Guridi (Bidaola), Jésus

Guridi (Bidaola), Jesus, Spanish organist and composer; b. Vitoria, Alava province, Sept. 25, 1886; d. Madrid, April 7, 1961. He studied harmony with Valentin Arin, and then with Jose Sainz Besabe in Bilbao. He took courses in piano with Grovlez, organ with Decaux, composition with Serieyx, and counter-point and fugue with d’Indy at the Paris Schola Cantorum, and also studied organ and composition with Jongen in Liege; finally took a course in instrumentation with Neitzel in Cologne. He was an organist in Bilbao (1909-29) and also conducted the Bilbao Choral Soc. (1911-26). In 1939 he settled in Madrid, where he became prof. of organ at the Cons, in 1944. During his years in Bilbao, he promoted the cause of Basque folk music; publ. an album of 22 Basque songs. His zarzuelas make frequent use of Basque folk music; of these, El caserio (Madrid, 1926) attained enormous success in Spain. Other stage works include Mirentxu, idyll in 2 acts (Madrid, 1915), Amaya, lyric drama in 3 acts (Bilbao, 1920), and La Meiga (Madrid, 1928). He also wrote a symphonic poem, Una aventura de Don Quijote (1916), Sinfonia pirendica, Basque Sketches for Chorus and Orch., an orch. suite, 10 Basque Melodies (very popular in Spain), a number of a cappella choral works on Basque themes, 4 string quartets, pieces for piano, and songs.

Bibliography

J. de Arozamena, J. G. (Madrid, 1967).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire