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DESCRIPTION : Up for auction is an original NICELY HAND SIGNED AUTOGRAPH - SIGNATURE - AUTOGRAMME ( With a blue pen ) full of flair of the much beloved and admired legendary Spanish conductor RAFAEL FRUHBECK DE BURGOS which is beautifuly and professionaly matted beneath a reproduction PHOTO of around 30 years old heart breaking handsome young RAFAEL FRUHBECK DE BURGOS. The original hand signed AUTOGRAPH - SIGNATURE and the reproduction PHOTO are nicely matted together , Suitable for immediate framing or display .( An image of a suggested framing is presented - The frame is not a part of this sale - An excellent framing - Buyer's choice is possible for extra $ 80). The size of the decorative mat is around 13.5 x 7.5 " . The size of the reproduction photo is around 7 x 5 " . The size of the original hand signed autograph - Signature - Autogramme is around 5.0 x 3.0 " . Very good condition of the original hand signed autograph, The reproduction photo and the decorative mat . ( Pls look at scan for accurate AS IS images ) Authenticity guaranteed. Will be sent inside a protective rigid packaging .

PAYMENTS : Payment method accepted : Paypal & All credit cards.

SHIPPMENT :SHIPP worldwide via registered airmail is $ 29 . Will be sent inside a protective packaging. Handling around 5-10 days after payment.

Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos (born Rafael Frühbeck; 15 September 1933, Burgos, Spain – 11 June 2014, Pamplona, Spain[1][2]) was a Spanish conductor and composer. Life[edit] Frühbeck came from a family of German ancestry. His father had been wounded in World War I, and during his employment after the war for the Spanish section of a German company, decided to settle in Spain in order to reduce the need to travel. He then sent for his fiancée in Germany, and the couple reunited in Spain.[3] His mother introduced him to the violin, and he had become concertmaster of the local orchestra by age 14.[4] As a youth, he continued violinstudies, along with piano, and composition, at the conservatories of Bilbao and Madrid. He first took up conducting while on military service in the Spanish Army.[4] He graduated summa cum laude from the Hochschule für Musik in Munich in conducting and won the Richard Strauss Prize. Frühbeck was principal conductor of the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra from 1958 to 1962.[5] During this time, the orchestra's manager persuaded Frühbeck to use a name that would more clearly indicate his Spanish identity.[4] He subsequently took the professional surname Frühbeck de Burgos as his artist's name, to include the name of his birth city. He served as principal conductor of the Spanish National Orchestra from 1962 to 1978. Outside Spain, Frühbeck de Burgos served as Generalmusikdirektor of the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra (1966-1971),[6] music director of the Rundfunkorchester Berlin, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, artistic director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and chief conductor of the Vienna Symphony. He also was principal guest conductor for various orchestras in Europe, Japan, and the United States, including the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, DC, from 1980 to 1988.[7] He made his American debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra in February 1969.[8][9] From 1980 to 1983, he was principal conductor of the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra of Tokyo, of which he was later named honorary conductor. From 2001 to 2007, Frühbeck de Burgos was principal conductor of the RAI National Symphony Orchestra. He was music director of the Dresden Philharmonic from 2004 to 2011. In January 2011, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestraannounced the appointment of Frühbeck de Burgos as the Creative Director of its Masterworks Series of concerts, starting with the 2011-12 season.[10] He held the post for two seasons, from 2011 to 2013.[11] In February 2011, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra announced the appointment of Frühbeck de Burgos as its principal conductor, as of the 2012–2013 season, with an initial contract of three years through 2015.[12] However, on 4 June 2014, he resigned as chief conductor of the orchestra, with immediate effect.[13][14] In parallel, Frühbeck de Burgos announced his retirement from conducting and that he had cancer.[7] His final concert as a conductor had been in Washington, DC on 14 March 2014, with the National Symphony Orchestra.[7][15] Frühbeck de Burgos recorded on a number of labels, where his recordings include Felix Mendelssohn's Elijah, the Mozart Requiem, Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, and Georges Bizet's Carmen. He was known as well for his recording of the complete works of Manuel de Falla and a series of complete zarzuela recordings. Frühbeck orchestrated a suite from Isaac Albéniz's Suite española and conducted the New Philharmonia Orchestra in a commercial recording of this arrangement. His work in contemporary music included conducting the world premiere production of Gian Carlo Menotti's opera Goya.