Ángel Arteaga

A musician by instinct, that is, by ideas, his thoughts were charged with irony, clearly perceptible in works such as those based on Ramón Gómez de la Serna. He turned away from pigeonholing himself in favor of his own very personal work. Because of this, he was a demanding self-critic and analytical thinker. He analyzed in music what he absorbed in his artistic gaze or poetic lyricism. In his technique, he strove for high quality and greatly crafted beauty. Arteaga premiered the opera La mona de imitación in the Teatro de la Zarzuela (May 1973), by Ester Casas, Pedro Farrés, and María Vagón, with stage direction by Pérez Sierra and musical direction by Odón Alonso. Without a doubt, this was a true success, thanks to the intelligent treatment of Ramón's prose and to the insertion of pentagrams in the ideological literature curve in order to further bring the ideas and solutions of a transcendental mood. Composing music for numerous films and documentaries prevented Arteaga from leaving a more extensive body of works for posterity. However, he has left us enough to justifiably situate his figure with the most outstanding of the 1951 generation.

Together with his teaching as a harmony professor at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Madrid, Ángel Arteaga was an outstanding composer. Therefore, it is possible to highlight his principal works: • Chamber works: “Improvisación y Canon”, “Cuatro improvisaciones” (for viola and piano, 1960), “Cuatro Piezas”, “Músicas de Don Quijote”, “Música para un festival cervantino”, and “Divertimento”. • Choral works: “Eloges” (about Saint John Perse, 1963, for which he received honorable mention in the Symphonic Choral Contest of Guipúzcoa in 1967), "Kontakion" (based on Byzantine liturgy, 1962), "Himnos Medievales", and "Kinderlied". • Vocal works: “Santo de Palo” (about Pedro Salinas, 1972). • Works for solo instruments: “Sonatina estilo clásico”, “Segunda palabra” (which glosses a text by Gerardo Diego, 1971), "Abisiphon", and "Trio para órgano". • Works for various instruments: “Octetos”, “Irradiaciones”, “Contextura”, “Contexto II”, “Simplicisimus”, “Sonata a tres”, “Concertante”, and “Fin de Curso”. • Works for film and television: “El Museo del Prado”, “Santa Teresa de Ávila”, “Antonio Gaudí”, and “La Alhambra de Granada”. • Works for theatre: “La mona de imitación” (chamber opera, premiered in May 1973 in the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid), "El bosque de Sama" (children's opera), and "Tres rosas de Aranjuez" (ballet in collaboration with Manuel Angulo).