Juan Quintero Muñoz

Juan Quintero Muñoz (Ceuta, June 19, 1903 - Madrid, January 26, 1980) was a Spanish film composer and pianist.

Biography

Juan Quintero Muñoz was born in Ceuta on June 19, 1903. His birth in Ceuta was accidental, since his parents were there only for work reasons, their habitual residence being the Cadiz town of San Roque. At the age of six he began taking music theory and piano lessons with a private teacher. At the age of nine, his family moved to Madrid, where Juan Quintero continued his musical training.

He entered as a choir boy in the Gregorian Chapel that Maestro Pardo directed in Madrid. At the age of eleven he composed a cuplé titled El monoplano , which was edited and premiered at the Ideal-Rosales cabaret, and for which he received ten pesetas and three cents for copyright within three months.. In 1915 he entered the Royal Conservatory of Music of Madrid. He studied harmony with Abelardo Bretón and composition with Amadeo Vives. He studied piano with Joaquín Larregla and violin with Julio Francés. He finished his career in 1925, obtaining the extraordinary piano prize.

From 1925 until the Spanish Civil War, Juan Quintero preferably dedicated himself to performing as a pianist, either of classical music or light music. He also performed substitutes in the orchestras of several Madrid theaters as a violinist. He accompanied the Russian violinist Miltems and the Hungarian cellist Faldhesy, and was part of the chamber group Double Spanish Quintet. He also accompanied the Argentine tenor Spaventa, and Celia Gámez on one of his first visits to Spain.

At the beginning of the 1930s he composed, together with the violinist Jesús Fernández Lorenzo, one of his best-known works, the pasodoble bullfighter En er mundo, created for a Cuban saxophonist, originally from Manzanillo, Oriente., surnamed Calzado but known worldwide as Aquilino, who was triumphing in Madrid at the time. In 1932 he composed Morucha, another of his most popular songs. During this stage he composed other songs, tangos and pasodobles such as Desencanto, Ojitos de luto, A mi madre, Talento, Frenazo, Abisinia , etc.

When the civil war broke out he worked as an accompanying pianist and violinist in the Capitol cinema orchestra and at the Alcalá Theater in Madrid. Although he was not sent to the front, he was mobilized and performed administrative duties for the Republican army in a barracks in Madrid. In 1938 he married Paquita Martos.

On March 14, 1941, one of his works premiered at the Teatro Eslava, Yola (modern comic zarzuela in two acts), composed together with José María Irueste Germán with a libretto by the filmmaker José Luis Sáenz by Heredia and Federico Vázquez Ochando, of which the song Mírame stood out, which reached number one on the Spanish hit lists in 1942, according to data from the General Society of Authors.. This work was composed for the performance of Celia Gámez, and the success was such that Juan Quintero was also called to compose another of Celia Gámez's musical comedies, Si Fausto fue Faustina, with a libretto by José Luis Saenz de Heredia. In 1946 he composed two musical comedies, Yesterday I premiered shame and Marriage on installments .

According to the critic of the newspaper Las Provincias (from Valencia (Spain), on the occasion of the premiere of Ayer premiered shame, these were shows presented with:

In the same way, we see a series of violins, a series of violins, a series of violins, and a series of violins, and a series of violins, a series of violins, a series of violins.

Despite the great success obtained from these musical comedies, Juan Quintero left composing for the theater and devoted himself preferably to composing for the cinema. His start in cinema was quite coincidental. Juan Quintero lived in the same building as the actress Guadalupe Muñoz Sampedro. At this actress's house he met the actor Juan de Orduña, who would later become one of the most important post-war directors. Juan de Orduña heard Maestro Quintero perform his Granada Suite, and proposed to him to make a documentary about Granada based on the music. Quintero orchestrated the work and the documentary was structured around the score.

His first film score was for a short film by Carlos Arévalo titled The courtship is coming, based on a poem by Rubén Darío. Juan de Orduña was the one who recited the poem and who provided the work to Quintero. In 1940 he participated, together with maestro Ruiz de Azagra, in the music of the film La gitanilla , directed by Fernando Delgado. Months later he composed the music for La florista de la Reina, directed by Eusebio Fernández Ardavín.

Juan de Orduña turned to his friend Quintero to make his first film, Because I saw you cry (1941), and from there began a long and fruitful collaboration.

Juan Quintero composed music from 1940 until he abandoned composing for cinema, in the mid-sixties, for more than a hundred films, working with the most representative directors of the moment: Eusebio Fernández Ardavín, José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, Rafael Gil, Ladislao Vajda, Juan de Orduña, etc.

Classic Spanish films to which he provided music are: historical films such as Locura de amor, Agustina de Aragón, Alba de América, < i>Little things; comedies like She, him and his millions , Delightfully silly , Heloise is under an almond tree ; folklore films like Currito de la Cruz, La Hermana San Sulpicio.

As was normal among Spanish film composers, Juan Quintero not only composed the music, but also had to be in charge of the orchestration, direction, hiring of musicians and recording the music.

In 1952, after several years as a director of the General Society of Authors, he was appointed Head of the Film Section after the death of José Forns. At the end of the fifties he gradually stopped composing for films and dedicated himself to administrative work. In part, this happened because of his increasing deafness.

He died on January 26, 1980 at the age of 76.

Prizes

Medals of the Film Writers Circle