[16] He was a member of the Academy of Fine Arts and History Institución Fernán González. His honours include the 2011 "Conductor of the Year" award from Musical America.[7] Frühbeck de Burgos died on Wednesday 11 June 2014 in Pamplona, Spain. His wife, María del Carmen Martínez de Frühbeck, whom he married in 1959, survives him, as do their two children, Rafael Frühbeck Martínez and Gema Frühbeck Martínez.[17] He was buried in his home town of Burgos.[18] **Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, eminent Spanish conductor, was born to a Spanish mother and a German father. He was educated at the Music Academy of Bilbao and the Munich Conservatory, and completed his studies at the University of Madrid. His first post as conductor was with the Municipal Orchestra of Bilbao. In 1962, Frühbeck de Burgos began a lifelong association with the National Orchestra of Spain, and was its chief conductor from that time until 1978. His international reputation began with the success of his first appearance with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He served as music director for the Montreal Symphony (1974-1976), the Dusseldorf Symphoniker (1966-1971), and the Deutsche Oper in Berlin (1992-1997). Frühbeck de Burgos was also named chief conductor of the Vienna Symphony and held guest conductorships with the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, D.C., and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony in Japan. Frühbeck de Burgos recorded extensively with English Decca, EMI/Angel, IMP Classics, Chandos and Collins Classics. First and foremost, he was regarded for his interpretations of Spanish music, and recorded the major works of Falla in addition to Rodrigo, Montsalvatge, Ravel, and Granados. His recording of Falla's Nights in the Gardens of Spain with pianist Alicia de Larrocha is judged the best on disc by many critics. Frühbeck de Burgos made several recordings backing vocalist Victoria de Los Angeles in Spanish songs and zarzuela arias for EMI. He made his own arrangement for orchestra of Albeniz's Suite española, and it became a concert staple. Outside of Spanish music, Frühbeck de Burgos also contributed fine recordings of Bizet's Carmen with Grace Bumbry and Jon Vickers in the cast, and justly celebrated discs of Orff's Carmina Burana, Mozart's Requiem, and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. He was regarded as a sensitive and sympathetic accompanist in concerto literature, and partnered with such luminaries as violinists Yehudi Menhuin and Nathan Milstein, pianists Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Louis Lortie, and clarinetist Karl Leister. Frühbeck de Burgos was also a renowned interpreter of the music of Mendelssohn and made recordings of Elijah and the complete incidental music to A Midsummer Night's Dream, which have been critically praised. Frühbeck de Burgos never recorded in the work of Mahler, but his broadcasts of Mahler's symphonies were highly respected, and in 1996 he was awarded the Gold Medal of the International Gustav Mahler Society in Vienna. From the late 1990s, he toured the world with the National Orchestra of Spain as its conductor emeritus, and had also been principal conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra until he announced his full retirement due to health reasons in June 2014, passing away shortly thereafter. *** Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos - obituary Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos was a Spanish-born conductor of German parentage who blended Teutonic precision with Iberian sensuality De Burgos leading the New York Philharmonic in Carmina Burana, May 2012 Photo: HULTON/GETTY 5:30PM BST 11 Jun 2014 Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, who has died aged 80, was a conductor who delivered memorable interpretations of the works of his Spanish compatriots while championing the Germanic canon on the Iberian P eninsula. His work took him to orchestras around the world, but he was best known for his associations with the Philharmonia in London and the Philadelphia Orchestra in the United States. De Burgos collaborated extensively with the pianist Alicia de Larrocha, particularly in Manuel de Falla’s Nights in the Garden of Spain, which is exquisitely captured in their 1993 recording for Decca, and Victoria de los Angeles, with whom he made an early recording of the same composer’s The Three Cornered Hat for HMV (1963). As well as proselytising for the better known Spanish composers — such as de Falla, Albéniz and Granados — de Burgos championed the music of lesser-known compatriots, including the serialist Luis de Pablo. In addition, his magisterial accounts of the great choral classics such as Orff’s Carmina Burana (which he recorded with Lucia Popp), Mendelssohn’s Elijah and Mozart’s Requiem drew widespread acclaim, and he claimed to have conducted the first performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion in Spain. Indeed, as the critic Richard Morrison once wrote, de Burgos blended “Teutonic precision with Iberian sensuality, just as his name suggests”. Related Articles Israel Yinon, composer 30 Jan 2015 Claudio