It is not often that the presentation of a book is a tribute to who is the subject of it. But this has been the case days ago on the occasion of the edition by Dinsic of the book by Lluís Brugués: Antoni Ros Marbà, músic . Brugués, also a musician and teacher, has dedicated several works in recent years to Catalan musicians, and this biography is supported by strong documentation nourished by many hours of dialogue.
The career of Ros Marbà (L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, 1937) occupies a substantial space in the musical and artistic history of Catalonia from the first years after the war. A few years, those of childhood, commented on in the book with sensitivity, in a family with almost no musical background, in which the little one –when he still did not know how to read– improvised batons with pieces of wood “and directed an imaginary orchestra”… orchestra must have sounded that harmonium of the parish that he used to play, and in which –about ten years old– he was impressed by motifs from the Pastoral Symphony that someone explained.
Since then, the choirs, the popular music of the coblas, some concerts of the Orquestra de Barcelona paid for his dreams as a musician, and his vital evolution was parallel to the development and recovery of cultural life from the gray post-war period. But focusing on the process, because he was a fundamental actor in Spanish musical life since the 60s after his happy contact and apprenticeship with the great Eduard Toldrà. And the direction of the City of Barcelona Orchestra arrived, and he transferred it to Madrid to direct the National Orchestra from 1978, succeeding Frübeck de Burgos, director so pleasing to the Franco regime. And the first surprises here and there for being Catalan.
Ros Marbà was emphasizing his profile as a demanding director and left his mark as a teacher in the new generation. It is no coincidence that the most prestigious directors in the State are from here. And it is not by chance that they are paid so little attention here. But in addition to standing out as a performer, Ros Marbà knew how to put together orchestras, and he did so when he more recently took charge of the Real Filharmonía de Galicia, leaving an organization with a sonorous personality. And from these great areas to the most intimate, if you will, from the nova cançó, to the festive cobla, to the children’s song, to the orchestration of pieces by great composers. And in recent years he has paid his own profile as a composer by finishing an opera that we hope to see premiered soon.
His Walter Benjamin at Port Bou is a synthesis of rigor as a musician and a few pages where many of his illusions are revealed. When he finished a stage leading an orchestra we heard him more than once, even leaving the Camp Nou, another one of his wishes: “At last I have time to compose”. Congratulations for the book and the constant gratitude of all of us who learn from his teachings every day.
