| Information: |
Arturo Dúo Vital was born in CastroUrdiales in1901. His education was very much
influenced by the town in which hewas born, since the geographical proximity of this seaside town to the Basque Country, and the roots of his
father, Severino Dúo, born in Balmaseda, would lead him to spend his educational years in Vizcaya. He was introduced to music by his
family, initially by his sister EloÃsa who gave him piano and singing lessons, and later by a man who eventually became Director of the Sociedad Coral of Castro Urdiales Ramón Sáez de Adana.
He regularly travelled to Bilbao for harmony and counterpoint classes with José Franco Ribarte. It was around this time that Dúo wrote his first compositions. But destiny would take Dúo Vital to
Paris, the musical capital par excellence in the early decades of the twentieth century, where he went to study with the encouragement of the
former Director of the Conservatorio de Bilbao, Wladimir Golschmann.
This was the man who persuaded Dúo to make the trip and enrol at the École Normale de Músique de Paris to study composition with Paul Dukas at a time when other Spanish creators, like him, were also living and studying in Paris: JoaquÃn Rodrigo, Jesús Arambarri. But he did open himself
up to other currents that he gradually incorporated into his musical language and his own person. Debussy, Dukas, Stravinsky, Ravel... The
musician learnt his trade in composition classes and by attending the many concerts held in the French capital. On his return to Spain in 1932, Dúo
Vital marries Ana de la Llosa, a free-thinker and teacher in state primary schools. After the wedding, held in Castro Urdiales, the couple moved to the island of La Palma. A year afterwards, it was Ana de la Llosa who subordinated her own
interests to those of her husband. She requested leave of absence for educational reasons and moved with Dúo to Madrid where he began to
study orchestra conducting with Enrique Fernández Arbós. who became a great friend of his as well as his maestro. Later, from his new
home in La Marañosa, near Madrid, Dúo began to compose operettas. A new interest and the desire to revive a genre that was breathing its last
breath at the time. La tonadillera, El oro del pirata and La princesa gitana were the titles of his early works.
Then came the Civil War. Dúo Vital was in Castro Urdiales where he had moved a few months earlier with his wife to avoid a major epidemic that
was taking hold of La Marañosa. During those terrible years of Spain’s history, Dúo was imprisoned twice in Santander, accused of rebellion. While in prison, Dúo Vital continued to compose and even conducted a choir of prisoners. But the war hit him more personally with the death
of his son Rubén, which occurred while he was in prison.
After the war to earn some money he entered diverse composition competitions that
required works to be composed on the basis of the folkloric melodies of the country, true to the nationalistic political programme of the dictatorship.
Towards the end of the 1940s, Arturo Dúo Vital finally accomplished his aim of returning to the capital and finding a normal environment in
which to develop his creativity. It was here in Madrid that Dúo composed choir music, symphonic works, and chamber Music.
He died in 1964.
|