Abbado 20 Jan 2014 Wolfgang Sawallisch 25 Feb 2013 Kurt Sanderling 19 Sep 2011 Sir Colin Davis 15 Apr 2013 De Burgos in 1966 He was born Rafael Frühbeck on September 15 1933, in Burgos, northern Spain, the younger of two brothers of German parents with family origins in Austria. His father, who had been seriously wounded in the First World War, had been dispatched in the mid-1920s to run outposts of the German company he worked for in northern Spain. Finding travel unbearably painful, he chose to remain in Burgos and sent for his fiancée from Germany. She was an enthusiast for all things artistic and bought young Rafael a violin when he was seven. He was sent to the German School in Barcelona; by the age of ten he was composing and at 16 was conducting a zarzuela company in the theatre. He studied music in Bilbao and then at Madrid University (with Don Julio Gómez), but left at 19 to undertake his military service, winning a competition to lead a military band. It was a three-year apprenticeship that would inform his conducting style, which was always characterised by military-style flicks of the hand. Transcribing symphonies for the band brought him an intimate knowledge of much of the orchestral repertoire. Once discharged, he made his way to Munich, where he studied with Kurt Eichhorn and won the Richard Strauss Prize. Returning to Spain in 1958, he worked with the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra; four years later, after the sudden death of Ataúlfo Argenta, director of the Orquesta Nacional, he took over Spain’s leading ensemble, using his position to lobby General Franco, the Spanish dictator, for better pay and conditions for his musicians. He also took the precaution of adding the town of his birth to his name to give it a more Spanish feel. Although he would remain with the Orquesta Nacional until 1978, he gradually built a name from himself around Europe and in America, where Eugene Ormandy, director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, first booked him to appear in February 1969. De Burgos flew into an atrocious snowstorm in New York that left 90 people dead and 6,000 travellers stranded at JFK airport. After a 16-hour train journey he finally limped into Philadelphia, beginning an association that ran to hundreds of concerts over more than four decades. The previous summer in London, de Burgos had earned great acclaim for a performance of Elijah with the New Philharmonia and its Chorus at the Festival Hall. The control and balance that he achieved, coupled with a firm build-up of tension and drama, were carried over into the recording which was started the next day. Another landmark choral recording was his account of Haydn’s Creation, sung in German, that he made with them in November 1977, and he toured with the Philharmonia to Spain, Israel and Japan. He also made four appearances at the Proms – between 1952 and 1996 – with the London Symphony and BBC Symphony Orchestras. Although primarily an orchestral conductor, de Burgos occasionally turned his hand to opera, and his 1970 recording of Carmen (with Grace Bumbry and Jon Vickers) was the first to include Bizet’s original spoken dialogue and remains one of the finest accounts of the work on disc. De Burgos maintained a schedule of more than 80 concerts a year into old age; after being music director at Dresden for many years, in 2012 he was appointed chief conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. On his 80th birthday last year de Burgos was asked if he intended to retire. “No, never,” he shot back. “I will continue until I drop. If I die on stage, so much the better.” He nearly achieved that ambition in March this year when he suffered a dizzy spell while conducting the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC. However after being given a chair, he struggled through the rest of the concert. De Burgos is survived by his wife Maria, and by their son and daughter. Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, born September 15 1933, died June 10 2014 *** Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos obituary Internationally respected conductor who made some of his finest recordings with the Philharmonia Orchestra Barry Millington Thu 19 Jun 2014 18.46 BST First published on Thu 19 Jun 2014 18.46 BST Shares 10 Comments 3 Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos enjoyed his greatest successes in Europe, the US, Israel and Japan. Photograph: Agencia EFE/Rex The Spanish conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, who has died aged 80, was held in affection and respect by audiences and musicians alike. In Britain he was particularly identified with the New Philharmonia Orchestra (later the Philharmonia Orchestra) and its chorus in the late 1960s and early 70s. With it, he made some of his finest recordings: Orff's Carmina Burana, Mendelssohn's Elijah, Haydn's Creation and Mozart's Requiem. His recording of Carmen was one of the first to restore the original spoken dialogue, though delivered by actors, and he was credited with conducting the first performance in Spain of Bach's St Matthew Passion. He also recorded the complete orchestral and stage works of Manuel