For Pablo Sáinz-Villegas, ‘Concierto de Aranjuez’ remains ‘part of who I am’

When Pablo Sáinz-Villegas made his debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in May 2019, he memorably performed the best-known work for guitar and orchestra, Joaquín Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez. 

This fall, Sáinz-Villegas returns to the CSO and will reprise the Rodrigo concerto in performances Nov. 6-8, under Riccardo Muti, Music Director Emeritus for Life. "I have played so many times the Concierto de Aranjuez that I feel it’s part of who I am, it is part of my voice,“ said Sáinz-Villegas (who also performed with the CSO in 2023, but in different works). ”It’s a triad that is going to be historical."

Composed in 1939 between the end of the Spanish Civil War and the start of World War II, the work was inspired by the gardens of the Royal Palace of Aranjuez, a town about 30 miles south of Madrid. “It is a wonderful piece, and I love it,” said the Spanish-born Sáinz-Villegas. “Every time I play it, it is an inspiration with a new symphony and a new maestro. It is a big part of who I am as a guitarist.”

That said, he sees the concerto as a kind of entry point to the guitar repertoire, and if he is asked back to an orchestra, he uses the second visit as an opportunity to explore other compelling but less recognized works for the instrument. In 2012, for example, he premiered Tomás Marco’s Concierto de Córdoba at the 32nd Guitar Festival of Córdoba. “It is very exciting to present and to show and to invite people to discover new repertoire for the guitar and the orchestra,” he said.

Born in La Rioja in northern Spain, Sáinz-Villegas pursued the guitar at the local conservatory and continued his training at the Royal Superior Conservatory of Music in Madrid with José Luis Rodrigo. From 1997 to 2001, he studied with at Germany’s Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar, earning a postgraduate diploma in 2004 with David Starobin at the Manhattan School of Music in New York. Sáinz-Villegas has won honors in more than a dozen international competitions, including first prize at the 2003 International Guitar Competition Francisco Tárrega.

Although various stringed antecedents of the guitar can be traced back several thousand years, the instrument as we know it evolved in Spain in the Middle Ages, descending from the lute and oud. The six-string Spanish vihuela, a guitar-like instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries, strongly influenced the development of the baroque guitar and its successors. “The guitar is one of the few instruments that is fully linked to a culture and a country, which is Spain,” he said.

At the same time that composers were writing court music for the instrument, it also was used in folk music, drawing influences from multiple sources, including flamenco and Jewish traditions.  The guitar was in turn exported to the New World, where it played an integral role in the rise of Spanish-influenced styles such as tango, bossa nova and ranchera/mariachi. In succeeding eras, the instrument has become integral to jazz, blues, rock and pop music, and it has gained universal popularity.

“That’s the value of the guitar,” Sáinz-Villegas said. “It’s the instrument of the people, and nowadays even though its image is still linked to Spain, the instrument belongs to the world. In the end, we are all unified by the soul of the six strings.”

This is an updated version of an article published on Sounds & Stories, the predecessor of Experience CSO.