". El País. ISSN 1134-6582. Retrieved 11 February 2018.
Woolf, Peter Graheme (1999). "Luís de Pablo". musicweb-international.com. Retrieved 12 October 2021.
"Muere a los 91 años el compositor Luis de Pablo". abc.es (in Spanish). 11 October 2021. Retrieved 11 October 2021.
"Luis de Pablo Costales (1930) Obras estrenadas desde 1985". Centro de Documentación de Música y Danza (in Spanish). Instituto Nacional de las Artes Escénicas y de la Música / Secretaría de Estado de Cultura. 2017. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
"Instituto Nacional de las Artes Escénicas y de la Música / Secretaría de Estado de Cultura". Centre de documentation de la musique contemporaine. 2021. Retrieved 12 October 2021.
"Luis de Pablo" (biography, works, resources) (in French and English). IRCAM. 2021. Retrieved 8 July 2022.
"Luis de Pablo". spainisculture.com. Portal for the Promotion of Spanish Culture, Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport. 2021. Retrieved 1 March 2018.