de Falla and many zarzuelas. Sign up for the Sleeve Notes email: music news, bold reviews and unexpected extras Read more Other associations included those with the Philadelphia Orchestra, with which he made many guest appearances over four decades, the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington (1980-90), the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, where he was music director (1992-97), and the Italian RAI National Symphony Orchestra (principal conductor, 2001-07). Throughout his career, he guest-conducted top orchestras, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestraand the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra of Tokyo, but he was not rewarded with the top posts a conductor of his calibre might have deserved. Born Rafael Frühbeck, of German-Spanish parentage, he took the additional name of his birthplace, Burgos, to identify himself as Spanish when conducting abroad. After training at the Bilbao and Madrid conservatories, he entered military service as an army director of music (1953-56). He then studied conducting in Munich, returning to Spain as conductor of the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra (1958-62), following which he was appointed music director of the Spanish National Orchestra (1962-78). He was a keen proselytiser for Spanish music, including contemporary repertoire. He became musical director of the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra (1966-71), where he focused on symphonic rather than operatic music, before moving on to the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in 1974. His tenure there was short-lived: he was forced to step down after making disparaging off-the-record comments about the orchestra's brass section, which appeared in a local newspaper. After leaving Canada, he enjoyed his greatest successes in Europe, the US, Israel and Japan. His appointment as chief conductor and artistic director of the Dresden Philharmonic (2004-11) was one of several in which he achieved high standards with orchestras that were not in the very highest league. He also held a post with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. His last appointment was as chief conductor of the Danish National Orchestra (2012). His conducting was often described by musicians as "old school", but in the most complimentary way. His Brahms and Bruckner with the Dresden Philharmonic, for example, and his Dvořák Eighth with the Swedish Radio Orchestra had a sense of space and rhetoric that were never allowed to weigh the music down. The lyrical warmth he brought to his classic Carmina Burana recording, combined with an obvious affection for the work, set it apart from more prosaically high-octane performances. His conducting of De Falla and Joaquín Rodrigo not surprisingly sounded idiomatic – Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade was also particularly convincing – but he was successful, too, in Ottorino Respighi's tone poems. The Carmen recording benefited not only from an empathy for local colour but also from a top-level cast, including Grace Bumbry and Jon Vickers. The decision to return to the work's opéra comique origins, while welcome, was vitiated by the placing of a largely separate cast of actors in a different spatial ambience. Frühbeck, as he was familiarly known, was a man of great charm and elegance. Both choral and orchestral musicians relished the way he invited them to make music with him, often extending his hand, with a smile, at their entry. In March of this year he collapsed on the podium while conducting in Washington. He recovered and continued to the end of the concert, but earlier this month announced that he was retiring forthwith from the concert platform, having been diagnosed with cancer. His wife, María Carmen Martínez, whom he married in 1959, survives him, as do a son and a daughter. • Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, conductor, born 15 September 1933; died 11 June 2014 *** Rafael Frühbeck, 80, Dies; Conductor Made the World a Podium Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, leading the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall in 2005. Credit Richard Termine for The New York Times Image Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, leading the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall in 2005. Credit Credit Richard Termine for The New York Times By Margalit Fox June 12, 2014 Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, a Spanish conductor known for his frequent guest appearances with the world’s foremost symphony orchestras, died on Wednesday in Pamplona, Spain. He was 80. The cause was cancer, his manager, R. Douglas Sheldon, said. Admired for the breadth of his repertory and for his particular facility with the work of Spanish composers, among them Manuel de Falla and Isaac Albéniz, Mr. Frühbeck was at his death emeritus conductor of the Spanish National Orchestra. Until his formal retirement from the podium this month, he was the chief conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. A resident of Madrid, Mr. Frühbeck was heard over the years as a guest conductor with