One of Spain's most popular composers, Joaqu'n Rodrigo was living up to his professed ideal, "to be faithful to a tradition," when he wrote his well-known Concierto de aranjuez and Fantasia para un gentilhombre. Again he sought out the style of older Spanish music in fulfilling a commission from the cellist Jean Ruiz Casaux for a cello ensemble work. Rodrigo's lovely and evocative "Two Chivalresque Pieces" (to give the name in English translation) goes back to the late medieval era, and can be seen as a precursor of one of Rodrigo's greatest purely orchestral works, Ausencias de Dulcinea, which is inspired by Don Quixote. This work shares same interest in the music of the age of chivalry.

It is written for a four-section cello ensemble with four solo cello parts. The opening "Madrigal" movement is serene, with the same sense of yearning for a past age that is found in Ravel's The second part is a a courtly dance in moderate tempo, with considerable exploitation of pizzicato vs. bowed effects.



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