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You are here: Home Moving to Country Facts A musical turn around streets of Madrid

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05/02/2009A musical turn around streets of Madrid

A musical turn around streets of Madrid A book reveals tributes to great composers hidden in city's street names.

MADRID – A book called Calles de Madrid dedicadas a compositores, (Streets of Madrid dedicated to composers), by Manuel Alonso del Hoyo, offers an unusual route that sheds light on the tributes to great musicians that are reflected in many of the capital's street names.

The book, published in August 2008, reveals the personal histories of more than 40 great masters, many of whom created some of the most memorable melodies associated with Spain, including Isaac Albéniz and Manuel de Falla.

The best place to start is Arrieta street, just behind the Teatro Real opera house. Emilio Arrieta was a Navarran composer who helped establish zarzuela, a Spanish form of opera, as a legitimate new genre in the mid-19th century. It is no coincidence that his street is located here: Arrieta's most famous composition, Marina, opened in 1871 at Teatro Real in opera form after beginning life as a zarzuela.

Teatro Real opera house. By Poldavo (Alex).
The book also points to a street devoted to Federico García Lorca in the Vallecas district of Madrid. The famous poet also compiled many traditional folk songs, thus preserving them from oblivion, and was an accomplished pianist and guitar player who collaborated with Manuel de Falla.

But it is downtown Madrid that holds the most references to composers of note.

Chueca, the trendy gay area, is named after Federico Chueca, another zarzuela composer whose best-loved work was the 1886 La Gran Vía, named after one of Madrid's main thoroughfares. The tower where he was born, Casa de los Lujanes, is located in the nearby Plaza de la Villa, in Madrid de los Austrias, one of the oldest parts of the city.

Chueca, the trendy gay area, is named after Federico Chueca. Photo by Daquella Manera.
The book also points to a street devoted to Federico García Lorca in the Vallecas district of Madrid. The famous poet also compiled many traditional folk songs, thus preserving them from oblivion, and was an accomplished pianist and guitar player who collaborated with Manuel de Falla.

But it is downtown Madrid that holds the most references to composers of note.

Chueca, the trendy gay area, is named after Federico Chueca, another zarzuela composer whose best-loved work was the 1886 La Gran Vía, named after one of Madrid's main thoroughfares. The tower where he was born, Casa de los Lujanes, is located in the nearby Plaza de la Villa, in Madrid de los Austrias, one of the oldest parts of the city.

One of the shortest streets in Madrid is named after Isaac Albéniz, who died before turning 50. He remains, however, one of the most prolific composers of Spanish music, leaving behind such classics as Suite Iberia, considered by many as one of the pinnacles of piano composition.
Although he was born in the Catalan province of Gerona, he briefly lived in Madrid, where he published part of his work before moving on.

There are also streets named after Manuel de Falla, a contemporary of Albéniz who created El sombrero de tres picos, a ballet for the famous Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev; Enrique Granados, author of the opera Goyescas, and the foreign composers Mozart, Ravel, Scarlatti and Boccherini, among others.

5 February 2009

text: Francesco Manetto / El Pais / Expatica
photos credit: Barbara L. Slavin, Daquella Manera and Poldavo (Alex).


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