This concerto draws its origin out of different circumstances.
First of all Tomasi was fond of Lorca’s works, and after reading the play “Bodas de Sangre”, he intended to compose a lyrical drama. His inspiration was fluent and he found a lot of musical themes before getting an authorization, which, actually, was not given to him. Then the Presti-Lagoya duet asked in 1966 Henri Tomasi to write a two guitars concerto for them. The composer decided to use in a complete new “perspective”the stuff he had already gathered. Moved by Lorca’s destiny, he choosed to evoke “the last night of the poet in jail before being murdered”.
The first performance was scheduled on June 18th, 1967 during the “Strasbourg Festival”, with Charles Munch as conductor. But Ida Presti suddenly passed away on april 1967 and the performance couldn’t occur. According to Alexandre Lagoya’s request, Henri Tomasi transformed then, in 1968, his concerto for one guitar.
The 1st audition of this renewed score took place on march 12, 1969 at “Concerts Classiques de Marseille. The Philharmonic Orchestra of this town was conducted by Van Remoortel, and A. Lagoya, to whom it was dedicated, performed it.
The 2nd audition took place on april 7th, 1969 in Yugoslavia with Radio-Zagreb Orchestra conducted by Jean Perisson. It was recorded and broadcasted. Lagoya was still his interpret as for all the following performances mentioned here after.
- Nice, summer 1969
- Paris, februar, 9th, 1970, ORTF
- Paris, October 11th, 1970, “Concerts Pasdeloup”, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées; conductor: Gérard Devos
- 1972: a dozen of performances in Parisian region, with Capolongo conductor: at Malakoff on feb. 4th, at Versailles (Theatre Montensier) on march 3rd, and so on…
- Paris, march 5th, 1972, Concerts Colonne, conductor: Paul Tibor – (Recorded, Archives INA, Radio-France
- Paris, februar 26, 1978, Concerts Pasdeloup, Th. des champs-Elysées (cond. ?)
- Cambrai, march 31, 1978 (…)
- Lille, april 4th, 1978 (…)
- Radio-Luxembourg, februar 9, 1979, Symphonia Orchestra conducted by Louis de Froment. – Recorded (RTL-Archives). Broadcasted on may 13, 1979
- La Roche-sur-Yon, December 9, 1983, OPPL, cond. Emmanuel Krivine
- Cholet, december 10, 1983, OPPL, cond. Emmanuel Krivine
- Angers, on December 11th, 1983, OPPL cond. Emmanuel Krivine
2004: recording of the Radio-Zagreb Orchestra performance of 1969 – CD (“Lyrinx” – LYR 227)
2011: Performance at Marseille’s Opera on may 14th. Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Mark Shanahan, with Emmanuel Rossfelder, guitar.