Ferrer Fitó, Rafael

Rafel Ferrer i Fitó (1911-1988) was a comprehensive musician: violinist, conductor, composer, arranger, popularizer and pedagogue.

After his musical beginnings in the world of cobla in Sant Celoni, he studied in Barcelona with Eduard Toldrà, Enric Morera and Lluís Millet, and at the age of 18 he won the Parramon Prize for young violinists. As a performer of this instrument he was part of all the catalan orchestras of the time (the Pau Casals Orchestra, the Radio Associació Orchestra, the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, the Municipal Orchestra —in which he won the position of concertmaster by competition—, the National Radio Orchestra, etc.) and he also performed there dozens of times as a soloist performing the canonical concertos of the international repertoire. In some of these orchestras he also took on the role of conductor, but his most important position on the podium was when he replaced Ricard Lamote de Grignon as deputy conductor of the Barcelona Municipal Orchestra and, shortly after, when he became acting principal conductor

with the retirement of Toldrà. In the field of pedagogy, he was a violin and chamber music professor at the city’s Municipal Superior Conservatory of Music, where he became a professor. Also noteworthy are the informative musical programs that he directed on both radio and television. In the field of composition, although his work is not very extensive (about fifty titles, mainly for cobla, some symphonic works, lyrical songs and choral works), he dedicated a lot of work to arrangements and instrumentations for occasional disc recordings or for film soundtracks. Among his most outstanding original works are the Concerto for violin and orchestra and the Suite Mediterrània, and among the most relevant orchestrations that he signed are the Dances espanyoles by Enric Granados.

The obituary published by La Vanguardia the day after his death was signed by Xavier Montsalvatge and said: “Ferrer was a musician of integrity and a clean and cordial man, who always lived interested in his art as an interpreter, creator and faithful listener of all concerts. We will always remember him as an artist of singular talent, honest and excited by music, who left us a meritorious work as a sincere composer, rooted in the best catalan traditions.”

David Puertas Esteve,

musician and journalist