Cecilia Rodrigo Kamhi
https://www.academia.edu/412764
The Maestro’s personality can only be truly understood if we know what his process of composition was as a blind composer in the twentieth century. Rodrigo was blind from the age of three, and although he was an accomplished pianist, he never played the guitar. He wrote his music in Braille, which he adapted to his own needs, and once the manuscript of the work was complete, he dictated it note by note to a copyist, a task which always took him much longer than composing the work itself. This long and very time-consuming process for Rodrigo to put his compositions on paper (in his owns words, it was a labor fit for Benedictines) is a fact that I am afraid is often unknown, and gives a totally different dimension to his work. Afterwards, together with his wife Victoria at the piano, they would go through the score to correct any faults or errors that they detected.
Rodrigo and his music have aroused interest in the United States for many years and the country played a vital role in the composer’s career. The fact that four of the five guitar concertos he composed were premiered in the United States is by itself very eloquent.
From Spain to the United States: Joaquín Rodrigo’s Transatlantic Legacy
