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Portrait of Julián Arcas (1832-1882)

Today there is no doubt that the most important Spanish guitarist in the second third of the 19th century was Julián Arcas.

Juliá Gavino Arcas Lacal was born in María (Almería Spain) in 1832. When he was a child, after having been learning with his father (Juan Pedro Arcas Arjona), he moved to Mága and continued studying with Josésencio. Both belonged to the school of Dionisio Aguado. When he was 16, he appeared as a concert performer in Málaga, encouraged by Trinitario Huertas, and he started a series of unceasing itinerant performances which took him to tour continuously around Spain and other European countries.

Among these tours, the one he carried out around England in 1862, where he played in the palaces of the Duke of Wellington and the Duke of Cambridge, as well as the series of seven consecutive recitals that he gave in the Teatro del Recreo in Mága in 1870, must be pointed out..

In the meantime, he played the leading role in two events of great importance in guitar history: the definitive establishment of Antonio de Torres as a guitar maker. He was the master of the guitarist Francisco de Tárrega. When Arcas was very young, in one of the visits he made to Seville, he was introduced Antonio de Torres, who was also from Almería and made guitars occasionally, and who showed him one of his pieces of work. Arcas found that guitar so harmonious that he encouraged Torres to dedicate exclusively to make musical instruments. Some years later, Antonio de Torres became the most renowned guitar maker in history. Arcas always played guitars made by Torres.

After a dark retreat to Almería in 1872, where he almost abandoned his musical activity and established an oil trade, Arcas took his guitar again two years later and returned to the stages. But this second period was short. In the course of a tour, he fell ill and had to stay in bed in a boarding house in Antequera (Málaga), where he died on 16 February 1882. He was only 50 and had become the favourite guitarist of Queen Elisabeth II, in whose palace he had played many times, apart from having been appointed Honorary Master of the Conservatory of Madrid and having been invested Knight of the Royal Order of Charles III, an absolutely infrequent distinction for a guitarist.

Julián Arcas carried out an enormous activity as a master and as a concert performer his whole life long.

His pupils were numerous and remarkable. Some of them were: Juan Parga, Juan Pernas, Román and Manuel García Martínez, Luis de Soria Iribarne, Carlos García Tolsa and José Cobo. And, of course, the famous Francisco Tárrega and his pupils from the Conservatory of Madrid.

But his most important role for us was the one of composer. The present catalogue of his pieces has 52 works with an openly romantic character. This character corresponds with three contemporary tendencies of this musical style. One of them was the composition of original themes. Another one was the adaptation of pieces from operas or zarzuelas for guitar. And the last one was the remaking of themes inspired in folk songs.

Therefore, we think that it is a good choice that this international guitar contest created in Almería takes the name of Julián Arcas as an emblematic symbol. He was the most important guitarist in the second third of the 19th century.

 

Eusebio Rioja