Great conductor who was also a great matchmaker


It was with considerable sadness that I learnt of the death of Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos at the age of 80. It is always very sad when a great musician passes on. However there was also sadness at a personal level. In 1977, while working for EMI, I was involved in the marketing of maestro Fruhbeck de Burgos recording of Mauel de Falla's opera Atlántida in the posthumous completion by Ernesto Halfter. But there was an earlier and far more important link. In 1973 I took a young and beautiful lady on our first date to hear Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos conducting Brahms and Stravinsky at the Royal Festival Hall. Three years later we were married, and thirty-eight years on that love duet is still going strong. Muchas gracias maestro.

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Comments

Philip Amos said…
This is sad news indeed. A charming and modest man, and a great conductor far too much overlooked. I hope, as has lately been the case with many other musicians, that this may be rectified at least in retrospect. His personality and interpretive approach made him a natural for the Proms, yet he appeared in them only four times in exactly forty years, the last in 1996. And this in spite of his outstanding work with the Philharmonia.
10:55 am
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