Month: January 2024

In 1960, after a student gave him a copy of Juan Ramon Jimenez’ prose poem masterpiece Platero y yo [Platero and I], Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco chose 28 of the work’s 138 chapters and set them as a melologue for guitar and narrator. Platero tells the story of a poet and his faithful donkey in the Spanish village of Moguer in Andalusia, and this touching work has become one of the composer’s most beloved. Mario set his Platero y yo to both the English translation by Elise Roach as well as to the original Spanish text. As Jimenez’s poems have now been translated into more than 100 languages and dialects, Mario’s musical setting has been adapted and performed in dozens of countries. The composer believed that the cycle was also effective as a solo guitar work, without narration, and it is also often performed this way. Recently several artists have been in touch with us about their Platero projects, which we are happy to share in this article.
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