the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, the Cleveland Orchestra and the Chicago, Cincinnati and Detroit Symphony Orchestras, among many others. In the United States, he was known in particular for his long associations with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, serving as its principal guest conductor in the 1980s during the music directorship of Mstislav Rostropovich; with the Philadelphia Orchestra; and with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which he led for many summers at Tanglewood. Mr. Frühbeck also appeared regularly with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London; the Berlin, Munich and Hamburg Philharmonics; the Israel Philharmonic; and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo. You have 2 free articles remaining. Subscribe to The Times The magazine Musical America named him its conductor of the year in 2011. Mr. Frühbeck, who began his career in the 1950s, drew admiring notices to the end of his life. Reviewing his performance with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra of a program of Beethoven and de Falla in 2012, The Globe and Mail, the Canadian newspaper, wrote: “At the podium, even seated as he was, 50 years disappeared before our eyes. He became a conductor of clarity, energy, style and grace — a magical transformation.” The son of German parents who had settled in Spain, Rafael Frühbeck was born in Burgos, in northern Spain, on Sept. 15, 1933. An accomplished violinist and pianist as a youth, he studied at the conservatories of Bilbao and Madrid, followed by training in conducting at the Hochschule für Musik in Munich. Before he was 30, he was awarded the principal conductorship of the Spanish National Orchestra. In Franco’s Spain, Mr. Frühbeck was told, it was unseemly for someone with a distinctly non-Spanish name to hold so prestigious a post, so he appended “de Burgos,” after his birthplace, to his surname. Editors’ Picks ‘A Pumping Conspiracy’: Why Workers Smuggled Breast Pumps Into Prison Wielding Rocks and Knives, Arizonans Attack Self-Driving Cars Behind the Lion Air Crash, a Trail of Decisions Kept Pilots in the Dark Mr. Frühbeck made his United States debut in 1969, leading the Philadelphia Orchestra. In 1975, he secured what might have been a long-term perch in North America when he became the music director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. But he was forced to step down 18 months later, after disparaging comments he had made at a party about the quality of the orchestra’s brass section found their way into the newspapers. He was succeeded by Charles Dutoit, who held the post until 2002. Mr. Frühbeck’s other positions include the music directorships of the Dresden Philharmonic, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Deutsche Oper Berlin and the RAI National Symphony Orchestra in Turin, Italy. His recordings, for EMI, Decca, Deutsche Grammophon and other labels, include the Mozart Requiem; “Carmina Burana,” by Carl Orff; Bizet’s “Carmen”; and de Falla’s complete works. Mr. Frühbeck’s survivors include his wife, María del Carmen Martínez de Frühbeck; a son, Rafael Frühbeck Martínez; and a daughter, Gema Frühbeck Martínez. On the advice of his doctors, Mr. Frühbeck announced his retirement a week ago. He had recently begun experiencing difficulties on the podium, notably with the National Symphony in March. Sign up for the Louder Newsletter Stay on top of the latest in pop and jazz with reviews, interviews, podcasts and more from The New York Times music critics. SIGN UP Leading the orchestra in Respighi’s “Pines of Rome” that month, Mr. Frühbeck appeared to totter, and the music trailed off. Helped to a seated position, he conducted the piece, his body slumped, to its conclusion. “The audience response was thunderous,” The Washington Post reported. “Frühbeck turned and faced them, gave a wan smile, then left the stage. When he returned to acknowledge the ovation, many of the musicians, half or a third his age, were in tears.” ****Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos SPANISH CONDUCTOR WRITTEN BY: Margeaux Perkins See Article History Originally published in the Britannica Book of the Year. Presented as archival content. Learn more. Alternative Title: Rafael Frühbeck Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, (Rafael Frühbeck), Spanish conductor (born Sept. 15, 1933, Burgos, Spain—died June 11, 2014, Pamplona, Spain), effortlessly drew upon both his German immigrant heritage and his Spanish upbringing to create a broad repertoire during his more than 50-year career. He was widely admired for his energy and grace on the podium and became particularly known for his interpretations of Mendelssohn’s Elijah and St. Paul, Joseph Haydn’s The Creation, Mozart’s Requiem, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, Georges Bizet’s Carmen, and, most notably, the works of Manuel de Falla. At the age of 19, Frühbeck (he later added the more Spanish-sounding de Burgos to his surname), beginning his military service, won a competition to lead a military band, honing his conducting skills while serving his three-year apprenticeship. He then worked with the Bilbao (Spain) Symphony