1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,660 Hi, I'm Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga, but I'm better known as the Spanish or the Basque Mozart because he was as good as me. 2 00:00:07,059 --> 00:00:15,080 I was born in Bilbao, specifically in Somera Street, number 51, the 17th of January of 1806. 3 00:00:15,839 --> 00:00:20,519 I was the eighth of nine brothers, but I only met four of them because the others died. 4 00:00:21,339 --> 00:00:26,280 My parents were María Rosa Catalina de Valzola and Juan Simón de Arriaga. 5 00:00:26,899 --> 00:00:32,920 My family takes our surname from a village near Guernica, and in Basque it means Escri, Pedregal. 6 00:00:33,380 --> 00:00:39,240 I started in music because of my father and my brother, Ramón Prudencio, who played the violin and the guitar. 7 00:00:39,560 --> 00:00:49,600 My father was an organist in the church of Santiago, but he left his job for moving to Bilbao and dedicating to commerce so my brothers and I could have a better life. 8 00:00:49,600 --> 00:00:55,840 In Bilbao, I met a friend of my father, who was also an organist, and he saw that I was 9 00:00:55,840 --> 00:00:59,740 a good musician, so he talked to people about me in León. 10 00:00:59,740 --> 00:01:04,780 I started to play the violin when I was seven years old, and my teacher, Fausto Sanz, who 11 00:01:04,780 --> 00:01:09,200 was a tenor and a violinist at the Church of Santiago, lived in my house. 12 00:01:09,200 --> 00:01:14,000 My fame started growing and soon I started playing at concerts. 13 00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:16,939 I played my first concert in Bilbao with my brother. 14 00:01:16,939 --> 00:01:18,099 I liked it very much. 15 00:01:18,099 --> 00:01:29,280 There, I met a pianist, a girl called Luisa Torres Urquijo, to whom I dedicated my first work, called Nada y Mucho, that in English means Nothing and Much. She really loved it. 16 00:01:29,439 --> 00:01:30,400 No, I didn't. 17 00:01:30,480 --> 00:01:31,019 Disappear. 18 00:01:33,140 --> 00:01:50,400 I was 15 years old. My father sent me to the Ecole Royale de Musique et Déclamation in Paris, in September of 1821. 19 00:01:50,980 --> 00:01:54,659 I signed up in classes of Harmony and Counterpoint. 20 00:01:54,659 --> 00:01:58,599 I was so good that in one year I became a teacher of the school 21 00:01:58,599 --> 00:02:02,540 and I suspended the students who didn't pass me their notes the last year. 22 00:02:03,060 --> 00:02:05,019 Of course, my fame increased more. 23 00:02:06,879 --> 00:02:09,680 In total, I composed 26 pieces, 24 00:02:10,099 --> 00:02:12,680 and the most popular was Los Cuartetos de Cuerda, 25 00:02:13,219 --> 00:02:14,580 the string quartets in English, 26 00:02:15,300 --> 00:02:19,280 which were played with two violins, one viola and one cello. 27 00:02:19,659 --> 00:02:22,500 I composed this play when I was 16 years old. 28 00:02:22,500 --> 00:02:25,360 The first quartet was very cheerful and happy. 29 00:02:25,780 --> 00:02:28,259 Also, it starts with a sad and dramatic piece. 30 00:02:28,960 --> 00:02:34,500 I also couldn't keep adding a violin in the middle of the quartet that it gives a Spanish touch. 31 00:02:35,139 --> 00:02:36,479 I dedicated it to my father. 32 00:02:37,199 --> 00:02:41,240 It also was the only one of my plays which was published before my death. 33 00:02:41,740 --> 00:02:48,479 The play lasts 24 minutes and it is about 150 sheets, and it was defined as brilliant and idiomatic. 34 00:02:48,840 --> 00:02:52,419 I wrote in D major and it had three quartet notes per beat. 35 00:02:52,500 --> 00:03:05,500 A half century after my death, one of my successors gave it music to the city hall of Bilbao for the rest of the world to know my masterpiece. 