Person
Peredíaz, Manuel (1901-1960)Other forms
Motril (Granada, España) 1901-12-03 - Argentina 1960-08-31
Spanish violinist, transcriber and composer.
Son of master sugar-maker Manuel Pérez González and Concepción Díaz Tercedor. His first wife was Germaine Eiger, a French actress, and his second was Luisa Oller. He had two children, Francisco and Concepción, and was born on 3 December 1901 in Motril (Granada, Spain).
He enrolled at the Colegio Don Federico Gallardo in his hometown on 16 September 1910. He took violin lessons in Granada, and on Manuel de Falla's recommendation, he went to Madrid to study under Enrique Fernández Arbós. A grant from the Centro Artístico y Literario de Granada allowed him to travel to Paris, where he studied with Gaston Poulet, attended Wanda Landowska's classes at her École de Musique Ancienne in Saint-Leu-la-Forêt, and enrolled at the Conservatoire de Paris in the late 1920s. In Granada he gave recitals at the Hotel Alhambra Palace and Salón Victoria, where he may have met Falla and Landowska. He played with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid under Maestro Arbós, and was a member of the Trío de Madrid, along with cellist Francisco Gasent and the pianist Juan Bernal. In 1932 he won the first international virtuoso prize, awarded by the Conservatoire de Paris, and gave a recital at the Coliseo Viñas in Motril when his hometown organised an event to honour him on 15 September of that year. The dance from Falla's "La vida breve" (1904-1913) was on the programme. In late 1932 he gave a concert at the Ateneo de Madrid with Juan Bernal, where the cellist Ricardo Boadilla also played. On 16 March 1933, at the same venue, he and the pianist Juan Quintero premiered Joaquín Turina's "Variaciones clásicas" (1932) and Salvador Bacarisse's "Canto sin palabras" (1930), both for violin and piano.
He gave recitals for Unión Radio, that were broadcast in 1933. In December of that year he played with the pianist Enrique Aroca at the Centro Artístico y Literario de Granada, and on 16 February 1934, he performed at the Teatro Calderón de la Barca in Motril with pianist Adolfo Montero. In May 1935 he gave a concert at the Hotel Ritz in Madrid, accompanied on the piano by Federico Quevedo, whose programme included a piece by Ernesto Halffter and another by Gustavo Pittaluga. During this period, Pittaluga, Adolfo Salazar and Julio Gómez published positive reviews of his work in several media outlets. He embarked on a tour of Brazil, and later decided to settle in Argentina, as the Civil War had broken out in Spain.
Peredíaz was very active during his years in Argentina: he worked as a teacher and music consultant for Radio el Mundo, continued his career as a concert violinist, and created transcriptions for violin and piano of numerous works -including Isaac Albéniz's "Rumores de la caleta" in 1946 and Enrique Granados's "La maja y el ruiseñor" from "Goyescas" in 1951- for the Buenos Aires-based publishers Ricordi Americana. The same firm published his own compositions: "Cantiga" (1951), dedicated to Isaac Stern; "Madrigal" (1951) for Yehudi Menuhin; and "Tonadillas" (1951), which he dedicated to Henryk Szering. On 8 November 1943, he appeared at the Teatro Odeón in Buenos Aires with the pianist Anselmo Miquel, performing pieces by Giuseppe Tartini, Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Enrique Granados, Jaume Pahissa, Niccolò Paganini and Pablo Sarasate; during the intermission, Jaume Pahissa's wife presented him with a gift from Manuel de Falla, a portrait of himself, for which Peredíaz thanked the composer in a letter written on 25 November 1943. He passed away in August 1960 in Argentina.
Date of the event: 1936 - 1939