TURINA, JOAQUN

born Dec. 9, 1882, Seville, Spain died Jan. 14, 1949, Madrid Spanish composer who helped to promote the national character of 20th-century Spanish music. After studying in Seville and Madrid, Turina went in 1905 to Paris, where he was a pupil of Moritz Moszkowski for piano and Vincent d'Indy for composition. Though he absorbed elements of the French style, he was inspired in Paris by Isaac Albniz to write distinctively Spanish music. He wrote the Sonata espaola for violin and piano and the symphonic poem La procesin del roco (1912) and in 1914 returned to Spain. His native city, Seville, figures largely in his mostly picturesque works, notably in the Sinfona sevillana (1920), in the Canto a Sevilla (1927; Song to Seville) for voice and orchestra, and in his albums of piano miniatures, among them Rincones sevillanos (Sevillian Nooks) and La leyenda de la Giralda (The Legend of Giralda). He was most successful in his many songs. He also wrote two operas, Margot (1914) and Jardn de oriente (1923; Garden of the East), incidental music, and chamber works. His Danzas fantsticas (1920; Fantastic Dances) for orchestra and La oracin del torero (1925; The Torero's Speech) for string quartet or string orchestra were particularly popular. He was critic for the Madrid paper El Debate and wrote a short encyclopaedia of music.