Orchestra (1958–62) before taking over the Spanish National Orchestra (SNO) for 16 years (1962–78). In 1998 he was appointed emeritus conductor by the SNO. Frühbeck’s last two posts were with the Dresden (Ger.) Philharmonic (2004–11) and the Danish National Orchestra (2012–14). He also toured extensively and was especially known for his guest appearances with the Philharmonia of London and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Frühbeck announced his retirement just days before his death. His honours include the Richard Strauss Prize, Musical America magazine’s Conductor of the Year Award (2011), the Gold Medal of the City of Vienna (1995), and the Guerrero Foundation Spanish Music Prize (1996). ***Conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos finishes concert despite apparent health issue By Philip Kennicott March 14, 2014 Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, a beloved 80-year-old conductor with a long relationship with the National Symphony Orchestra, made it through Friday night’s concert, but just barely and by dint of superhuman effort. Near the end of a long and taxing program, the Spanish-born maestro seemed to totter, alarming the musicians, some of whom stopped playing. He was helped to a sitting position on the podium and continued to keep beating time and giving cues, his head hanging low and his arms barely visible above the first-stand musicians. Frühbeck looked far more frail than he has during recent appearances with the NSO, for which he served as principal guest conductor from 1980 to 1988. He walked slowly onto and off the stage, and he moved cautiously up and down the steps of the conductor’s podium. But there was no indication that he was ill until principal violist Daniel Foster rushed from the stage to a side door during the third movement of Respighi’s “Pines of Rome.” Shortly afterward, a violinist left the stage, and it was clear the musicians were concerned about the conductor. “Pines of Rome” is a colorful showpiece for a large orchestra that lasts a little over 20 minutes. The last movement is a vigorous march that begins, according to Respighi’s program note, in the “misty dawn on the Appian Way.” It builds slowly but relentlessly to a thunderous, cymbal-crashing, organ-growling, brassy finale. Audiences adore its bombast and spectacle, and it always brings the house down. It had been an evening of large, late 19th-century and early 20th-century music, made longer by the decision of a dynamic young pianist, Daniil Trifonov, to play an encore after his fiery performance of Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.” That extended the concert past the usual 10 p.m. mark, but it also set a festive tone for the evening and the packed house. Frühbeck was obviously determined not to deny the audience the rousing pleasure of Respighi’s potboiler. He grabbed at the metal rail behind him and stood even as the orchestra began to trail off, not sure whether he was well enough to continue. He obviously wasn’t, but he continued anyway, cuing the percussion and brass with a few sharp gestures above his head as he sat, slumped, on the podium. A few moments before the end of the piece, he stood up and conducted its last moments. The audience response was thunderous. Frühbeck turned and faced them, gave a wan smile, then left the stage. When he returned to acknowledge the ovation, many of the musicians, half or a third his age, were in tears. A spokeswoman for the NSO was not able to provide details about Frühbeck’s health but said that he planned to conduct the same program Saturday night. *** Spain will forever be in debt to Maestro Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos for modernizing and promoting spanish music in the 20th and the 21st centuries. Honouring the legacy of his elder compatriots, maestros Ataúlfo Argenta, Bartolomé Pérez Casas and Enrique Fernández Arbós, Frühbeck – as he was known to friends and colleagues – dedicated himself to a life of and with music. At a very early age, Frühbeck learnt the musical profession from within the orchestra, playing the violin in theatre orchestras. His versatile musical training and superior intellectual background, together with his studies in Spain and Germany, shaped the dedicated artist who passionately lived and breathed his profession. In Spain, Frühbeck worked with the Spanish National Orchestra as Principal Conductor from 1962 to 1978, and again from 1997 as Conductor Emeritus. He was the first Spanish conductor to achieve an international top career. He quickly became a favourite among American and Canadian orchestras, resulting in a 35-year relationship with the Philadelphia Orchestra, ten years as Principal Conductor of the National Symphony, and more than 15 consecutive years conducting the Boston Symphony. Frühbeck’s hallmark was the incredibly exquisite sound he managed to inspire in every orchestra he ever worked with. He was renowned for his rehearsal technique and his no-nonsense focus and efficient style, but also for his warmth, his great respect for music and musicians alike, his great sense of humour and his integrity in all matters, professional and private. ebay4541