Spanish conductor and composer, who dedicated his career to writing zarzuelas, such as La tempranica and La boda de Luis Alonso. He preferred to spell his first name with a “G”, even though it began officially with a “J”.
A child prodigy, he began music lessons with his father and continued his education with Salvador Viniegra. By the age of 12, he was already playing among the first violins of the Teatro Principal orchestra in Cádiz. Five years later, he became the director of an opera and zarzuela company, making his debut in Gibraltar with a production of Giovanni Pacini’s Safo.
A scholarship permitted Giménez to enrol at the Conservatoire de Paris in June 1874, where he studied violin with Jean-Delphin Alard and composition with Ambroise Thomas. He received the first prize for harmony and counterpoint. After graduation, he traveled to Italy and then returned to Spain, settling in Madrid. In 1885, he was named director of Teatro Apolo de Madrid, and shortly afterwards, of the Teatro de la Zarzuela.
A prolific composer, Giménez also collaborated with the leading authors of sainetes (a comic genre found in Spanish theatre), including Ricardo de la Vega, Carlos Arniches, the brothers Serafín and Joaquín Álvarez Quintero, and Javier de Burgos, to obtain the libretti for his zarzuelas. He co-wrote the music of a number of his works with Amadeo Vives, who hailed him the “musician of elegance” because of his sense of rhythm and easy melodies.
Beyond dramatic works for the stage, Giménez also wrote three cadenzas to Beethoven’s Violin Concerto.
Towards the end of his life, Giménez lived in a precarious economic situation, which was made worse by the Madrid Conservatory’s refusal to grant him a professorship in chamber music.
He died on 19 February 1923, in Madrid.
Link to Wikipedia biography