36 00:03:05,500 --> 00:03:09,500 I leave you a moment to marvel at my ingenious and ability to compose. 37 00:03:14,610 --> 00:03:24,849 My first opera was Los esclavos felices, The happy slaves in English. 38 00:03:24,849 --> 00:03:28,849 It is the most known opera that I made. It had two acts. 39 00:03:28,849 --> 00:03:29,370 Two acts. 40 00:03:30,530 --> 00:03:33,009 In my life as a musician, I met some composers. 41 00:03:33,530 --> 00:03:34,789 One of them was Beethoven. 42 00:03:35,349 --> 00:03:36,689 And no, he wasn't a dog. 43 00:03:37,250 --> 00:03:40,270 He would kill me if he listened to what I'm saying about him. 44 00:03:40,689 --> 00:03:41,770 He was very old. 45 00:03:42,110 --> 00:03:44,689 And he couldn't hear my plays very well. 46 00:03:44,810 --> 00:03:46,330 But I think he liked them. 47 00:03:46,469 --> 00:03:47,389 No, I didn't. 48 00:03:48,610 --> 00:03:50,729 I also met Frederic Chopin. 49 00:03:50,949 --> 00:03:51,710 It's Chopin. 50 00:03:52,189 --> 00:03:52,629 Shut up. 51 00:03:52,949 --> 00:03:54,990 What I was saying, he was so inexpert. 52 00:03:54,990 --> 00:03:57,789 I was only 13 while you were 17. 53 00:03:58,110 --> 00:03:58,710 Shut up. 54 00:03:58,849 --> 00:04:00,949 I composed my first play when I was 11. 55 00:04:01,090 --> 00:04:02,750 Okay, but I'm more famous than you. 56 00:04:03,250 --> 00:04:07,849 If I would have lived more than 19 years old, I would be much more famous than you. 57 00:04:07,990 --> 00:04:09,990 But you didn't, so I'm better than you. 58 00:04:10,370 --> 00:04:12,110 Yeah, but you died from tuberculosis. 59 00:04:12,469 --> 00:04:14,509 Like you and one in four people in that period. 60 00:04:14,710 --> 00:04:19,629 Well, what I was saying, I also met Joseph Hayden in a concert when I was 3 years old. 61 00:04:20,110 --> 00:04:24,370 I met him after the concert because I couldn't see him playing. I think he was Hayden. 62 00:04:24,629 --> 00:04:27,930 Haha, you are so stupid all day or you had to take breaks? 63 00:04:28,509 --> 00:04:36,250 Whatever. My last play was the symphony in D minor for great orchestra, which I composed when I was 17 years old. 64 00:04:37,089 --> 00:04:39,430 I leave you a moment for listening to it. 65 00:04:57,379 --> 00:05:00,579 I died from tuberculosis, but I still don't know what that is. 66 00:05:01,199 --> 00:05:11,019 In my last moments, I was attended by Cirilo Pérez Nanín, who was a friend of my family, and Pedro Albeniz, who said to my family that I died. 67 00:05:11,839 --> 00:05:15,939 I was buried in a common pit in the Cementière du Nord de Montarmère, 68 00:05:16,220 --> 00:05:20,060 but I think I should have been buried in a personal hall with a lot of flowers, 69 00:05:20,399 --> 00:05:22,879 because of my great talent as a musician. 70 00:05:23,579 --> 00:05:28,740 Although I was such a great artist, my plays continued unknown until the half of the 19th century. 71 00:05:29,220 --> 00:05:33,920 Nowadays, the Aguirre-Biscay Foundation has collected all my plays in three books 72 00:05:33,920 --> 00:05:36,199 that every person in the world should read. 73 00:05:36,720 --> 00:05:38,920 No matters if they don't understand it. 74 00:05:38,920 --> 00:05:41,980 They have to read my cleverness and skills for composing. 75 00:05:42,360 --> 00:05:48,240 There are no excuses, because all of the music sheets are uploaded free in the website of the foundation. 76 00:05:48,639 --> 00:05:50,899 There is also a theatre in my honour in Bilbao. 77 00:05:51,420 --> 00:05:52,939 Well, that's all. Bye.