GIMINEZ Geronimo

Bio

Gerónimo Giménez y Bellido (1854 – 1923) was a Spanish conductor and composer, who dedicated his career to writing zarzuelas, such as La tempranica and La boda de Luis Alonso. He preferred to spell his first name with a "G", even though it began officially with a "J". Although the details of his early years are not entirely certain, Giménez was probably born in Seville and spent his childhood and adolescence in Cadiz. A child prodigy, he began music lessons with his father and continued his education with Salvador Viniegra. By the age of 12, he was already playing among the first violins of the Teatro Principal orchestra in Cádiz. He received the first prize for harmony and counterpoint. After graduation, he traveled to Italy and then returned to Spain, settling in Madrid. A prolific composer, Giménez also collaborated with the leading authors of sainetes (a comic genre found in Spanish theatre), to obtain the libretti for his zarzuelas. He co-wrote the music of a number of his works with Amadeo Vives, who hailed him the "musician of elegance" because of his sense of rhythm and easy melodies. In 1896, Giménez wrote El mundo comedia es, or El baile de Luis Alonso, based on a text by Javier de Burgos. Following the success of this piece, he set to music another sainete by Burgos with the same characters, which became one of his most famous works: La boda de Luis Alonso, or La noche del encierro (1897). This second work, which achieved much greater success than the first, was actually meant to be a prequel, not a sequel.