He was born in Vitoria in 1886 to a family of musicians and stood out from an early age. He studied in Vitoria and Bilbao and then in the Schola Cantorum in Paris (1904). He became conductor at the Sociedad Coral choir in Bilbao (1912) and premiered his opera Mirentxu (1915), a work with great technical precision and rich effortless invention. He showed his unquestionable melodic talent as a scenic composer and was a great improviser as an organist. His opera Amaya (1920) achieved further great success. In 1927 he was organ and harmony professor at the Bilbao Conservatoire and, in 1944, he moved to the Madrid Conservatoire where he was the school director. He was an academician at the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts and passed away in Madrid in 1961.
Awards
Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Alphonse X the Wise
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El caserío
Basque flavour. It is aspires to turn local elements - Basque customs, folklore and traditional values - into a great musical show.
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Other highlighted works
- Mirentxu
- Amaya