Huesca thematic

Number 51. Juny of 2002. Spanish language  Principal menu

Daniel Montorio Fajó (Musician)

     He was born in Huesca in 1904. Musician of theatre and cinema. He had a hard infancy, full of precariousnesses, since he was coming from a very humble family with five children that to support and a few resources. The father of Daniel was touching the guitar in the Sertoriana Serenader and it is believed that from here starts the musical vocation of Daniel, though the studies there appeared always very thorny, given the scanty economic income of the house.
     Don Alejandro Coronas, great professional of the music, gave to him the first lessons of solfeggio, to which they continued those of piano, in which he was a very applied pupil.      When his teacher died, he continued the studies with Mariano Lloro, who interrupted it when the father of Daniel died, when he had fourteen years, that is to say in 1918.
     As major brother, Daniel has to face to the needs of the house, hard years and that has engraved well the teacher Montorio. Thanks to the help and protection of Ramón Mayor, Daniel obtains a pension of the Huesca Deputation, of hundred venticinco pesetas monthly and for one year, in order that amplie his musical studies. With an old suitcase, some cloth, thirty seven pesetas in the pocket and a lot of illusions in the head, he goes to Madrid.
     He has just expired eighteen years. The studies in the Royal conservatoire of Music. The first prizes of piano and harmony. He does oppositions (examinations) -that he wins- to the Band of Halberdiers, in 1928.
     Little by little it is given to know in diverse scenic pieces, which he will add to a fecund activity as composer, along an entirely life dedicated to his art. He releases ninety five theatrical works and composes the music of more than hundred movies. Among the theatrical works it is necessary to stand out ' A dangerous blonde ', ' The nights of Montecarlo ', ' Vamps 1940 ', 'Taboo', ' An impossible woman', 'Temptation', ' The count of Manzanares ' and ' Lights of Madrid ', among other successes. He was art director of the houses of discs Columbia (Regal) and Montilla also.
     As musician of cinema, Daniel Montorio is also a prominent figure, both for the variety of his compositions and for the importance of the films in which he intervened. He took part in the mute cinema synchronizing some Spanish movie, but it was in the sonorous one, (in the Spanish cinema of the years 30) when a bigger activity was imposed. Musician of easy and brilliant melody, he was the author of the songs of ' The black man who had the white soul', sonorous version that Benito Perojo realized. So the descriptive music composed for 'Fermín Galán', one of them first Spanish movies of the years 30, which directed Fernando Roldán. To ' The Painful one ' of Jean Grémillon he did the adjustment and addition of its environmental music, being congratulated by the Serrano teacher by his wisdom. Personnel and very brilliant it is the score stops ' A prisoner has escaped! ' (by Benito Perojo), since they are true the singables hits of the movies Filmófono that he directed (though not nominally) Luis Buñuel between 1935-1936. Inside a production always correct, in the musical movies of the Montorio teacher, always there is the inspiration and also his cinematographic sense of the pace and of the atmosphere. .

* Gathered of diverse sources for M. Tomé




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