Music Tuesday: "En Aranjuez Con Tu Amor" by Andrea Bocelli

I love Andrea Bocelli.  He's definitely my favorite living tenor.  My parents love him too, and I treated them to a concert at Madison Square Garden a few years before my father fell seriously ill, which at this point must be nine or ten years ago.  Taking them to that concert was one of the best things I ever did for them.  Luxuries like that were not something they could afford.  There was also a special connection with Bocelli.  If you don't know, he's blind, and my father was blind for most of his adult life.  So my father had a natural kinship.  But when they guided Bocelli on stage, and my mother and I watched him move in the limited, wary way that blind people do, we realized how similar his mannerism were to those of my father.  It has stuck with me ever since.


I know Bocelli sings mostly in Italian, but this one in Spanish has enthralled me ever since I first heard it.  This song was composed by the great Spanish composer Joaquin Roderigo, and coincidentally he was also blind.  Lorin Maazel, the lead conductor at the New York Philharmonic for some years, is the conductor here and arranged the piece.  The original Roderigo composition I believe was for orchestra, guitar, and voice.  Maazel substitutes the violin for the guitar, and softens the orchestra somewhat, bringing out the vocals and violin.  It does change the true Spanish feel, but still it's quite a nice effect.  You can find this song on Bocelli and Maazel's album titled Sentimento.  Hope you like it.

The lyrics are really beautiful and worth including in its entirety in Spanish.

En Aranjuez Con Tu Amor

Aranjuez,
Un lugar de ensuenos y de amor
Donde un rumor de fuentes de cristal
En el jardín parece hablar
En voz baja a las rosas.

Aranjuez,
Hoy las hojas secas sin color
Que barre el viento
Son recuerdos del romance
Que una vez
Juntos empezamos tu y yo
Y sin razón olvidamos.

Quizá ese amor escondido esta
En un atardecer
En la brisa o en la flor
Esperando tu regreso.

Aranjuez,
Hoy las hojas seces sin color
Que barre el viento
Son recuerdos del romance
Que una vez
Juntos empezamos tu y yo
Y sin razón olvidamos.

En Aranjuez, amor
Tu y yo!

Aranjuez is a medium sized town in Spain dating back into the middle ages and at one time a spring home for the royalty. Here are the first two stanzas in English:

Aranjuez,
A place of dreams and love.
Where a rumor of crystal
Fountains in the garden
Seems to whisper to the roses.
Aranjuez,
Today the dry leaves without color
Which are swept by the wind
Are just reminders of the romance
We once started
And that we've forsaken
Without reason.
Read the entire translation here.